Prescott with 64-bit extensions coming in June

[Yousuf Khan]

The point is to make $$$. Happens all the time. Software companies
ship products 3/4 finished all the time. Heck, Microsoft does it
too! Engineers must be paid you know. My guess is that they have
finally validated all of those parts (64 bit extensions and Nx bit)
and are ready to ship something besides vaporware. On a site note,
they are likely getting their tools ready for this transition as well
(icc, itune, etc.). It's all a part of the process. Since almost
nothing has been built for 64-bit on the x86 side, it doesn't matter
anyway! Until MS builds it's OS for 64-bit ext and adds a
VisualStudio suite with the capabilities, rapid adoption is a long
ways away.

According to this article in the Inquirer, Intel's version of the NX bit
will be called XD:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15915

Still looking for a newer version of Intel's EM64T documentation. They have
a lot of retyping to do. They gotta search and replace all instances of
IA32E with EM64T. And they gotta insert a section about the XD bit.

Yousuf Khan

 

[George Macdonald]

The point is to make $$$. Happens all the time. Software companies ship
products 3/4 finished all the time. Heck, Microsoft does it too! Engineers
must be paid you know. My guess is that they have finally validated all of
those parts (64 bit extensions and Nx bit) and are ready to ship something
besides vaporware. On a site note, they are likely getting their tools
ready for this transition as well (icc, itune, etc.). It's all a part of
the process. Since almost nothing has been built for 64-bit on the x86
side, it doesn't matter anyway! Until MS builds it's OS for 64-bit ext and
adds a VisualStudio suite with the capabilities, rapid adoption is a long
ways away.

"Nothing has been built" is hardly accurate. Windows XP-64 for x86-64 has
been built for a while now - M$ is either having trouble with validation or
waiting for Intel (Godo ?). It is available as part of the MSDN prog.
which every Win-software house subcribes to. Linux is already available
and the Oracle port was completed in 2-3 days according to them.

As for Intel specifically, they'd better be very careful how they position
their EM64T. If they try to segment it too agressively into "high-end",
they could stub their toes.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[The little lost angel]

It's not going to fix the Windows virus problem. In fact, it won't
affect actual *virus* programs at all, though it should really help
with *worm* programs, the difference between the two is often lost in
the mainstream media these days.

When was the last virus anyway? All that they seem to be making these
days are worms and trojans.

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[KR Williams]

When was the last virus anyway?

A week ago. It played hell with the network at work.

All that they seem to be making these
days are worms and trojans.

Education (and eliminating M$ software) can help much here.
NOthing helps if the OS allows free access to everything.

 

[Judd]

"Nothing has been built" is hardly accurate. Windows XP-64 for x86-64 has
been built for a while now - M$ is either having trouble with validation or
waiting for Intel (Godo ?). It is available as part of the MSDN prog.
which every Win-software house subcribes to. Linux is already available
and the Oracle port was completed in 2-3 days according to them.

Try reading what I wrote again please. I CLEARLY said "almost nothing "...
as in not nothing but hardly the large installed base of the 32-bit
applications. Meaning, few consumers are going to jump on it for the sole
reason of it being 64-bit. They'll be more compelled when there are more
programs out to exploit the architecture. Beta software is hardly the
answer. That's why there's no rush to put it out other than for marketing
purposes.

As for Intel specifically, they'd better be very careful how they position
their EM64T. If they try to segment it too agressively into "high-end",
they could stub their toes.

True, but it's Intel... they'll be fine on that end.

 

[George Macdonald]

Try reading what I wrote again please. I CLEARLY said "almost nothing "...
as in not nothing but hardly the large installed base of the 32-bit
applications. Meaning, few consumers are going to jump on it for the sole
reason of it being 64-bit. They'll be more compelled when there are more
programs out to exploit the architecture. Beta software is hardly the
answer. That's why there's no rush to put it out other than for marketing
purposes.

Even your "almost" does not cover it and is still presumptious to say the
least: game makers are certainly showing great interest in AMD64 and it's
hard to tell how many other software vendors are taking the plunge... the
tools are available - call them beta if it pleases you but clearly they are
not and even "beta" does not mean not built. You said: "Until MS builds it
OS for 64-bit"... uhh, this part was done a while back.

As for "consumer" interest, I believe you could be in for a *big* surprise
- given expectations of the lifetime of a system (my current one is 5.5
year old and I'm looking to upgrade now) I personally would not consider a
32-bit limited system right now... especially since any additional cost is
piddling.

True, but it's Intel... they'll be fine on that end.

<GULP> Segmentation is Intel's favorite game - always has been and they
still practice it. They've announced their EM64T as for servers and
workstations only - seems quite clear to me where they want to take the
market.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[chrisv]

Take a look at WinXP SP2 sometime, and you'll see
that they are making a LOT of changes that should significantly
improve security. I'm not just talking about patching bugs here or
anything, this is a fundamental change in philosophy.

Are they stopping the stupid practice of hiding file extensions by
default?

 

[The little lost angel]

A week ago. It played hell with the network at work.

What was it? Sasser? Sorry, I've not been paying much attention to
viruses for years... pPpP

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[Rob Stow]

Try reading what I wrote again please. I CLEARLY said "almost nothing "...
as in not nothing but hardly the large installed base of the 32-bit
applications. Meaning, few consumers are going to jump on it for the sole
reason of it being 64-bit.

Oh come on, you know how consumers behave a lot better than
that paragraph indicates. Consumers will buy 64 bit simply
because that it the latest buzzword. Their understanding,
or lack thereof, of what "64 bit" is all about is irrelevant.

Its just like when consumers started switching to Windows from
DOS even though there were no decent Windows apps yet. All
they understood was that "GUI" was the coming thing and they
wanted to jump on the bandwagon before it was fully assembled.
(And they drove me nuts because the all felt they had to
demonstrate to me that they knew it was supposed to be pronounced
"gwee" for some stupid reason or another. I resolutely stuck
with saying G.U.I.)

The most important equation in marketing is
consumer = lemming

 

[flekso]

Oh come on, you know how consumers behave a lot better than
that paragraph indicates. Consumers will buy 64 bit simply
because that it the latest buzzword. Their understanding,
or lack thereof, of what "64 bit" is all about is irrelevant.

Its just like when consumers started switching to Windows from
DOS even though there were no decent Windows apps yet. All
they understood was that "GUI" was the coming thing and they
wanted to jump on the bandwagon before it was fully assembled.
(And they drove me nuts because the all felt they had to
demonstrate to me that they knew it was supposed to be pronounced
"gwee" for some stupid reason or another. I resolutely stuck
with saying G.U.I.)

The most important equation in marketing is
consumer = lemming

no marketing = people start dancing circles around the globe, white doves
fly away with little olive branches....

 

[Judd]

Oh come on, you know how consumers behave a lot better than
that paragraph indicates. Consumers will buy 64 bit simply
because that it the latest buzzword. Their understanding,
or lack thereof, of what "64 bit" is all about is irrelevant.

Its just like when consumers started switching to Windows from
DOS even though there were no decent Windows apps yet. All
they understood was that "GUI" was the coming thing and they
wanted to jump on the bandwagon before it was fully assembled.
(And they drove me nuts because the all felt they had to
demonstrate to me that they knew it was supposed to be pronounced
"gwee" for some stupid reason or another. I resolutely stuck
with saying G.U.I.)

The most important equation in marketing is
consumer = lemming

You are no different than George. Reread what I said. The WHOLE thing.
You'll notice that I agree with you. They'll buy it because it's the
latest, but not JUST FOR 64-bit because little exists for 64-bit. It's more
marketing than useful is my point.

 

[Judd]

Even your "almost" does not cover it and is still presumptious to say the
least: game makers are certainly showing great interest in AMD64 and it's
hard to tell how many other software vendors are taking the plunge... the
tools are available - call them beta if it pleases you but clearly they are
not and even "beta" does not mean not built. You said: "Until MS builds it
OS for 64-bit"... uhh, this part was done a while back.

Your idea of software is vapor. Few would agree with such an asanine
statement.

As for "consumer" interest, I believe you could be in for a *big* surprise
- given expectations of the lifetime of a system (my current one is 5.5
year old and I'm looking to upgrade now) I personally would not consider a
32-bit limited system right now... especially since any additional cost is
piddling.

Average system turnaround is ~2.5 years (3 years for home 2 for corporate).
We're not talking about you in particular. I personally try to make my
systems last and will be waiting for 64-bit for future consideration. Most
would do very fine at 32-bit right now since by the time they get around to
buying systems again in 2006, there would be enough support for 64-bit to
make it a feasible investment. 32-bit will be cheaper, just as fast for the
most part, and work just fine for the tasks that they perform.

<GULP> Segmentation is Intel's favorite game - always has been and they
still practice it. They've announced their EM64T as for servers and
workstations only - seems quite clear to me where they want to take the
market.

Huh? They've said that in 2005 nearly all would be EM64T as well as dual
core. Next month they are releasing products for workstation and server
only because why do they need to sell it to the consumer (see reasons
above).

 

[Tony Hill]

A week ago. It played hell with the network at work.

If you're talking about Sasser, that actually kind of proves L.Angel's
point. Sasser was a worm, not a virus (not that it makes it any
better or anything!).

Education (and eliminating M$ software) can help much here.
NOthing helps if the OS allows free access to everything.

As I've mentioned before, WinXP SP2 should make a bit difference on
this.. at least for those who end up using it. This should be a
fairly major step forward in terms of Windows security, MUCH more so
than any of the previous baby steps.

 

[KR Williams]

If you're talking about Sasser, that actually kind of proves L.Angel's
point. Sasser was a worm, not a virus (not that it makes it any
better or anything!).

Frankly, I've given up figuring out what's what. It attacked
open WinBlows machines and replicated *fast*, even inside the
firewalls. My machine was attacked, and shut down, even though I
had the AV program up-to-snuff, and all applicable M$uks patches
installed. Other "trojans" have pretty much taken down the
networks a few times because they've done a DoS attack on the DNS
servers. I *still* get hundreds of messages a week saying that
I've been infected (never). I've filtered most out on my
personal account by forwarding, but one of my work accounts is
now useless (many hundreds a day).

As I've mentioned before, WinXP SP2 should make a bit difference on
this.. at least for those who end up using it. This should be a
fairly major step forward in terms of Windows security, MUCH more so
than any of the previous baby steps.

There is no way I'm moving to WinXP, much less SP2. At home I've
stopped with Win2K SP2 and will go no further. At work I'm
required to have SP4. It's their machine, they can do what they
wish with it. I'm not agreeing to be a M$uck slave though.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Frankly, I've given up figuring out what's what. It attacked
open WinBlows machines and replicated *fast*, even inside the
firewalls. My machine was attacked, and shut down, even though I
had the AV program up-to-snuff, and all applicable M$uks patches
installed. Other "trojans" have pretty much taken down the
networks a few times because they've done a DoS attack on the DNS
servers. I *still* get hundreds of messages a week saying that
I've been infected (never). I've filtered most out on my
personal account by forwarding, but one of my work accounts is
now useless (many hundreds a day).

I always run a combination of AV, Anti-spyware, and software firewalls, even
behind my home router. You can never tell what may have gotten past a
hardware firewall, so the software firewall acts as an added insurance.

Yousuf Khan

 

[George Macdonald]

Your idea of software is vapor. Few would agree with such an asanine
statement.

Ah someone who speaks for the uhh, many?? The only thing asinine here is
your slavish nodding to the i-Dogma. Windows XP-64 is a damned sight more
than vapor - delude yourself if you wish.

Average system turnaround is ~2.5 years (3 years for home 2 for corporate).
We're not talking about you in particular. I personally try to make my
systems last and will be waiting for 64-bit for future consideration. Most
would do very fine at 32-bit right now since by the time they get around to
buying systems again in 2006, there would be enough support for 64-bit to
make it a feasible investment. 32-bit will be cheaper, just as fast for the
most part, and work just fine for the tasks that they perform.

No - it's not cheaper at all, if you look at the current offerings even two
slots down from the top of the line. You appear not to have been paying
attention to the recent 4.5year slump following the 2K panic: 2 years for
corporate is absurd as a general rule - unless maybe for a small portion of
the top workstations... which is in fact a major sector clamoring for
64-bit. From my POV I don't see them taking less. Even the home sector is
largely an upgrade market now and I believe they'll be very careful what
they lay out their money on. I'll certainly advise anyone who asks to buy
the 64-bit now - no waiting is required.;-)

Huh? They've said that in 2005 nearly all would be EM64T as well as dual
core. Next month they are releasing products for workstation and server
only because why do they need to sell it to the consumer (see reasons
above).

The upgrade consumer is wiser now - tasks are tangibly increasing in
complexity and expectations are high. Once they grasp the fact of the
64-bit address canard and appreciate the real improvement of the new ISA
and register files, the penny will drop!

We'll see what Intel does with their segmentation model but dual core will
not be here until rather late in 2005. Fortunately for them, when they
wake up, the software willl be in place... or further along than if
everyone had waited for an edict from "i".

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Bill Davidsen]

Try reading what I wrote again please. I CLEARLY said "almost nothing "...
as in not nothing but hardly the large installed base of the 32-bit
applications. Meaning, few consumers are going to jump on it for the sole
reason of it being 64-bit. They'll be more compelled when there are more
programs out to exploit the architecture. Beta software is hardly the
answer. That's why there's no rush to put it out other than for marketing
purposes.

Not so, there are existing applications which are already running out of
address space when they mmap() large files. This is a technique which is
a big win if you have a bunch of processes sharing a file, although it
makes little difference over file i/o if you have a single process and
don't have all the flushing and locking issues.

 

[Bill Davidsen]

After reading up on the NX bit I have this thought: Isnt that what
segmentation is for? Cripe, start using Data segments and the buffer
overflows will just fault.

Think about the overhead of resetting the segment register before using
each memory access. Does that sound like a practical thing? Segments
protect processes from one another, not a process from itself.

Google for info on how the original MULTICS hardware worked.

 

[Judd]

Not so, there are existing applications which are already running out of
address space when they mmap() large files. This is a technique which is
a big win if you have a bunch of processes sharing a file, although it
makes little difference over file i/o if you have a single process and
don't have all the flushing and locking issues.

Other than server DB and some large image processing programs, what other
programs are doing this? I have found this to be rarity thus the exception
and not the norm.

 

[Judd]

Ah someone who speaks for the uhh, many?? The only thing asinine here is

your slavish nodding to the i-Dogma. Windows XP-64 is a damned sight more
than vapor - delude yourself if you wish.

No, it's vapor. Until it's on the shelves of CompUSA and prepackaged from
vendors, it's vapor. Your statements would be considered wholly dishonest
from the consumer POV.

No - it's not cheaper at all, if you look at the current offerings even two
slots down from the top of the line. You appear not to have been paying
attention to the recent 4.5year slump following the 2K panic: 2 years for
corporate is absurd as a general rule - unless maybe for a small portion of
the top workstations... which is in fact a major sector clamoring for
64-bit. From my POV I don't see them taking less. Even the home sector is
largely an upgrade market now and I believe they'll be very careful what
they lay out their money on. I'll certainly advise anyone who asks to buy
the 64-bit now - no waiting is required.;-)

You bet it's cheaper! Intel in comparison to AMD is not cheaper, but when
Intel releases 64-bit products, the 32-bit products will be cheaper (prices
slashed, etc.). You are comparing apples to apples.

The upgrade consumer is wiser now - tasks are tangibly increasing in
complexity and expectations are high. Once they grasp the fact of the
64-bit address canard and appreciate the real improvement of the new ISA
and register files, the penny will drop!

Uh, the average consumer doesn't know jack. This is why marketing is so
important. They don't care so long as it sounds good ("That thang got a
hemi!") and runs their software better. You are using your considerable
intelligence of computers as a benchmark for what others know. I'm just
letting you know that it's unrealistic.

We'll see what Intel does with their segmentation model but dual core will
not be here until rather late in 2005. Fortunately for them, when they
wake up, the software willl be in place... or further along than if
everyone had waited for an edict from "i".

I don't know when dual core will get here. They surprised the heck out of
me with the release announcement of the EM64T. I figured that was 2005 at
the earliest. Funny how things change. If AMD is pushing dual core, then
Intel will release it earlier than you expect.