What is a 16 bit vs 32 bit vs upcoming 64 bit OS?

[StageLeft]

Windows is now a 32 bit OS since 95 - what's this really mean? And how will the world change when it hits 64 bit?

 

[Doggiedog]

There are already 64bit OSes out like Solaris but what I think people mean by the world changing is that searching for pROn will be much faster.

 

[FrustratedUser]

LOL!

Tennis arm.

LOL!

 

[AndyHui]

Strictly speaking, Windows NT is older than Windows 95. Windows 95 was a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit OS.

If you want to be even more picky, Windows 3.11 had the Win32S DLLs for limited 32-bit support.

As far as Windows itself goes, probably not much difference. The greatest difference is the ability to flat address more than 4GB of RAM.

Otherwise, please read the FAQ: The myths and realities of 64-bit computing.

 

[Peetoeng]

It's just a ruse so that when a new bloatware like the upcoming ms office xp++ is released, there are hardware and OS barely powerful enough to run their software.

 

[Fandu]

As far as the average user running word and ie is concerned, 64bit won't affect them at all. It's the performance and high-end segments that it will help. Corporate users will like the new RAM limits and DB size abilities, while coders that crave speed will also enjoy the new registers, and their added size which will allow them to hold more information in the CPU at a time, and work with it faster. Assembly coders will have a ball figuring out how much more information they can cram in a register at a time.

 

[Cattlegod]

as far as a 64 bit OS is concerned it basically increases the memory capacity significantly.

when a program runs today on a 32 bit system the operating system fools the program into thinking it has 4294967296 2^32 bits of RAM or about 4 gigs of RAM. A 64 bit operating system can fool the program into thinking it has 2^62 bits of RAM which is a huge number that would take to long to write down. Now current systems don't have this much ram anyway so it is no big deal. as far as the hardware side is concerned the 64 bit system will allow MUCH MUCH more percision in calculations which allow for more simplistic operations in many cases because you can represent much smaller and larger numbers.

 

[yakko]

Originally posted by: AndyHui
Strictly speaking, Windows NT is older than Windows 95. Windows 95 was a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit OS.

If you want to be even more picky, Windows 3.11 had the Win32S DLLs for limited 32-bit support.

As far as Windows itself goes, probably not much difference. The greatest difference is the ability to flat address more than 4GB of RAM.

Otherwise, please read the FAQ: The myths and realities of 64-bit computing.

Everytime someone asks these kind of questions you always think you have to make some sort of faqing reply. Thanks.