C
Charlie Tame
dennis said:
Well, aside from the fact that you are determined to attack anyone who
has an opinion on the subject but who isn't called Dennis, yes, it is a
Kludge. It is a "Workaround" for a physical problem that is fine for
those aware of it but not for those who aren't. It is no substitute for
a real 64 bit system and you well know that.
As far as most desktop users are concerned the limit is 4GB address
space, less whatever the OS and hardware need to set aside.
In fact this merry go round of mayhem started when memory was declared
"Adequate" at 640K and people started writing workarounds for "Expanded"
or "Extended" memory. What fun that was?
The fact is that Microsoft chose not to make it available for general
use in their 32 bit operating systems because there's now no point.
Nobody is arguing with you about the fact that it's there. In fact I am
not even arguing that programmers don't take the shortcuts you mention.
As you state "Normal" applications do not care. But if you are writing
an application that needs to be aware, or needs drivers to be aware then
you are better served by writing it for 64 bit?
There is so little difference in price between 32 bit and 64 bit
hardware that implementing PAE is not worth the time.