[Info-vax] OT: IA-128 ???

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> In article <008e4785$0$5058$c3e8da3 at news.astraweb.com>,
>>     JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
>>> Neil Rieck wrote:
>>>> IA-128 ???
>>> Considering that it will be a long while before the 64 bit memopry
>>> barriers are broken, a real need for 128 bits is still some
>>> years/decades away. 
>>
>> And no one will ever need more than 640K of memory.
> 
> I don't think anyone doubt that we will need 128 bit computers
> at some point in time.
> 
> But not in 2012-2013 where Windows 8 is planned.
> 
> When this news was discussed in another forum I suggested
> a rule saying that the number of bits required doubles
> every year.
> 
> Not a very precise rules. But it gives some indication of how
> far out the 128 bit is.
> 
> Arne
> 

Why should we need 128 bit computers any time soon?  ISTR when 64 bit 
first came out that it was claimed that 64 bits was enough to enumerate 
the fundamental particles in the universe or something like that.

Can anyone afford enough RAM to populate a 128 bit address space?  For 
that matter, how about enough RAM for a How about a 64 bit address 
space?  Has anyone got enough data about anything or everything to fully 
occupy such an address space?