If you do that, you will never get through the toenails. Been there.

I would say that you make a decent argument that the ALU has the strongest claim to the “bitness” of a CPU. In that way, we are already beyond 64 bit.

For me though, what really defines a CPU is the software that runs natively. The Zen4 runs software written for the AMD64 family of processors. That is, it runs 64 bit software. This software will not run on the “32 bit” x86 processors that came before it ( like the K5, K6, and original Athlon ). If AMD released the AMD128 instruction set, it would not run on the Zen4 even though it may technically be enough hardware to do so.

The Motorola 68000 only had a 16 but ALU but was able to run the same 32 bit software that ran in later Motorola processors that were truly 32 bit. Software written for the 68000 was essentially still native on processors sold as late as 2014 ( 35 years after the 68000 was released ). This was not some kid of compatibility mode, these processors were still using the same 32 bit ISA.

The Linux kernel that runs on the Zen4 will also run on 64 bit machines made 20 years ago as they also support the amd64 / x86-64 ISA.

Where the article is correct is that there does not seem to be much push to move on from 64 bit software. The Zen4 supports instructions to perform higher-bit operations but they are optional. Most applications do not rely on them, including the operating system. For the most part, the Zen4 runs the same software as the Opteron ( released in 2003 ). The same pre-compiled Linux distro will run on both.

He is saying that people that get rich selling others people’s stuff without paying for it are not “in it for the money”. What don’t you understand.

They would go bankrupt.

No matter how anti-capitalism you are, I hope you can see how broken the argument being made here is. The absolute reality is that, without protections, things like pharmaceuticals would never exist at the scale that we enjoy them.

Of course examples of things that require years of research would exist. However, there would be far fewer of them than there is today.

Patents and copyrights have become corrupted. They need reform. We have to remember though that when they were created, it was to improve the world that existed ( the world that this commenter thinks would be better ).

Patents and copyrights were not invented because making companies richer was a goal. They were invented to better society. They were created with the recognition that, if we wanted companies to invest in innovation, and if we wanted individuals to commit to a long, intensive creative process, that they needed protection. The downside of capitalism at the time was that evil corporations and unscrupulous entrepreneurs could steal your hard work. Patents and copyrights were created to right that wrong and to promote a culture of creativity, invention, and innovation. And it worked wonderfully. We all benefit.

Now, things have of course been corrupted. The idea of “intellectual property” has emerged and we get nonsense like calling copyright violations “piracy”. The protections have been extended far. The penalties have become too great. The idea of public benefit has taken a backseat to profit protection. All this is bad. Throwing out the baby with the bath water is not the answer.

I think most programmers would like C# if they spent time with it. It is getting a bit complex because the joke about it over borrowing from other languages is on the money. It is a nice language though and pretty damn fast these days all things considered.

PiHole blocks the current ads. Hopefully these new ones too.