Microsoft expected to ignite 64-bit computing

Microsoft (MSFT) on Monday plans to make its biggest push yet to popularize 64-bit computing on everyday computers.

At a conference here, Chairman Bill Gates is expected to announce the general availability of the first desktop version of Windows to support 64-bit processing chips, which can access bigger chunks of memory and move data around faster than 32-bit chips in wide use on PCs since the 1980s.

About 2,800 hardware developers are expected here at the Microsoft-sponsored Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHec) this week to hear where Microsoft is driving the tech industry, and learn what they can do. The conference theme: Jump on the 64-bit bandwagon. To inspire developers on other fronts, Gates is to unveil:

• A postcard-sized PC - a concept device with a 6-inch screen that could theoretically operate as a full-blown computer.

• A prototype laptop with a small screen on the lid, so data can be accessed with the lid closed.

Microsoft will focus on rallying suppliers to offer 64-bit desktop PCs and software applications for the workplace and home.

Rising consumer demand for 64-bit PCs could stir sales growth for Microsoft's flagship Windows and Office products, while also boosting tech supply fortunes.

Still, software makers so far haven't been willing to take on the costly task of converting popular applications to 64-bit until there is demand. While 64-bit chips have been available from AMD and Intel, computer makers haven't moved to develop many 64-bit PCs because there was no desktop operating system to run them.

Gates is to announce that the first 64-bit Windows desktop operating system, Windows XP Pro, is available. It is expected to be on home versions by 2007, when the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, is ready.

Microsoft will talk of engineers and animators doing richer work in real time on 64-bit workstations. It foresees consumers playing fancier video games and editing video, photo and music files like pros.

Neil Charney, Windows director of product management, predicts that 64-bit desktop PCs shouldn't cost more than a 32-bit machine.

Microsoft's push alone won't conjure a market. "I'm not sure doing e-mail and browsing the Web is going to be that much better an experience on a 64-bit systems," says Michael Cherry, tech systems analyst at research firm Directions on Microsoft. The key, he says, may be how Dell and H-P come through with aggressively priced 64-bit Windows desktop PCs.

These days, most of the kernel is in C and the device drivers I write are in C. I was skeptical at first

(surprised look)

I was skeptical with good reason. I once did an interrupt latency survey on a variety of machines, which involved installing a high-resolution real-time clock that could be configured to generate an interrupt and time the response of the operating system to that interrupt. I tested Ultrix/MIPS, OSF1/Alpha, VMS/Alpha, and VMS/VAX using it.

Ultrix and OSF/1 were horrible. Latency was all over the place. In versions of OSF/1 prior to V1.3, there was a nasty bug when a process was torn down that caused an interrupt latency glitch related to the size of the process. If a large enough process ended, an 8-byte hardware FIFO was not sufficient to prevent loss of data for a serial port running at 300(!) baud. Ultrix had a similar problem, but not as large.

VMS interrupt latency was consistently very low regardless of the workload of the machine. Oddly, interrupt latency on a VAXstation 4000/60 (12-ish MIPs machine) was noticeably better than latency on a VAXstation 4000/90 (50-ish MIPs machine).

The last time I looked at this issue, the latency of VMS had become more variable. And more of the kernel was being done in C. Coincidence?

I haven't looked at this issue in many years, so I don't know if the VMS guys have been able to climb back on top of the interrupt latency. And I'm not looking forward to latency issues on Itanium, what with its huge processor context that needs to be saved on interrupt...

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