7 ms·

16 billion gigabytes not enough for you?

by bullen 4y ago

littlestymaar 4y ago
CHERI[1] anyone? [1] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/ https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/
Ygg2 4y ago
2 EiB to be precise.
- thangalin 4y ago
  2.305843009213694 ;-)
  - Ygg2 4y ago
    2^64 bites should be exactly 2EiB.
Alupis 4y ago
This is probably posted in jest, but there was a time - not so long ago - where folks firmly believed nobody would need more than 16 memory bits, and even 1 Gigabyte of storage was considered outlandish. Things have gotten exponentially larger in the meantime... with your average home computer going from < 1GB of RAM to 8GB and ever increasingly larger (my cell phone has 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for what it's worth). Having storage ranging in the Terabyte category is simply the norm, and things like Petabytes of storage are rapidly becoming more accessible for average users. Saying "X is enough" - ever - in computing is foolhardy.
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  but there was a time - not so long ago - where folks firmly believed nobody would need more than 16 memory bits This is not true, no one seriously thought 65 KB was ever going to be any sort of a limit. If you're talking about the Bill Gates quote, it's basically a myth that never happened or was taken WAY out of context. Bill Gates himself has given interview where he talks about the entire state of released and upcoming computers of that time and exactly what everyone thought was going to happen and what actually did happen.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    No, it was not just Gates that thought this. Look around you, all of your old tech was designed for smaller numbers. Even IP addresses were designed with "we'll never need more than X", and look at the mess we're in today. Every time someone in tech has said "that number is large enough", the number gets surpassed in no time. So while 64 bit memory addresses seems way more than ample today, it will not be forever. That was the point...
    - ajnin 4y ago
      No, that's not how it went. People were not stupid and lacking any foresight in the past. Constrained storage space has been a concern since Charles Babbage's analytical engine, that is since forever in computing. No one ever thought let's stop at 16 bit pointers or whatever and it will be enough for the rest of time. It's an engineering tradeoff to make the best of the technology available at the time. Pointer sizes are not just a number, they correspond to realities down to the electronics and physical design of your system. Longer pointers mean larger address bus, larger registers, more transistors on your chip that won't be available for something else. They are more wasteful if you don't actually have that much memory to address. It's incredibly naive to think today's standards were even a possibility decades ago.
      - Alupis 4y ago
        > No, that's not how it went. People were not stupid and lacking any foresight in the past It truly is in so many cases. Not stupidity, but perhaps hubris. The same hubris that says nobody will need more than 64 bits today. Given time, 64 bits will fall waste to 128 bits and more. The people who designed IPv4 truly thought the number of IP's would be more than enough forever. They literally had no concept that one day your average person would own multiple computing devices and require multiple IP's just to get through a normal day. They were very wrong, and found out in only a few year's time. The only constant in tech is our assumptions today will be wrong tomorrow. Assuming "X" is big enough is foolhardy in just about every scenario.
        4y ago
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Upvote from me. I have been at 32GB of RAM for more than 5 years. I am genuinely surprised. I'm basically a big corporate programmer that runs Microsoft Outlook (surprisingly low memory), a giant (8GB RAM) IDE, and a squillion Google Chrome tabs. I struggle to think how/when I will need more than 32GB RAM. I have 64GB at home from a COVID-era new build, only because it seemed short sighted to "only" buy 32GB RAM in 2021. I have never once come close to needing it. :) That said, I completely agree with your sentiment about "X is enough". What has changed in the last 20 years: When we double RAM/storage/network now, the increase is enormous. It does feel like GPUs are still in the insane growth period. Very soon they will be more powerful and have more on-board RAM than whole rest of the computer.
yyyk 4y ago
An internet search tells me there are somewhere between 10^76 and 10^82 atoms in the universe. We must not rest until all atoms are mmap-able. That should require at least a 273-bit length type to be safe. Since we need a power of two, 512-bit length. This size also gives us a little room for fat pointers.
- thomasmg 4y ago
  So the computer that simulates the universe is likely a 512-bit machine.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    How does it simulate subatomic particles then?
    - kaba0 4y ago
      It’s virtual memory and it has a TLB.
    - yyyk 4y ago
      It doesn't seem there are many orders of magnitude more subatomic particles. 3 quarks in a proton. At most O(10^2) protons in a atom. So it should all fit comfortably in a 512-bit type. * As for photons, this estimate finds 4*10^84 photons since start of universe: https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/how-many-photons-in-the-universe-go-on-have-a-guess/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/how-many-photons-...
      - cobbzilla 4y ago
        “3 quarks in a proton” is an oversimplification; the reality involves “zillions” of particles, as per https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/largehadroncolliderfaq/whats-a-proton-anyway/ https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/largehadron... Maybe we need to use 1024-bit types?

16 billion gigabytes not enough for you?

by bullen 4y ago

16 billion gigabytes not enough for you?

CHERI[1] anyone? [1] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/ https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/

Ygg2 4y ago

2 EiB to be precise.

thangalin 4y ago
2.305843009213694 ;-)
- Ygg2 4y ago
  2^64 bites should be exactly 2EiB.

Alupis 4y ago

This is probably posted in jest, but there was a time - not so long ago - where folks firmly believed nobody would need more than 16 memory bits, and even 1 Gigabyte of storage was considered outlandish. Things have gotten exponentially larger in the meantime... with your average home computer going from < 1GB of RAM to 8GB and ever increasingly larger (my cell phone has 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for what it's worth). Having storage ranging in the Terabyte category is simply the norm, and things like Petabytes of storage are rapidly becoming more accessible for average users. Saying "X is enough" - ever - in computing is foolhardy.

CyberDildonics 4y ago
but there was a time - not so long ago - where folks firmly believed nobody would need more than 16 memory bits This is not true, no one seriously thought 65 KB was ever going to be any sort of a limit. If you're talking about the Bill Gates quote, it's basically a myth that never happened or was taken WAY out of context. Bill Gates himself has given interview where he talks about the entire state of released and upcoming computers of that time and exactly what everyone thought was going to happen and what actually did happen.
- Alupis 4y ago
  No, it was not just Gates that thought this. Look around you, all of your old tech was designed for smaller numbers. Even IP addresses were designed with "we'll never need more than X", and look at the mess we're in today. Every time someone in tech has said "that number is large enough", the number gets surpassed in no time. So while 64 bit memory addresses seems way more than ample today, it will not be forever. That was the point...
  - ajnin 4y ago
    No, that's not how it went. People were not stupid and lacking any foresight in the past. Constrained storage space has been a concern since Charles Babbage's analytical engine, that is since forever in computing. No one ever thought let's stop at 16 bit pointers or whatever and it will be enough for the rest of time. It's an engineering tradeoff to make the best of the technology available at the time. Pointer sizes are not just a number, they correspond to realities down to the electronics and physical design of your system. Longer pointers mean larger address bus, larger registers, more transistors on your chip that won't be available for something else. They are more wasteful if you don't actually have that much memory to address. It's incredibly naive to think today's standards were even a possibility decades ago.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      > No, that's not how it went. People were not stupid and lacking any foresight in the past It truly is in so many cases. Not stupidity, but perhaps hubris. The same hubris that says nobody will need more than 64 bits today. Given time, 64 bits will fall waste to 128 bits and more. The people who designed IPv4 truly thought the number of IP's would be more than enough forever. They literally had no concept that one day your average person would own multiple computing devices and require multiple IP's just to get through a normal day. They were very wrong, and found out in only a few year's time. The only constant in tech is our assumptions today will be wrong tomorrow. Assuming "X" is big enough is foolhardy in just about every scenario.
      - 4y ago
throwaway2037 4y ago
Upvote from me. I have been at 32GB of RAM for more than 5 years. I am genuinely surprised. I'm basically a big corporate programmer that runs Microsoft Outlook (surprisingly low memory), a giant (8GB RAM) IDE, and a squillion Google Chrome tabs. I struggle to think how/when I will need more than 32GB RAM. I have 64GB at home from a COVID-era new build, only because it seemed short sighted to "only" buy 32GB RAM in 2021. I have never once come close to needing it. :) That said, I completely agree with your sentiment about "X is enough". What has changed in the last 20 years: When we double RAM/storage/network now, the increase is enormous. It does feel like GPUs are still in the insane growth period. Very soon they will be more powerful and have more on-board RAM than whole rest of the computer.

yyyk 4y ago

An internet search tells me there are somewhere between 10^76 and 10^82 atoms in the universe. We must not rest until all atoms are mmap-able. That should require at least a 273-bit length type to be safe. Since we need a power of two, 512-bit length. This size also gives us a little room for fat pointers.

thomasmg 4y ago
So the computer that simulates the universe is likely a 512-bit machine.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  How does it simulate subatomic particles then?
  - kaba0 4y ago
    It’s virtual memory and it has a TLB.
  - yyyk 4y ago
    It doesn't seem there are many orders of magnitude more subatomic particles. 3 quarks in a proton. At most O(10^2) protons in a atom. So it should all fit comfortably in a 512-bit type. * As for photons, this estimate finds 4*10^84 photons since start of universe: https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/how-many-photons-in-the-universe-go-on-have-a-guess/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/how-many-photons-...
    - cobbzilla 4y ago
      “3 quarks in a proton” is an oversimplification; the reality involves “zillions” of particles, as per https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/largehadroncolliderfaq/whats-a-proton-anyway/ https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/largehadron... Maybe we need to use 1024-bit types?