Quote - > Quote - There will come a time in the not-too-distant future when you'll need software and it will only be 64-bit.  There are few 16-bit apps written these days (very, very few).  And, of course, to run a 64-bit app  you will need 64-bit hardware.

16 bit and 32 bits apps are very different, but there's no difference between a 32 bit and a 64 bit application unless you want you access more than 4 GB or your code use any of the eight new 64 bit registers and some new opcodes.

Huh?

The differences are identical!  16-bit = 65536 (or 32768 byte signed) memory addressing max.  32-bit = 4GB (or 2GB signed) memory addressing max.  64-bit = 5 EB memory addressing.  It's all about address space - nothing else.

The similarity is that when 16-bit went 32-bit, 16-bit addressing support was retained just as when 32-bit has gone 64-bit, 32-bit addressing has been retained.

Just like the old switchover, 32-bit apps could not be run on old 16-bit computers.  Same for 64-bit apps.  You can't run a 64-bit app on 32-bit hardware.  When software is compiled for 64-bit memory addressing, I want to hear about you running it on your 32-bit computer - yeah...okay....

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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