Linked by Jeremy T. Fox on Fri 11th Jul 2003 16:55 UTC
A recent article by Tony Smith from The Register titled "Mac OS X 10.3 Panther will not be a 64-bit OS" caused a good deal of confusion with many people, including me. It is also caused a heated argument here on OSNews. The basic point of the article is that Mac OS 10.2.7 and 10.3 are not "true" 64-bit OSes, but the article does not clearly explain what a "true" 64-bit OS is. This had led to a lot of claims that the article is false or misinformed, rather than just unclear, which is certainly is.
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It's the original author here. My guess is that the Mathematica code is using the special hack discussed in The Register article. I have not denied the existance of this hack, although I admit my commentary at the end of the article (about the lack of need for more than 4GB of memory on the Mac and the lack of Terminal Services) downplays the importance of the hack. The experience on 32-bit Windows seems to be that very few programs that I am aware of use its version of the hack. Perhaps Apple has implemented its version better than Microsoft's version.
My guess is that only companies with a very close relationship to Apple will implement its memory hack. Mathematica has been presented at previous Mac keynote presentations and spends a lot of effort on AltiVec optimizations. The Register mentions Photoshop as a candidate for the hack, while my best guess would be that Apple's own Final Cut Pro gets the hack.
Companies will try to simiplify cross-platform support costs, such as MathWorks, the makers of Matlab, will be pretty unlikley to support this hack, and will presumably instead focus on true 64-bit OSes which require only recompiles with an additional compiler flag. Also, Quark, a big driver of professional system sales for the Mac, has had problems with a slow changeover to Mac OS X, and the CEO of that company made disparaging comments about Apple. I would expect little support there, although I am willing to be surprised.
Still, if Apple can get Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and Mathematica to support more than 4GB of RAM per application, they might just be able to generate a few very high end G5 sales.