Microsoft Propaganda against 64-Bit Software

[Bill Campbell]

On Thu, May 06, 2004, Leon Goldstein wrote:
>The folowing link was provided in the most recent Microsoft e-mail 
>Bulletin I received.
>
>This is MS  black propaganda poo-pooing 64-bit processors and software.
>(Black propaganda is always attributed to another source.)
>Note the comment that there is no software yet for 64 bit CPU's.
>MS apparently is unaware of the latest SuSE and Mandrake releases.
>http://bcentral.com/articles/komando/154.asp

Reminds me of one of the past presidents of the Seattle Unix Group who was
a Convex salesman.  Convex was one of the first to install huge amounts of
RAM (well huge for the late '80s :-).  When they did database benchmarks,
Convex would load the entire DB file into RAM, run the benchmark, then
write the changes out to the disk.  The DEC sales droids would say ``That's
not fair.  We can't do that''.  The Convex guy would just say ``You're
right''.

Where would Windows be today if Gates hadn't made the decision to maintain
backwards compatibility with the 8086, and gone to the much larger memory
available with the 80386?  They wouldn't have had to fight the 64K
segmented architecture, and the lack of hardware memory protection which
have caused many of the delays and security problems basic to Windows
today.  I asked Bill Gates this question at the first Windows Developers
Conference, February 1984 at the Westin Hotel in Seattle.  He responded
that they didn't want to orphan the installed base, and the 80386 would be
available immediately (as if Windows was).

Bill
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