Now that they're 64 (bits, that is), personal computers are still searching for developers to need them and feed them.
In 2003, AMD released 64-bit chips for PCs in the form of the Athlon 64, and Intel followed suit in 2005. But the software needed to take advantage of those chips is harder to find than a Beatles song on iTunes.
Several issues have contributed to the problem, but as seen in other transitions, device drivers always seem to be front and centre. Drivers are a vexing piece of the PC puzzle. They're small bits of software needed to make sure devices such as printers, DVD drives and graphics cards connect properly to PCs and Macs, and they can cause major problems if something goes wrong.
Microsoft is requiring those device manufacturers to develop 64-bit drivers if they want their devices to work with the 64-bit edition of Windows Vista, in an effort to ensure that device drivers are written to proper standards. But hardware vendors and application developers haven't wanted to take the time and effort to develop new software for an operating system that very few people use. As a result, 64-bit Windows software is hard to find, although Microsoft says the situation is improving.
Apple, however, thinks it has found a quicker and easier road to bring its mainstream users into the 64-bit era. When Mac OS X Leopard comes around later this year, hardware makers will be able to use the 32-bit drivers they've already developed and qualified along with 64-bit applications built for Leopard.
"It's a nice migration path, and it recognises the reality that the benefits of 64-bit [drivers] are somewhat limited," said Dean McCarron, principal analyst with Mercury Research.
In its simplest sense, 64-bit hardware allows a system to take advantage of more than 4GB of memory, the theoretical addressing limit of 32-bit systems. There are other performance advantages, but that's the main one.
But at present, putting more than 4GB of memory into a PC is a very expensive proposition. While that's starting to change, even today it's still pretty unusual for a PC to ship with more than 2GBs of memory.
Almost 90 percent of notebooks, and 73 percent of desktops, are bought by US retail customers with either 1GB or 2GB of memory, according to CurrentAnalysisWest. Just over 15 percent of desktops come with 3GB, but desktops and notebooks with 4GB barely register on the needle.
Some gamers and scientific-computing professionals are already starting to push up against that limit, McCarron said. And as DRAM prices decline, 4GB of memory will become more common as a default option, he said.
So the hardware needed for a 64-bit world is getting close. The software, however, remains rare.
Microsoft released a 64-bit edition of Windows XP in 2005, but few people use it. Apple's Tiger operating system is able to address more than 4GBs of memory when run on 64-bit chips, but it's not a full 64-bit operating system the way Leopard will be.
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And although Windows Vista is available in 64-bit versions, retail PCs are mostly sold with the 32-bit version of the operating system. Vista Ultimate comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions if you buy the boxed copy, but any other edition of Vista requires you to order the extra DVD from Microsoft for an additional fee if you want the 64-bit version.
It's hard to estimate how many 64-bit users there are, Microsoft says, but it acknowledges that most mainstream PC users, and even many enthusiasts, have little reason to go 64-bit, for now. Even the next version of Windows, scheduled for the end of the decade, will arrive in both 64-bit and 32-bit editions, suggesting that Microsoft isn't prepared to fully commit to a 64-bit world this decade.
But in October, Apple plans to ship only one version of Leopard that can run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications. Apple thinks this will entice Mac OS developers to create 64-bit applications because every Mac shipping after October — and Core 2 Duo systems that upgrade to Leopard — will be able to run 64-bit applications, said Brian Croll, director of the company's OS X product marketing.
"If I'm an application developer, I can be assured that all those Leopard systems will be able to run my applications," Croll said.
Tiger, the current version of Mac OS X, has some 64-bit features that allow Macs to address more than 4GB of memory and take advantage of the Unix underpinnings of the operating system to run some 64-bit applications. But it doesn't allow…
