On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 8:15 PM, ah...clem <[email protected]> wrote: > ok, well this *clueless wanker* is Dr. Warren Hehre, developer of > Spartan and numerous other scientific computing apps, who has been > writing apps for MacOS for the past 20 years.
Oh, great. At first I thought he was just an idiot, but it now appears he is a very intelligent and highly capable, competent, and accomplished idiot. Those can be trying to one's patience. I would guess he's wrong in a very general sense but very right in a very specific probably technical sense. Especially so about what pertains to his programs. Do you have any more details about what he specifically said needed to be updated? FWIW, I was Googling about for potentially informative comments about OS X "bit-ness" and look what popped up near the top of the Google search list. A blog piece by Dan Knight back on 2009.08.19 titled "The 64-Bitness of Mac OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard'". http://lowendmac.com/musings/09mm/64-bit-snow-leopard.html > i have a spiffy new 3.3 > GHz 2010 Mac that came with SL 10.6.3 factory installed, and i also > have the latest version of Spartan, which cannot access more than 2GB > of RAM. Perhaps his complaint is related to the fact that many of the Intel Macs are currently still booting the 32-bit kernel rather than the 64-bit kernel. My MacBook is also in this situation. But perhaps, unlike my MacBook, your "spiffy Mac" is one of the ones which can be coaxed into booting the 64-bit kernel by holding down the "6" and "4" keys during startup. If so then possibly you would be interested in booting that way and seeing if it makes any difference to this app, Spartan. Or perhaps Dr. Hehre's concern is something else altogether. Either way I hope we eventually get a better understanding of just what it is he means. Because in general he is wrong. Even running the 32-bit kernel any application that is written as a 64-bit app should be able to address more than 4GB of RAM. (Assuming some other physical restriction in the system does not prohibit this). Or at least that's my understanding now. Admittedly there aren't a heck of a lot of apps out there which would ever actually test the 32-bit memory limits. The more typical benefits of moving to 64-bit mode are slightly faster execution due to the larger number of registers in the CPU. (And probably other stuff ... ??) -irrational john -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
