In message , Mayayana
writes:
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the tipping point now -- where 64-bit is likely to
be less hassle for most people than 32-bit. That's
because most 32-bit software runs on 64-bit while
some software is still not available in 64-bit. (When
Win7 came out, IE-32 was the default because
plugins were not available in 64-bit.)
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What I fail to understand is why we've accepted the principle that
64-bit machines can't run 16-bit (or 8-bit, for that matter!) software.
[I'm not saying I don't understand why it doesn't: that's because of the
way things have been decided.]

The only "excuse" I can see for the decision is that, arguably, 3/4 of
the hardware in a 64-bit system would be idle when running 16-bit
software. But who cares: it's almost certainly considerably more than 4
times as fast as the hardware the 16-bit software was written for, so it
ought to actually run at least as fast as it always did. (Plus, of
course, modern OSs could find plenty of "background tasks" to "occupy"
the idle hardware.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark
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