[Vm-dev] 64bit: "This interpreter (vers. 68000) cannot read image file (vers. 274877913446)."

David T. Lewis lewis at mail.msen.com
Wed Oct 17 02:47:09 UTC 2007


On Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 06:04:29PM -0700, Andreas Raab wrote:
> 
> David T. Lewis wrote:
> >So for the FAQ:
> >
> >- What is a 32 bit image?
> >A 32 bit image is an image in which the object memory uses a 32 bit word
> >size for object pointers. The format of object memory and object pointers
> >is defined in class ObjectMemory (see the class comment for a basic
> >explanation). As of this writing, all Squeak images of practical interest
> >are 32 bit images.
> 
> This is very good already. How about also pointing out the difference in 
> max. image size, e.g.:
> 
> 	"A 32 bit image is an image in which the object memory uses a 32 bit 
> word size for object pointers, limiting its total size to a maximum 
> amount of 4GB of memory."
> 
> >- What is a 64 bit VM?
> >A 64 bit image is an image in which the object memory uses 64 bit word
> >size for object pointers. Squeak now supports a 64 bit image format that
> >is sufficient to produce a working system, but which is intentionally
> >simple, and is expected to be modified and extended to take advantage of
> >additional 64 bit capabilities in the future.
> 
> And here:
> 
> 	"A 64 bit image is an image in which the object memory uses 64 bit 
> 	word size for object pointers, allowing the size of the image to grow 
> beyond 4GB of memory. Etc."

Yes, that's better.

Andrew, thanks for for putting this together and for motivating the
discussion. If you wordsmith this a bit it would be good to put the
result on the swiki (wiki.squeak.org/squeak).

Dave



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