PowerBasic 64bits

**ErosOlmi** · 31-12-2009, 00:44

First official vaporware on PowerBasic 64bits ...

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=42398

**José Roca** · 31-12-2009, 01:28

Not a big surprise. They need to release a 64 bit compiler to stay in business.

**ErosOlmi** · 31-12-2009, 01:56

Yes, it is obvious.
The surprise is that a PowerBasic team member has publicly declared it before having something.
But ...

maybe someone has already something in his hands

**Bob Zale** · 03-01-2010, 01:47

Originally Posted by Eros Olmi

First official vaporware on PowerBasic 64bits ...

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=42398

Hi Eros-

It shouldn't be a big surprise... and it certainly isn't VaporWare {smile}. PowerBASIC doesn't pre-announce products. That's because, during development, it's often necessary to change specifications, change delivery dates, change features, change anything and everything. If we make promises, folks will make business decisions on those statements. If changes are needed, it could cost our friends and customers dearly. In both money and other things. It's our hope and plan to do everything possible to avoid that disappointing situation.

That said, some questions are just too obvious. For example, 64-bit code. It's a given that we'll offer it. Anyone with half a brain knows that already. If we failed to answer that simple question, some folks in the compiler business might use our non-answer against us. That wouldn't be true, nor would it be good for PowerBASIC and our friends. So, we confirm the obvious in a limited fashion.

The real truth is that 64-bit code has a very limited market right now. Who wants to try to compile and market a 64-bit app today, when it will only run on a small percentage of the machine which exist? Not too many, I'm afraid. However, there's certainly no doubt that 64-bit will hit the ground running sometime in the relatively near future. When it does, we'll have a 64-bit PowerBASIC ready for you. It will be 99%+ compatible with our current code, and it will be rock-solid stable.

Thanks for listening!

Bob Zale
PowerBASIC Inc.

**ErosOlmi** · 03-01-2010, 19:30

Thanks a lot for this clarification.
I will for sure be in your order list when PB64 will see the light.

On Christmas I bought 2 laptops (wife and son) and both are 64bit with Win7 64bits. On the shelfs I saw more 64bits OS than 32.
In my company we have already switched to 64bits OS on the server side, mainly because new versions of Microsoft Server applications are available only for 64 bits.
I think the time of a massive switch is quite close.

Thanks again
Eros

**Petr Schreiber** · 03-01-2010, 23:59

I also appreciated the comment,

thanks a lot.

Only thing I can add is that all of my colleagues on university which got Windows 7, got the 64bit versions.
I am not sure what exactly was their motivation in this case, but it seems lot of young people will follow.

For me the best thing about 64bits is bigger addressable memory range, which I think will be appreciated mostly by people working in science and computer graphics.

Petr

**Bob Zale** · 04-01-2010, 00:18

Yes, a good percentage of new computers are now sold with 64-bit Windows. But you won't see a "massive shift" until a very high percentage of existing computers have Win64 installed.

If you were selling a million copies per year of your Gizmo Accounting Package, would you switch it to 64-bit today? Of course not. That's because 70/80/90% of your customers are using Win32, and couldn't run your program. You'd lose $Millions$ instantly. But, if you stay with Win32 for now, everyone can run it quite successfully.

This will happen, but it will take time.

Best regards,

Bob Zale
PowerBASIC Inc.

**MikeStefanik** · 05-01-2010, 11:09

I think a lot of developers tend to over-estimate the rate of adoption of technology. If you break down the various versions of Windows being used, right now about 65-70% is the 32-bit version of Windows XP. Bob is absolutely correct in pointing out that releasing a 64-bit application today is primarily limiting yourself to 64-bit versions of Windows 7 (on the desktop, that's about 7% of total market share) or Windows Server 2008. Yes, there's 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, but driver support for those platforms has been fairly dismal.

In practical terms today, there's very few end-user applications that actually require the large address space or computational efficiencies that 64-bit systems offer. The ones that do benefit the most tend to be those types of programs that are run on servers, not desktop computers (e.g.: databases, numerical analysis, etc.)

The move from 16-bit to 32-bit offered some substantial and immediate benefits, particularly on the Windows platform, both in terms of the limitations of 16-bit processors and the architecture of the operating system. The move from 32-bit to 64-bit is more of an incremental improvement for your average end user, and a lot harder to justify to corporate bean-counters when you're trying to explain that you need your budget increased to replace 5,000 desktop systems and upgrade the operating system, when the bulk of their time is sitting inside Word, Excel or Outlook.

**Charles Pegge** · 06-01-2010, 22:47

Fortunately the 64bit OSes have a full set of 32 bit APIs allowing most 32 bit applications to continue running on them without a hitch.

For compilers the coding differences at CPU level are trivial but the OS implementation is substantially different. - New calling conventions, more headers to translate and perhaps a full rewrite of the run-time library are going to keep the PB team very busy.

The performance gain going from 32 to 64 bit will be significant but not spectacular - and soon obscured by
Moore's Law. but I agree with Petr and Mike that the main advantage is the extended address space which is needed in large multimedia/data intensive projects and of course file-servers.

**kryton9** · 07-01-2010, 02:32

Originally Posted by Charles Pegge

... but I agree with Petr and Mike that the main advantage is the extended address space which is needed in large multimedia/data intensive projects and of course file-servers.

Large Multimedia is here and getting bigger and more demanding all the time. Skype just announced 720 video, youtube will support full 1080 video... all of this is exciting stuff.

My internet provider, which is giving me currently 10mbs down and 1mbs up speeds is now offering a new package for $30 more month... 40mbs down and 5mbs up.
I know among everyone I know here in the US, skype is being used heavily and really being enjoyed. Of course we know how much everyone loves youtube and equivalent services.

What happens if Microsoft OS is no longer the dominant OS? I think with real broadband speeds as mentioned above that are affordable and an OS like Chrome really have a chance to change things.
Chrome is being designed to run on all sorts of devices. Does Power Basic have any plans just in case?

Google has the start of a nice BASIC like syntax language built on Android named Simple. But Google is also developing a new system level language named GO. I think if Power Basic started to write Power Basic with GO for the Chrome OS, it would have at least one leg forward into the future while keeping the other in the safety of the past with Microsoft and 64 bit. Just my 2 cents for New Year Wishes.