Close pass by a driving student... being professionally instructed

[Angelfishsolo]

FAT 16 can't go above 2GB.

I agree - I should have clarified that. The 32 bit OS allowed for memory addressing of upto 4gb. IIRC addressing more memory requires 64 bit architecture

 

[SportMonkey]

I agree - I should have clarified that. The 32 bit OS allowed for memory addressing of upto 4gb. IIRC addressing more memory requires 64 bit architecture

Not strictly true, as an example the Windows Server 32bit OS's can access in excess of 4GB. You can even hack an Win7 32 kernel to run more than 4GB, quite useful if you're a developer.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Not strictly true, as an example the Windows Server 32bit OS's can access in excess of 4GB. You can even hack an Win7 32 kernel to run more than 4GB, quite useful if you're a developer.

Now I know I have been out of the IT game for too long

 

[SportMonkey]

Now I know I have been out of the IT game for too long

It was never true, those lovely people at Microsoft have had it in the OS since Win 2000, and I'm sure if you got hacky you could have done it sooner, it just wasn't an issue until a couple of years ago. The problem with software in general is that it has been limited by a lack of foresight in hardware development. Remember when you had that massive 20MB disk? File allocation, as memory allocation, has really suffered from perceived limits, although the space/processing of these addresses can be difficult.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

It was never true, those lovely people at Microsoft have had it in the OS since Win 2000, and I'm sure if you got hacky you could have done it sooner, it just wasn't an issue until a couple of years ago. The problem with software in general is that it has been limited by a lack of foresight in hardware development. Remember when you had that massive 20MB disk? File allocation, as memory allocation, has really suffered from perceived limits, although the space/processing of these addresses can be difficult.

I was never a programmer so I took the "maths of the architecture" at face value. I remember 8" floppy disks and hard cards in IBM Clone PC's (Redstones). I do remember being the first person in my company to fit a 1Gb internal HD into an Apple Mac IIci. It was so large the case wouldn't close properly!!!!

 

[crumpetman]

The file size limitation is down to the file system rather than the OS isn't it? There is no 2Gb/4Gb file size limit using NTFS or EXT2/3 although there are probably not any cameras supporting those file systems.

 

[SportMonkey]

The file size limitation is down to the file system rather than the OS isn't it? There is no 2Gb/4Gb file size limit using NTFS or EXT2/3 although there are probably not any cameras supporting those file systems.

We got on to memory. You're right, there is no 2GB limit on NTFS, and that was bought about by the file size limit on FAT32, you won't get cameras to support them from firmware as it's far harder to cope with.

 

[Dan B]

Well, sure: if your architecture can only represent numbers up to 4294967296 in one word there is still nothing fundamental to stop you from using two words if needed. Issues of atomic operations and locking on multi-word values notwithstanding of course, which is what makes a 64 bit architecture so much more appealing if you need to.