Computer architecture upgraded from 16-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit. What was the logic for skipping 48-bit? What reasoning was used to upgrade to 64-bit and not some other exponent?
The following tables illustrates: 2^32 is 65536 times bigger than 2^16. So it seams logical to use 2^48 which is also 65536 times bigger than 2^32. Using 2^64 seems like a massive jump in comparison. (10 years after the introduction of amd64, desktop computers are sold with double digit GB RAM while servers use triple digit GB RAM.)
2^16 65.536
2^32 4.294.967.296 2^16 X 65536
2^48 281.474.976.710.656 2^32 X 65536
2^64 18.446.744.073.709.600.000 2^32 X 4294967296
EDIT BELOW
I used an online decimal-to-binary converter and I get these results. Apparently, 2^48 is maxed out with 48 binary 1s.
1111111111111111 65535 2^16 - 1 (16 ones)
10000000000000000 65536 2^16
11111111111111111111111111111111 4294967295 2^32 - 1 (32 ones)
100000000000000000000000000000000 4294967296 2^32
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 281474976710655 2^48 - 1 (48 ones)
1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 281474976710656 2^48
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 18446744073709551615 2^64 - 1 (64 ones)
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 18446744073709551616 2^64
Using 2^64 seems like a massive jump in comparison.
Yes, just like in our 16-bit days when "64 kilobyte RAM segments are big enough" or in our 32-bit days when "a 4 gigabyte (32-bit) virtual memory scheme is sufficient". The point is to increase our capabilities in orders of magnitude - not because we need it, but solely because we might...