[rescue] 128 bits...

[Lionel Peterson]

--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 10:41 PM, Scott Newell wrote:
> >> Seriously, what would you do with 128 bits? That is a huge chunk
> >> of data to deal with natively - I think eventually you will find
> >> that the waste in doing normal work will preclude wide-spread
> >> adoption...
> >
> > How 'bout another special case: networking processor designed for
> > IPv6? IPv6 addresses are 128bits, right?  Seems like there'd be
> > some advantage in being able to ram those through an ALU in one
> > fell swoop.  Granted,
> 
> > you can do this now if you want, and it wouldn't require widening
> > the entire CPU to 128 bits.
> 
>    Eh...I believe routing table lookups and address masking are
> better off done in specialized hardware.  Perhaps an "IP
> coprocessor".

Think how easy "state-full packet inspection" would be if the processor
word size equalled the MTU size... Hmm.

=====
Lionel

"Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten
programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software"
Bill Gates, in "An OpenLetter to Hobbyists" dated February 3, 1976
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