Hewlett-Packard Co appears to be in the process of generating fear, uncertainty and doubt among independent software vendors over the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit architectures. Hewlett-Packard, which faces the transition itself once the PA-8000 emerges early next year, has been looking at some of the problems Digital Equipment Corp independent software vendors have had moving from 32-bit to 64-bit Alpha systems, and sources within Hewlett-Packard say more than 10 independent software vendors have reported problems so far. Among potential problems, Hewlett-Packard detailed the following: when an ANSI C array of double precision pointers is transfered to the Alpha, for instance, every other pointer is skipped because a double precision pointer, now 64-bits long, equals two 32-bit ones; if buffer size definition is done in terms of words, a 5K-word buffer on a 32-bit machine equals 10Kb, but only 5Kb on a 64-bit system so the program ends up with half the buffer size required and runs unpredi ctably; if string manipulation is done by shifts left and right, then the shift distances will be wrong as you move from 32-bits to 64-bits. Additionally, there is no IEEE standard for dealing with underflow and overflow on 64-bit numbers, as there is for 32-bit numbers, so 64-bit systems might do it differently and produce the wrong results. This could be important in moving encryption code, where 128-bit digit numbers may be used, to 64-bit systems. According to Hewlett-Packard, X/Open Co Ltd’s XPG4 standard guarantees valid code on converting but not accurate results. XPG4 and SPEC 1170 stop at the application programming interface level. These are undefined areas that cause problems for independent software vendors, hence Hewlett-Packard’s con cern. It says if standards exist (and it is said to be working on just such a standards initiative, maybe in conjunction with its partner Intel Corp), they would energise conversion efforts by independent software vendors, encouraging them to make the transition. But of course the fear, uncertainty and doubt could also have the effect of slowing down DEC’s efforts to migrate its software to 64-bit until Hewlett-Packard’s own efforts are more advanced.
