Private email from Boris Herman:
Hi Adriaan,
I just wanted to know if you think that GPC can be used on Mac OS X that is configured for G5. Especially I am interested in processing huge arrays and the new G5, supporting 8 Gb, could do the trick. Note that I am not talking about G5 optimization, I couldn't care less about that. I just want to create oversized arrays and have them all in memory. As of now I cannot have an array 1000x1000x1000 with 8byte floating point in each cell but with a new G5 I could.
Regards, Boris
Frankly, I don't know, nor do I have a G5 Mac to test. Apple is very vague about it, mostly marketing talk, even the latest "tech note" on G5 optimization at http://developer.apple.com/performance/g5optimization.html. Also, Apple's claims that Darwin is 64-bit are non-convincing to me.
Thus, this is an interesting question to post on both the gcc mailing list and on Apple's darwin-development list. Generally, I think that GPC can address 8 GB if the gcc back-end can do so -- correct me Frank/Waldek if I am wrong.
Regards,
Adriaan van Os