[Python-Dev] ctypes and win64

[Jack Diederich]

On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 05:19:40AM -0400, Tim Peters wrote:
> [Steve Holden]
> >> Reasonable enough, but I suspect that Thomas' suggestion might save us
> >> from raising false hopes. I'd suggest that the final release
> >> announcement point out that this is the first release containing
> >> specific support for 64-bit architectures (if indeed it is)
> 
> [Martin v. L?wis]
> > It isn't. Python ran on 64-bit Alpha for nearly a decade now (I guess),
> > and was released for Win64 throughout Python 2.4. ActiveState has
> > been releasing an AMD64 package for some time now.
> 
> Python has also been used on 64-bit Crays, and I actually did the
> first 64-bit port in 1993 (to a KSR Unix machine -- took less than a
> day to get it running fine!  Guido's an excellent C coder.).  Win64 is
> the first (and probably only forever more) where sizeof(long) <
> sizeof(void*), and that caused some Win64-unique pain, and may cause
> more.
> 
> BTW, at least two of the people at the NFS sprint earlier this year
> were compiling and running Python on Win64 laptops.  It's "solid
> enough", and surely nobody expects that Win64 users expect 100%
> perfection of anything they run <0.5 wink>.

It has always "just worked" for me on Opterons + Debian.
Python 2.4 (#1, May 31 2005, 10:19:45) 
[GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-12)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.maxint
9223372036854775807

Thanks to the Alphas for making AMD64 on *nix a no-brainer,

-Jack