I guess today, instead of 128bit pointers we have 64bit pointers and secret provenance data inside the cpu, at least on the most recent shipped iPhones and Macs.

In the end, I’m not sure that’s better, or maybe we should have had extra large pointers again (in that way back 32bit was so large we stuffed other stuff in there) like CHERI proposes (though I think it still has secret sidecar of data about the pointers).

Would love to Apple get closer to Cheri. They could make a big change as they are vertically integrated, though I think their Apple Silicon for Mac moment would have been the time.

I wonder what big pointers does to performance.