128-bit computing
While there are currently no mainstream general-purpose processors built to operate on 128-bit "integers" or addresses, a number of processors do have specialized ways to operate on 128-bit chunks of data. Representation. 128-bit processors could be used for addressing directly up to 2 (over ) bytes, which would greatly exceed the total data captured, created, or replicated on Earth as of 2018, which has been estimated to be around 33 zettabytes (over 2 bytes). A 128-bit register can store 2 (over 3.40 × 10) different values. The range of integer values that can  be stored in 128 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two most common representations, the range is 0 through 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,455 (2 − 1) for representation as an (unsigned) binary number, and −170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,728 (−2) through 170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,727 (2 − 1) for representation as two's complement. Quadruple precision (128-bit) floating-point numbers can store 113-bit fixed-point numbers or integers accurately without losing precision (thus 64-bit integers in particular). Quadruple precision floats can also represent any position in the observable universe with at least micrometer precision. Decimal128 floating-point numbers can represent numbers with up to  34 significant digits. History. A 128-bit multicomparator was described by researchers in 1976. The IBM System/360 Model 85, and IBM System/370 and its successors, support 128-bit floating-point arithmetic. The Siemens 7.700 and 7.500 series mainframes and their successors support 128-bit floating-point arithmetic. Most modern CPUs feature single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) instruction sets (Streaming SIMD Extensions, AltiVec etc.) where 128-bit vector registers are used to store several smaller numbers, such as four 32-bit floating-point numbers. A single instruction can then operate on all these values in parallel. However, these processors do not  operate on individual numbers that are 128 binary digits in length; only their vector registers have the size of 128 bits. The DEC VAX supported operations on 128-bit integer ('O' or octaword) and 128-bit floating-point ('H-float' or HFLOAT) datatypes. Support for such operations was an upgrade option rather than being a standard feature. Since the VAX's registers were 32 bits wide, a 128-bit operation used four consecutive registers or four longwords in memory. The ICL 2900 Series provided a 128-bit accumulator, and its instruction set included 128-bit floating-point and packed decimal  arithmetic. A CPU with 128-bit multimedia extensions was designed by researchers in 1999. The Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 among the Sixth generation of video game consoles used the term "128-bit" in their marketing to describe their capability. The Playstation 2's CPU had 128-bit SIMD capabilities. Neither console supported 128-bit addressing or 128-bit integer arithmetic. Hardware. The RISC-V ISA specification from 2016 includes a reservation for a 128-bit version of the architecture, but the details remain undefined intentionally, because there is yet so little practical experience with such large memory systems. Graphics  processing unit (GPU) chips commonly move data across a 128-bit bus. Software. In the same way that compilers emulate e.g. 64-bit integer arithmetic on architectures with register sizes less than 64 bits, some compilers also support 128-bit integer arithmetic. For example, the GCC C compiler 4.6 and later has a 128-bit integer type codice_1 for some architectures. GCC and compatible compilers signal the presence of 128-bit arithmetic when the macro codice_2 is defined. For the C programming language, 128-bit support is optional, e.g. via the codice_3 type, or it can be implemented by a  compiler-specific extension. The Rust programming language has built-in support for 128-bit integers (originally via LLVM), which is implemented on all platforms. A 128-bit type provided by a C compiler can be available in Perl via the codice_4 module.