"With chip makers continuing to increase the number of cores they include on each new generation of their processors, perhaps it's time to rethink the basic architecture of today's operating systems, suggested Dave Probert, a kernel architect within the Windows core operating systems division at Microsoft."
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Member since:2005-07-06
I did miss the joke. 
I agree and disagree. If something is so complex that it might change, or just the nature of the operation might change then I agree, it belongs in software. But if you can manage to move those eternal algorithms to the die then why not? Especially given the constant shrinking of the palette... sooner or later we will be cramming transistors into cellular sized spaces. If we have the ability to cram so much into so little space, would it really be wasting space to add functionality? Sure it could be in some form factors, but in general computing?
But I see your point. Faster, cleaner pipelines enable complex software to run faster. I just think at some point the trend will reverse itself and "smarter" hardware is going to make a comeback.
Member since:2005-07-06
Do you remember when VMS was ported to the Alpha? Ho boy! There was some trouble. Customers who relied on the exceptional math computational speeds of the VAX were furious when they discovered that despite the faster Alpha chip, math algorithms took factors longer to compute because they (and that has to do with the word size moving from 32 to 64 bit size) were implemented in software, not the hardware.
I remember that fairly well, processes that took a couple hours to run were taking days. Ouch. I believe that was fixed, eventually.
And yeah, that was all a little off-topic. Sorry.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?
Member since:
2006-01-02
You missed the joke. The VAX had an instruction to calculate polynomials back in the late 70s/80s. It was the king of the CISC architecture model. CISC is now considered dead. Even Intel has moved away from the CISC approach. It's much easier for the hardware, and the software, to have simple instruction sets that can be executed efficiently than complex instruction sets that may or may not end up being useful, but waste a lot of die space and may cause a reduction in overall efficiency (just to be able to support the advanced instructions).
Remember also that it's easy to upgrade software. Not so much with hardware. The intelligence should be in the software.