HP Unveils 'The Machine,' a New Computer Architecture 257
pacopico writes: HP Labs is trying to make a comeback. According to Businessweek, HP is building something called The Machine. It's a type of computer architecture that will use memristors for memory and silicon photonics for interconnects. Their plan is to ship within the next few years. As for The Machine's software, HP plans to build a new operating system to run on the novel hardware. The new computer is meant to solve a coming crisis due to limitations around DRAM and Flash. About three-quarters of HP Labs personnel are working on this project.
Re:Run a completely new OS? (Score:5, Informative)
"Fink has assigned one team to develop the open-source Machine OS, which will assume the availability of a high-speed, constant memory store. Another team is working on a stripped-down version of Linux with similar aims; another team is working on an Android version, looking to a point at which the technology could trickle down to PCs and smartphones." RFTA.
Re:Run a completely new OS? (Score:3, Informative)
As someone who regularly uses VMS (and by regularly, I mean for 30+ hours a week, 50 weeks a year...), I pray they don't use it. As other posters have stated, the benefits of using *nix as the base OS is that there are literally MILLIONS of people with some knowledge of the system that can help. With VMS, that pool is in the thousands (maybe...), and dwindling fast.
Re: Run a completely new OS? (Score:2, Informative)
Sitting at HP Discover in Vegas. Head of HP labs just confirmed it is based on Linux to maintain POSIX compatibility.
The whole thing sounds exciting.
Some more details (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sitting in the conference room where this was just announced at the HP Discover conference. The idea is to use photonics for interconnects, so that the limitations of copper don't require physical proximity to memory. And they want to use oxygen atoms with doubly-negative charge (ions) for data storage. The concept is to partner with universities to do some fundamental research and major changes in OS design to have a machine that can scale processor access to 160 PB of memory storage in microseconds.
None of this comprises fundamentally new ideas, but they are working hard to actually make it happen, which is pretty cool.
Re:Is unix the last operating system? (Score:4, Informative)
I was sysadmin on an AS/400 back in the 90's. I am pretty sure we had an E35 somewhere in the cycle of upgrades. I know we started off with something "lower", but still a 35. I think it was a B35. I would not say it was fast, but it was fast enough.
We had remote offices, SDLC lines CSU/DSUs and workstation controllers. I don't think we had 250 terminals, but we did have more than 100.
The last upgrade we did was to a PowerPC based CPU. Ran a tape, swapped a card, instantly faster. Field rep allowed me to do the card swap.
It was a good machine. The HAL was for everything, not just the OS. When we did the upgrade I spoke of, we didn't have to recompile user apps, the tape loaded the new HAL, I expect.