I have been putting a little thought into a concept I have had recently but I have hit the wall of how much research I can do without speaking to other people for comments and critisim (not to much, I hope . So, I would appreciate if you could all look over what I have been thinking about, giving me critisim and comments about how I am planning to implement it, and not steal my idea .
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What I have come up with, is a general concept for a computer that would allow the user, to use multiple Operating Systems, with very miminal emulation (Its more of a HAL). The system would be based on Dual MC68060's and branch off to allow the inserition of different processors depending on what market the computer is aimed at. For example: if it was for buisness, there could be a SPARC, a IA-64 and a G5, allowing for 64bit operating systems (in that case, the core system board would not be MC68060s). If however, the system was aimed at the home consumer, someone that has an intreset in OSs of multiple platforms, but wants to upgrade to more modern computers but finds it to expensive, could for the price of one system, allow for the use of all the OSs he/she enjoys. It is the latter design I am planning to implement as a prototype.

At this current point, the EP-1 (Emulation Prototype 1 - I like acronyms ) would, as previously said, be based on Dual MC68060s. These processors, will both allow for the systems low level OS to give the user of which OS to boot to, but also supply the HAL for the OSs, in order to trick them into believing they are running on their intended harware. Currently, AmigaOS 4, RiscOS 5, Windows XP, Redhat Linux 9.0, MacOS 10.3 and ZetaOS 1 are planned to be incorporated into the EP-1. In order to do this, the system, along with its 68060, would have the following processors (will change):

-IBM G3 1.1ghz
-AMD Athlon XP 3000+
-Intel XScale 600mhz

This combination has been selected by me as at the current point, they are the fastest of their selected type, and in the case of the IBM G3, its cool running tendancies.

As all 5 processors will not be running at the same time, they will share the same RAM (except in the case of the core OS, it will require very limited RAM and it will be seperated from the rest), monitor, keyboard, mouse and so on. Each OS will maintain its own hardrive (except RiscOS that runs of ROM chips). The core OS will also run of ROM chips so it cannot be damaged in the case of storms.

The whole design of the system is to be modular, meaning that the user can purchase other processors as they come available, and install them into their system in-order to maintain the freshness of the system. Also, this also allows new platforms to be adapted into use in the EP-1.

Ofcourse, there are some (major) problems involed in creating this system. Developing the motherboard design/software, as for one, I have no experience in these areas (and I am prety bad at the programming I have tried ) and the time/money it is going to take to develope all of this. To counter this, I plan to try and get this thing going in a kind of Open Source fashion except they cant use what they make for their own devices, as I plan (along with some people I know) to commercially sell them. There reward for helping me make this thing, Potential Revenue. In essense, they will get a small cut of the profits of any sales of the system. I also plan to learn about the harware design of things, and I have a friend of school helping with the programming side of things.

The problem of time has also been accounted for, I am expecting a commercial release between 2005 to 2010. Ofcourse, the systems features will be upgraded as they increase over time. Money, will also be covered by me, at least initially, once I have found work at the local shopping center. Realisticly, I dont see the need of large scale purchases of items in the short term, just a bit of planning (in which hopefully you can help). The systems will be sold by a buisness 4 of my friends are forming (a paternship style, cheapest and most effective for what we are doing), called Espratech (the name the result of many nights trying to find a buisness name not taken ).
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Thats prety much it, dont abuse me if what I have said is completly wrong, I am a novice of these things..Im just working on an idea. Thankfully this is a relitvely private forum, I would nto be confortable posting this if it wasnt, even if my idea is stupid .

Thanks for your input.

quote:

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talk to some people who know about apple's Johnathan design... it's very similar to what you're talking to... and would have been a great machine.. X86, 68k and AppleII in one machine (as was planned preliminarily)

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The only real issue with cross platform integration in a single box is cost. Most people don't want extra cost, and in the end, it's not a system that will make alot of money because it's mostly hobby users are techs who would need it, it's more a niche product, which several solutions already exist.

I could go into more details about my project but this is your ideas page so I won't dilute nothing.

Desig is only half the battle, and sadly, the world doesn't like good computers, they like crappy ones that bring in cash. So economically, this machine would not do anything, it would challenge and threaten manufacturers if it took off. Not to mention supporting it would be a nightmare since you run so many systems and architectures on it, and the cost of research alone to integrate these systems would put you in the poor house.

OS asks for Motherboard Bit 1
|
68060 Intercepts this and goes into HAL mode
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HAL activates Motherboard Bit 2
|
OS Hapy

If someone else saw this please post the link,,,

The problem the machine you propose is in almost every case it would be more expensive than than an individual machine using each processor type. It's also extremely unbalanced, how would you explain that to the consumer? It's OK at running PPC software but great at running X86 stuff, and other machines? well a bit slower than the PPC stuff...

And don't worry dreaming is fun. I do it all the time.

the things we learn...

if it is... how was it so cheap? (IIRC that was one that was sold also as being inexpensive)

anyhow... the johnathan system is great

What a like about the way I have sugested (despite its complexity) is that, for one its modular and upgradeable. Two, it would be only slightly more expensive than a standard computer, if it was to go into the consumer market.

I can see the high costs of developemnt of the board, as any custom board manufacturing would be, and software, as I said previously, would be done, for the time been, free as a little project on the side. I can also see the costs of buying the advanced documentaion for all the platforms.

Thanks for the information, keep it commin'.

Good ideas usually are created by crazy people, go figure...

The computer is a 5" Sphere that is filled with inert liquids. The Central Intelligence Unit (CIU) is integrated with the Main Memory Blocks, effectivey closing all gaps between CPU Bus and Memory Paths.

This model only does video and input. There is a high-speed Integrate Port with speed comparable to Firewire through which video signals and input is sent. The Memory on the sphere is SRAM and ROM.

The onboard IU has chips containing all the registers and code for all CPU architectures.

Still under design, but this is like a smart drug chip, that plugs in to a high speed port to increase crunch power of a machine. (Not for video but for applications doing work)

think about what a mess swapping out a processor would be. I picture the fluid being something like embryotic fluid (I know it's gross!).
In my mind is the movie Frankenstein with Robert Deniro. . .when he emerges from all that placenta. . .

sorry thats nasty, hopefully liquid computers won't be so gross!

It's not a waste of time. Many of Da Vinci's ideas were considered ludicrous by people of the time, and today much of wwe have including Fax Machines were first thought of by him.

I find that in this day and age we are not allowing enough creative design,a nd our lack of designs and real spur in technology is a testiment to this. We are so lacking in real creativity today.

I little bit of insanity is required to balance off logic!

that's the impression im getting, but perhaps i'm wrong...

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