In comp.arch.embedded , wrote: : Didn't IBM actually develop, but not sell a 1st or 2nd generation PPC : chip that also had a x86 core? Sure, it would have been back in the : Pentium or Pentium 2 days, but that would suggest a hard solution : wouldn't be too difficult.
Ahhh - the rumored PowerPC 615, the one that never surfaced. If there ever was such a thing, it must have been encumbered with lots of problems. Naaah, I do not think it ever was.
I believe the PPC615 was a mixup with the OS2 for PPC that supposedly should 'run anything and everything' of the time. As we all know, OS/2 died away shortly after. I for one, mourned it. Not that it really matters, since OS/2 had the more or less the same fundamental design as WinNT and most of the same weaknesses.
As such, I kind of like the game consol approach - place the OS in protected ROM, insert the application in the CD-drive and run it. Remove the CD, reboot and - viola - the machine is yet again cleaned out for any clutter the application might like to leave behind.
Transforming this to the desktop would require the OS to essentially be a database engine for the applications. This extends to the filesystem, too. Installing an application would be equivalent to establish a new database record - A self contained container for all the clutter associated with the application.
Shared files? Manintain linked lists of them in the OS domain, including version control. Adapt the OS GUI? Do it the same way where the OS behaviour is the combined result of all linked lists, where every entry in the list is contained to its own virtual protective box. Uninstalling? Don't ask the application to do it
- let the OS clean out every database entry associated with the application. I am sooo tired of reinstalling systems merely because it has collected to much clutter. And yes, this goes for Linux, too.
(As for abstracting the Video and Sound chips of the Xbox, isn't this what DirectX is supposed to do for you...?)