Re: Another New Hardware Thought

[Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon@news.widomaker.com>]

> A curious idea, but you really need an OS to support it.
>
> MMU's really only become useful when you're running more code than
> you've got RAM, facilitating virtual memory. There aren't really any
> practical applications that such small machines can run that require
> that amount of addressable space.

Personally, I would disagree with this. I've used small systems with
multiple users and applications, and I can think of a lot of things a
small microcomputer would benefit from with a good task system.

Of course, what I would really like to see is a new small computer
designed and sold.

Current "home" systems are far too complex to learn inside and out.  The
GPU alone on my current PC is more complicated than an entire mainframe
of 20 years ago.

It would be nice to have useful small machines where newbies could learn
them inside and out like we did the 8-bit systems in the early days.

Take a good look at any kid who grew up with computers recently.  They
might do a lot with them, but they know almost nothing about them.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["There are nowadays professors of
philosophy, but not philosophers." ]