Hi Jim, DOS fans, (your signature is too long! Who needs all those kilo mega giga tera numbers explained so often?)
It seems that memristors are actually not really slow to write :-) The article that you cite says "Windows, Linux, HP-UX, Tru64, and NonStop" were in the experiments. It does not really explain in which way light is used - between chips? In the chips? To peripherals? TiO2 memristors seem to offer 5-10 times more memory per chip size in comparison to Flash or RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor says that memristor storage was available on lab scale 2012 but real products are only expected by 2018. Note that MRAM (magnetoresistive) & PRAM (phase change) are already on the market with competitive specs. FeRAM is also available but less attractive. Real products seem to aim more at Flash SSD audience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAM#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_change_memory#Timeline The technologies under development: CBRAM, ReRAM (or RRAM: memristors), SONOS; FJG, Racetrack- and Millipede-memory. Another possibility is "nvRAM" (brand name) which just copies RAM to Flash when power is lost. In any case, it is of course an interesting question: What would YOU do in which APPLICATION if you had all your data in RAM or RAMDISK? It can indeed shift the choice of preferred algorithms. It would also shift some OS performance questions, of course. Not sure how DOS is involved: If disk no longer is separate from RAM, would DOS itself care, performance-wise? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_memory And of course a question to those who already use SSD or RAMDISKs for most of their DOS activities, how has that changed the way you use DOS now? :-) Cheers, Eric > if you didn't know, HP has started inventing a light-based computer > using memristors instead of an SSD and it moves 6TB of data/sec, it's > based on a continuum and uses very little power. so we have a > paradigm shift here... should be out at end of decade. they showed it > at vegas, and are planning on putting it in cell phones. it has > multiple light processors. they need devs to make an OS for this > since it's memristors (storage) are essentially NVRAM with a delay on > writes (takes time to switch and the change is analog). > > http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2008/apr-jun/memristor.html > http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-11/with-the-machine-hp-may-have-invented-a-new-kind-of-computer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Want fast and easy access to all the code in your enterprise? Index and search up to 200,000 lines of code with a free copy of Black Duck Code Sight - the same software that powers the world's largest code search on Ohloh, the Black Duck Open Hub! Try it now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bds _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
