Imagine a processor with no interrupts. We can do a lot better and get rid of most exceptions (e.g. system calls, page faults etc.), most peripheral devices/buses, and even cache misses, but let’s start with interrupts. Modern micro-processors are bloated
Apple’s A5 chip made in Austin
Although I think it might have been designed here too. The A5 processor – the brain in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 – is now made in a sprawling 1.6 million square feet factory in Austin owned by Korean
Why computers are more and more devices for generating heat from electricity
Why is it that the hardware interfaces of disk drives 30 years ago were simple and clear and they currently require enormously elaborate drivers? Imagine if one could provide a command consisting of (read/write, diskaddress, buffer_address, count, notification_address) so that
Processor architecture
I wish that processor architecture was not so committed to a obsolete model of software. For example, it has become clear over the last few years that the sloppy shared memory thread model of programming has multiple drawbacks. Sharing of
Virtualization versus Physicalization
Data on the overhead of virtualization is hard to come by. Rackable proposes an interesting alternative that they call physicalization. I wonder whether the CPU is the most important resource to multiplex and I remain totally puzzled by the motivation