I think by UNIX he means various byte coded languages that are common in unix and unix like operating systems.
I suspect he doesn't but, even if he does, what byte-coded languages are you thinking of? Java? Guess that makes MacOS, OS/400, Windows, etc. "UNIX-like". Perl? Gee, I have the impression that'd make Windows, possibly MacOS, possibly others "UNIX-like".
I've not seen anything to lead me to think of languages that get compiled into interpreted byte-codes as being a particularly UNIX-specific language.
Sounds to me like changeable microcode...
on
Transmeta in 1999
·
· Score: 1
Individual assembly instructions are actually composed of several microcode instructions.
...if your processor is microcoded. Plenty of processors aren't micrcoded, and even some that are run many instructions in hardware (e.g., I have the impression that all Intel x86 processors, starting with the 486, do many of the common instructions directly in hardware).
The microcode is a hardwired, permanent part of the CPU.
...except when it isn't. Some machines in the past have had loadable microcode; in addition to machines intended to e.g. have different microcode loaded to implement different instruction sets, and those that had the ability to load microcode to implement new instructions, a number of them, such as, I think, many later IBM System/3xx mainframes, loaded microcode from e.g. a floppy disk (I think the 8" floppy may originally have been developed by IBM as a device from which to load S/370 microcode).
I assume that Transmeta is creating a CPU with changeable microcode...
I don't. If the patent they got reflects what they're currently planning on doing, they appear to be creating a processor that probably has only one instruction set, but has some amount of hardware features to make life a bit easier for software that translates code from other instruction sets to its native instruction set and then executes that code.
Can anyone out there explain the chip subsystems enough to explain how a single chip can run multiple instruction sets?
I think the inference being drawn from the patent is that the chip wouldn't run multiple instruction sets. It would run one instruction set, but some of the software running on it could read machine code in some instruction set and write out "equivalent" code in the chip's native instruction set.
The patent discusses some modifications to the hardware to help this process out; however, that help doesn't include directly executing the instructions.
Would this chip actually be wired to convert x86 instructions AND PowerPC instructions AND UNIX instructions
There aren't any "UNIX instructions"; various UNIX-flavored operating systems run on machines that use various different processors. For example, Linux runs on PCs with processors that run x86 instructions. PowerPC machines, Alpha machines, etc. - and some other UNIX-flavored OSes run on Crays, IBM mainframes, etc..
As per the above, the software running on the chip could, conceivably, translate x86 code or PowerPC code or... into native code and run it; some of the hardware assistance appears as if it might be intended to allow even operating system kernel code, which may refer to I/O devices in a fashion similar to the way it refers to memory, to be translated and run, so it might be that a system with PC-like peripherals, and a chip that implements the invention described in the patent, running software that can translate, say, x86 machine code, could run an operating system intended for an x86-based PC, whether it be Windows 9x, the x86 version of Windows NT, the x86 version of Linux, the x86 version of Solaris 2.x, the x86 version of BeOS, etc..
I think the claim that it might be "a chip that can run anything and everything" is a bit extreme - most chips can't, by themselves, run much of anything, as they need additional chips to connect the CPU chip to memory, an I/O bus, etc., so if you built a system with such a chip and a Mac-like set of peripheral chips, it might not be able to run an operating system for an x86-based PC, as some of the "support chips" might be different.
If the operating system running on the system containing that chip included code to emulate a foreign operating system, it might be possible to run applications for an operating system for machines with a different processor chip, e.g. a Linux machine with that chip and some kind of MacOS emulator, plus software to translate 68K or PowerPC code to native code, might be able to run MacOS applications, as well as native Linux x86 applications if the software also included stuff to translate x86 code to native code.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect he doesn't but, even if he does, what byte-coded languages are you thinking of? Java? Guess that makes MacOS, OS/400, Windows, etc. "UNIX-like". Perl? Gee, I have the impression that'd make Windows, possibly MacOS, possibly others "UNIX-like".
I've not seen anything to lead me to think of languages that get compiled into interpreted byte-codes as being a particularly UNIX-specific language.
...if your processor is microcoded. Plenty of processors aren't micrcoded, and even some that are run many instructions in hardware (e.g., I have the impression that all Intel x86 processors, starting with the 486, do many of the common instructions directly in hardware).
...except when it isn't. Some machines in the past have had loadable microcode; in addition to machines intended to e.g. have different microcode loaded to implement different instruction sets, and those that had the ability to load microcode to implement new instructions, a number of them, such as, I think, many later IBM System/3xx mainframes, loaded microcode from e.g. a floppy disk (I think the 8" floppy may originally have been developed by IBM as a device from which to load S/370 microcode).
I don't. If the patent they got reflects what they're currently planning on doing, they appear to be creating a processor that probably has only one instruction set, but has some amount of hardware features to make life a bit easier for software that translates code from other instruction sets to its native instruction set and then executes that code.
I think the inference being drawn from the patent is that the chip wouldn't run multiple instruction sets. It would run one instruction set, but some of the software running on it could read machine code in some instruction set and write out "equivalent" code in the chip's native instruction set.
The patent discusses some modifications to the hardware to help this process out; however, that help doesn't include directly executing the instructions.
There aren't any "UNIX instructions"; various UNIX-flavored operating systems run on machines that use various different processors. For example, Linux runs on PCs with processors that run x86 instructions. PowerPC machines, Alpha machines, etc. - and some other UNIX-flavored OSes run on Crays, IBM mainframes, etc..
As per the above, the software running on the chip could, conceivably, translate x86 code or PowerPC code or... into native code and run it; some of the hardware assistance appears as if it might be intended to allow even operating system kernel code, which may refer to I/O devices in a fashion similar to the way it refers to memory, to be translated and run, so it might be that a system with PC-like peripherals, and a chip that implements the invention described in the patent, running software that can translate, say, x86 machine code, could run an operating system intended for an x86-based PC, whether it be Windows 9x, the x86 version of Windows NT, the x86 version of Linux, the x86 version of Solaris 2.x, the x86 version of BeOS, etc..
I think the claim that it might be "a chip that can run anything and everything" is a bit extreme - most chips can't, by themselves, run much of anything, as they need additional chips to connect the CPU chip to memory, an I/O bus, etc., so if you built a system with such a chip and a Mac-like set of peripheral chips, it might not be able to run an operating system for an x86-based PC, as some of the "support chips" might be different.
If the operating system running on the system containing that chip included code to emulate a foreign operating system, it might be possible to run applications for an operating system for machines with a different processor chip, e.g. a Linux machine with that chip and some kind of MacOS emulator, plus software to translate 68K or PowerPC code to native code, might be able to run MacOS applications, as well as native Linux x86 applications if the software also included stuff to translate x86 code to native code.