I was thinking about these Dual Core computers. The way I understand
it, they have TWO processors built into one CPU. I also know that Win98
and earlier OSs cant use both of them, and can only use one. I'm not
sure if Windows 2000 can use both cores, but know that XP and above OS's
can.
My goofy thinking got me asking if it's possible to run two Operating
systems at the same time, ONE ON EACH CORE. For example, run Win98 on
one core, and run XP on the other. I have a feeling I already know this
is not possible, and also think the output on the screen would be
confusing, if not as total mess. But I just am curious if any of this
would be possible. It would be great to be able to load EX: W98 and XP
at the same time, and be able to toggle between them without having to
reboot (as in a a dual booted system).
No, I don't think that will work all that easily. Maybe
if you could find a virtual machine software for Win98,
you could run your multiple OSes. But that still isn't
going to harness more than one core (both OSes will be
time sharing or taking turns on the one core).
The problem with two OSes, is each would have an I/O driver,
would think they own the registers on the peripheral chips.
Interrupt routing would be a problem. Maybe if there were
two storage chips, one storage chip could be given to each
OS. It might require a custom design of the motherboard, to
get it closer to the realm of the possible. The chips would
still be shared though, and there'd be fights about
that aspect (two OSes writing to one set of registers,
like when using USB logic blocks).
*******
Microsoft made rules for how many cores could be used,
so they would still be able to sell the more expensive
server versions of OSes. The available metrics are
"sockets" (your motherboard has just one), and "cores"
(a CPU can easily have four of those and still be
reasonably priced). Even years ago, you could get
a desktop motherboard with two S462 sockets for
Athlons, and that's how you could get multiple cores
at the time.
WinXP is licensed by sockets. You could build a WinXP
desktop using a dual G34 server motherboard, as WinXP Pro
is allowed to run with two sockets. Each socket would have
something like 16 cores with a G34. And I think that would
just about hit the limit on graphs in Task Manager. So by
licensing by sockets, Microsoft probably didn't realize
just how many cores would end up being available that way.
It would be lunacy to run a desktop that way, because a
lot of the hardware is going to waste most of the time.
The only thing that would use all 32 cores, would be
something like the Cinebench benchmark. (Even the Microsoft
FSX Flight Sim, might not be able to use 32 cores, and so
some cores on average, would be idle.)
On Win2K, the license is by cores. If you were the proud
owner of a Q6600 quad on an LGA775 motherboard, and happened
to have Win2K sitting around, even though there was only
one socket on the motherboard, you could only use two of the
four cores. Another possible hardware configuration, would
be something like a dual Athlon motherboard, where there is
one core per socket. Since the system totals two cores in
that case, the OS uses all of the hardware present.
As you can see, that Win2K license was overly restrictive.
*******
Someone made a hardware setup, where two users could
share a single computer. The video card can support
two monitors. And somehow, they managed to give each
user one connector of the video card (so the video
card was rendering for two user desktops at the same time).
There were two keyboard and two mouse inputs.
Jetway MagicTwin
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/jetway,924.html
There's still only one OS there. And the computer
is like a mainframe, with two users sharing it.
You can see how small businesses would lap that
story up, as a means of cutting their cost in half.
It's not quite that simple though. Amazingly,
Jetway is still in business (but probably not making
MagicTwin type motherboards any more).
Paul
