Re: Mac running Windows XP operating system

Richard Tomkins wrote:
The machines do not have dual processors.

The machines have Core Duo processors. This architecture is in fact a chip
with two CPU cores. It is a little bit fancier than a processor with two
execution units or pipelines.

What you want, Windows and Mac OS X both available at the same time is
probably going to be feasible. The CPU may lend itself to facilitating this
type of functionality.

Basically, one OS could host the other OS. This was how DOS was run with
Windows. Windows hosted DOS and each running DOS instance was run in it's
own Virtual Memory Space. The Intel architecture supports this natively.

I believe that MVS from IBM, also hosts various OS's and has done so for
years.

I first came across MVS in that context over 25 years ago. The idea was that we could have replicated our own copy of DOS/VSE and layered software on an MVS system if we lost our own data centre.

But IBM mainframes have also supported hardware partitions for at least that long, so you could have, for example, separate versions of the same OS running concurrently on the same system.

I've heard stories more recently of IBM's current offering, z/OS (essentially MVS with a new name), running multiple instances of Linux.

While with Digital I was aware of a project called Galaxy, which does
something very similar. Here is a short description
OpenVMS Galaxy enables multiple instances of OpenVMS to execute
cooperatively in a single computer, giving customers the ability to manage
unpredictable, variable, or growing workloads. With OpenVMS Alpha Version
7.2, customers can configure AlphaServer 8400, 8200, and 4100 systems as
OpenVMS Galaxy systems.


I saw my first Galaxy in production use in 2001, running on a 24 CPU GS320 (the generation following the 8400). The Galaxy system provides both hard and software partitions.

With hardware partitions it is possible to run different OSes concurrently (e.g. Tru64 and VMS, and presumably had the Windows Alpha port not been cancelled at a late stage, that too). Software partitions allow multiple instances of VMS to cooperate and share resources with dynamic switching of hardware resources between instances to cater for workload peaks.

So, depending on how Microsoft engineers Virtual PC, they could facilitate
this kind of operation.


Galaxy is implemented using a combination of hardware and firmware, plus hooks in the OS, so it depends where MS want to take their product. I don't know what if anything exists in Dual Core technology to support either hard or soft partitions.
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Relevant Pages

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