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34 Comments
- deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9"nice to know a grammar nazi showed up"
Well, for those of us that take the time to write clearly, it's a bit frustrating to read comments that read like t9-typed text messages.
I know -my- writing is not perfect, but it's at least as good as most comments I've read. I'll be the first to admit that I've thrown down an ocassional 't3h' and 'l337', but in response to (fair) criticism, I don't anymore.
Just write clearly. It makes it easy to discern 'tone'. All of us have (our should have) heard about the study that found that misreading tone leads to flaming. If more people wrote clearly, less 'nazi's' would complain, less people would flame, and the signal to noise would go up, and Digg would kick more ass.
werd. - DataPath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think the "instantaneous boot" is probably a victim of poor tech reporting. They're describing a chip that "boots instantly", but they're not describing an operating system booting - they're describing power-on-to-ready time, which would only shave, most likely, nanoseconds off a computer's boot time.
No - instantaneous boot on the desktop needs technologies like nvram, and solid-state (low-latency high throughput) storage - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"The only place where instant boot would be cool are in laptops."
There are millions of applications where this would be awesome. Any of the million embedded applications. The sleep mode in procersors would be much improved. You only apply power to the processor when you need to run something or process some type of interupt. Fundementally the processor would not need to be powered. The processsors inputs are just excited when processing needs to take place.
To many people on digg feel like technology and processors are only used on a "computer" i.e. with Windows, Linux, OS X, etc. You are thinking much too narrow. Think of the implications to all the other millions of devices that use microprocessor, microcontrollers, pics etc. - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I think the 'instantaneous boot' is probably a victim of poor tech reporting. They're describing a chip that "boots instantly", but they're not describing an operating system booting - they're describing power-on-to-ready time, which would only shave, most likely, nanoseconds off a computer's boot time."
You didn't get one of the points of the article then. This technology would be a non-volatile storage device. Except now every Boolean gate inside your processor is non-volatile. Each gate remembers it's state until it is changed regardless of whether or not power is applied.
With current NVRAM technologies you still need to read the NVRAM and initialize the processor to it's correct state based on the contents of NVRAM. This technology would completely remove that step.
Also this is a huge advance for the space industry if it does take off. Where top of the line processors are about 15-20 years behind the times. We still have a long wait before this technology would be applied in the general computing industry. We developed transistor based NAND and NOR gates long ago, but the fundemental building blocks are there. - ApokalypseNow, on 07/09/2009, -0/+2EIN REICH, EIN VOLK, EIN GRAMMATIK!
- jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This technology is so much more promising than quantum processor *****.
- Kaioshin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, sure. As long as the whole operating system was on this chip, yes. But wouldn't that also be true, if the whole operating system was on a ROM chip as well (EEPROM, or something)?
And doesn't any current of electricity that would have to go though a computer cause a magnetic field? Wouldn't this require a new design of computers; that is - no wires? I suppose that's the least problematic; but the smaller the magnets, the less it takes to frak them up. - Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Embedded systems from OEMs really need "instant boot" options.
- snoopjizzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Consumer Device Implementation. anyone like staring at "Nextel" for 15 seconds while their phone starts?
- Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We have had the technology to "instant boot" PCs for over a decade, but we haven't gotten around to implementing it on a wide scale. Populate a suitably large NVRAM system with a memory image of your OS once booting completes, then dump the NVRAM into local memory when you turn the PC on. No problem.
- John184, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1nothing 10lbs of magnetic sheilding can't fix.
- snoopjizzle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Intels Robson Technology anyone?
- buss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0awesome, totally awesome
- ohsh1rt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yeah, but, will it have a clear side panel and cathode lights?
-jeffrey - aMillionAndNine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I didn't notice any mention of when this idea would be feasible to implement. I am guessing that it will be a long time. Sounds too good to be true in the near term.
- StealthTomato, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Meh, if it ain't any more expensive, then why ain't we usin' it?
If it is...it might drive the cost of traditional proc's down...
Win-win! - SweetsGreen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0deceptive title
- kalisphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"not affected by power interruptions!"
Oh, #$%^ing great. Now if the OS crashes, even a power cycle won't fix it? - BitSlash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0so... will this add another magnetic sensitive device in our computers? I mean, what will happen if it gets too close to an electromagnet?
but, awesome nonetheless. +Digg+ - dwhitbeck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The chip boots up fast by remembering its state when it was shut down, but how fast does it process? No mention of that in the article.
- spxiii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0All PCs are computers, but all computers are not PCs.
My car has a computer in it. So does my dog. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Solid State Magnetic Memory has been used since the beginning of electronic computing - all these people have done is make magnetic memory smaller. There are issues with data corruption of magnetic memory - any magnetic field can cause damage, and these ICs are unlikely to be any different.
I've been booting my machines "instantly" for years - a couple of large EPROMs (which are much faster than any hard drive), and I can get from off (not "hibernating" or "standby") to a fully running KDE desktop in under 3 seconds. The slowest parts are loading user parameters from the hard drive or from flash RAM.
In all, this "news" story is very old news, so no Digg - coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0zbeast said:
"The only place where instant boot would be cool are in laptops."
"My desktop machine is never turned off so I don't have to worry about boot time there ever."
You've never used a Mac laptop have you? They will happily sit for a month on standby and wake up in around 2 sec. This is why you rarely see a PowerBook being rebooted. They've worked this way for years too. - enog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I think the "instantaneous boot" is probably a victim of poor tech reporting. They're describing a chip that "boots instantly", but they're not describing an operating system booting - they're describing power-on-to-ready time, which would only shave, most likely, nanoseconds off a computer's boot time.
No - instantaneous boot on the desktop needs technologies like nvram, and solid-state (low-latency high throughput) storage"
From Article: "Computers using the magnetic chips would boot up almost instantly. The magnetic chip's memory is nonvolatile, making it impervious to power interruptions, and it retains its data when the device is switched off."
it states that COMPUTERS would boot up almost instantly, not just the chips themseles. Either way, seems very cool and they can cut down my boot time in any way, it's a good thing for me. - sanman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It also sounds like it would be lower on power consumption, due to the magnetic nature of it. Chips are the power-hogs of computers, after all, and if this thing uses less power, it makes it all the better for portable computing devices.
- matx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0PCs are only as fast as the slowest conponent, so a hard drive would slow it down anyways
- matelot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0about bloody time
- your_mom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0that would be AUSUM!!!
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0The only place where instant boot would be cool are in laptops.
But being that most new laptops are 2.5 ghz or faster.
Boot time is not much of a factor.
If by adding this feature it causes a product cost Increase I could do without.
My desktop machine is never turned off so I don't have to worry about boot time there ever. - jodamiller, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs PCs
- mogebier, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Um, I can wait the >1 minute my XP machine takes to boot up.
I know that technology needs to and will progress, but who gives a crap about this until they perfect it and implement it??
Oooo it "might" do this or it "might" do that.
Well, I "might" turn into an 8 foot tall sweedish supermodel too, but I won't write a useless story about it. - snoopjizzle, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1nice to know a grammar nazi showed up
- cgy01, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0yea sweedish ppl are ugly anyway
- mordea, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_apost.html
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