Computers with Multiple Personalities
Friday, October 3rd, 2003Maybe the Mac/Windows/Linux fight will be a non-issue in the future. Intel has announced that they are working on a chip to be ready in about five years that will allow one computer to easily use more than one operating system at a time. While that is possible now with programs like Virtual PC, these “emulators” tend to be slow and cumbersome. The new chip, code-named “Vanderpool” (who comes up with these?), is being designed to signficantly streamline the operation of such emulators and eliminate the speed problem.
So theoretically, in the future you could buy a Dell or an Apple Powerbook with both Windows and the Mac operating systems installed, and just switch to the system you need at any moment. I say “theoretically” because these kinds of plans sometimes don’t work out, either because the technology is more complicated than anticipated, or the operating system companies make “improvements” to their software that break the cross-compatibility. But we can hope!
The article is at New Scientist magazine online at /www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994215.