if computers were designed from scratch today, how different would they be?

[her34]

if the industry got together as a whole and didn't have to deal with any sort of legacy support/standards/backwards compatibility (hardware or software), what would that computer be like compared to current ones?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I'd say they would be silver with an apple on the side

 

[spidey07]

I don't think it would be very different. You still have the basic 3 parts of any computer.

short term memory
processing
storage

Connect these 3 things together (some kind of bus/es) and you have a computer. How different would they be? Well if you look at higher end specialized computers (servers, midrange, mainframe) they are still have those three things without regards to standards - they use their own technologies. It's just more of a modular approach so there isn't really a motherboard, just cards that attach to a very high speed, proprietary bus.

I guess the one thing if they started from scratch would be having higher speed busses that were universal to the computer - a backplane/midplane or matrixed approach. Without backward compatibility you could have a pretty darn good one.

 

[Bobthelost]

It's being done all the time, one of the interesting things is unclocked/asychronous CPU design, UMIST is doing some rather interesting stuff if memory serves.

 

[wwswimming]

i think they would experiment with a hexagonal structure at the 2D level, and the corollary
geometry at the 3D level. i don't think "tetrahedral" would be the right word.

in other words, at the 2D level, 6 sided elements, instead of 4 sided elements.

just because you can pack more into a given space that way.

 

[harrkev]

Well, for one, no such thing as x86 would exist. That ISA has a lot of cruft from still being able to run the original DOS programs. Little-endian architectures should go the way of the dinosaur. The floating-point interface should also be completely re-engineered.

I would also think that inside a new PC, there would only be one kind of screw Not one kind for hard drives and another kind for optical drives. The world needs one standard size screw for mobos, add-on cards, and all drives.

Oh, and video cards would be heat-sink-up on tower cases (yeah, I know. BTX fixes that).

One more thing. A special chip on the motherboard that would kill power if any Microsoft software was detected. Umm, that's for "virus prevention." Yup. That's my story.

 

[Varun]

Neural Networks all the way

 

[helpme]

Originally posted by: spidey07
I don't think it would be very different. You still have the basic 3 parts of any computer.

short term memory
processing
storage

Don't you mean:
Processing
Memory (includes short term and long term storage)
I/O

?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: helpme

Originally posted by: spidey07
I don't think it would be very different. You still have the basic 3 parts of any computer.

short term memory
processing
storage

Don't you mean:
Processing
Memory (includes short term and long term storage)
I/O

?

I guess. It's been so long since I actually had to remember the 3 magic components.


My main point is those 3 would still exist and probably the only difference would be how they are interconnected.

 

[Genx87]

I doubt they would be much different. They may have a different ISA however.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: her34
if the industry got together as a whole and didn't have to deal with any sort of legacy support/standards/backwards compatibility (hardware or software), what would that computer be like compared to current ones?

Wasn't this what IBM did when they made the PPC? They wanted to fix the problems with x86.

 

[f95toli]

Computers ARE being designed from scratch all the time. Supercomputers are a good example since they are often designed for a specific purpose and often do not have to take backward compatability into account.
However, AFAIK no one has been able to come up with a complettely novel archticture that works better than a Neumann computer for most problems (there are exceptions, some numerical problems can be solved by using FPGAs meaning the "computer" is designed specifically for that problem).
Hence, all computers tend to work more or less in the same way.

 

[Loki726]

Originally posted by: harrkev
Well, for one, no such thing as x86 would exist. That ISA has a lot of cruft from still being able to run the original DOS programs. Little-endian architectures should go the way of the dinosaur. The floating-point interface should also be completely re-engineered.

I would also think that inside a new PC, there would only be one kind of screw Not one kind for hard drives and another kind for optical drives. The world needs one standard size screw for mobos, add-on cards, and all drives.

Oh, and video cards would be heat-sink-up on tower cases (yeah, I know. BTX fixes that).

One more thing. A special chip on the motherboard that would kill power if any Microsoft software was detected. Umm, that's for "virus prevention." Yup. That's my story.

I've never heard of any advantage that big endian has over little endian or vice versa. Could someone explain this in a little more detail?

 

[Varun]

Yes other than some coding techniques for humans, I don't think a computer cares one way or the other which way the instructions and data are kept.

 

[Snooper]

There are a LOT of things that could be improved in a new PC (computer is a bit generic...) if it was designed from scratch today with NO concerns about backwards compatability:

Hardware:

1) The instruction set could be complete redone. IA32 (and IA64) have so many limitations in areas like integer and FP registers it isn't even funny. They have done TONS of things to work around the problem, but it is still a huge (and limiting) problem.
2) Things like IRQs and memory mappings would be completely redone. The way resources are allocated on a current PC is just scary.
3) Things like standard serial ports and parallel ports would disappear. (slowly going away anyway)
4) Hardware interfaces would be standardized.
5) The BIOS as we know it would disappear. (they are trying to make that happen now anyway)
6) Hardware based encryption would allow on the fly encrypting and decrypting with no performance hits (ok, slight latency increases)
7) Hardware key would be required to update protected OS files
8) Multicore. Perhaps with specialized cores (no FPU for transaction type processing, Super FTU for math intensive stuff, basic well rounded cores for normal day-to-day applications, etc.)

Software:
1) Standardized driver architecture to work with our standardized hardware interfaces.
2) File system would much improved.
3) Memory spaces for applications would be assigned by OS and ENFORCED by hardware. No more buffer overrun attackes...
4) ALL applications would be multi threaded and completely thread safe. Even if it was only one thread.
5) DLLs would burn in Hell and would NEVER be allowed onto the NewPC! The only external calls would be to OS routines. Everything else would be linked in at compile time. This whole desire to support multiple architectures with one executable (Java) and shrink HD memory space (Windows) has caused a lot more problems than it fixed.
6) Information passing between applications would be strictly controlled and through a robust set of OS routines.
7) Applications would install in ONE location only! This filder/directory/limb/what ever would be the only place it could install components. If it tried to install something anyplace else, it would be killed by the hardware AND software.
8) The OS system and application database (registeryish) would be MUCH simpler than today. And deleting it would NOT cause your computer be unusable. Or your applications. You would just have to remember where things were yourself!
9) Everything would be 64bit compatible even if it only ran in 32 bit space (and it might even be best to make EVERYTHING into 64bit applications/services to simplify the hardware and software)
10) OS would be able to self repair from ANYTHING short of a total hard drive crash (and possibly even that if reduancy is used) with protected areas on the harddrive that store known clean copies of all the OS files.
11) Things like game controllers would be through the standard interface and would allow extreme amounts of flexibility in the hardware design. 2000 analog axis joysticks? Sure. If you have some reason to build the thing... But you won't be limited to "x number of analog axis and y number of buttons".
12) Over all, it is ROBUST and secure! This crap we live with now will someday seem like a sad joke.

 

[byosys]

I'm supprised no one has mentioned this yet but: more focus on hard drive speed, not necessarly capacity. As CPUs, GPUs and even RAM to some extent get (much) faster, harddrive speed has increased much slower than these other components. Also, more focus on fast interconnects and maybe even a "safe boot" built into the hardware where all non essential components were turned off/disabled for testing purposes - no more cracking open the case to see if that new sound card is causing your mobo to crash.

 

[OSX]

Computers wouldn't have IDE in them. Some form of SCSI would be used.

 

[BassBomb]

dont know if anyone said this,

but i guess they could make computers not based any longer on binary, maybe based on hex that would allow alot more data to be stored with less bits as in 1 bit hex vs 8 bit binary..

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
dont know if anyone said this,

but i guess they could make computers not based any longer on binary, maybe based on hex that would allow alot more data to be stored with less bits as in 1 bit hex vs 8 bit binary..

same thing.

 

[byosys]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
dont know if anyone said this,

but i guess they could make computers not based any longer on binary, maybe based on hex that would allow alot more data to be stored with less bits as in 1 bit hex vs 8 bit binary..

If computers were based in hex instead of binary, *everything* would have to be changed from storage form to basic CPU (or any other processor that I can think of) design to output protocals. The only time I've heard about non-binary based computers are quantum computers which are still *at least* a decade away from being useful. If hex based computers had any real and pratical benefits, I would imagine we would have heard something from IBM et al about any research into that direction.

 

[helpme]

Hex, as was stated eailer, is just another representation of a number.

One hex digit is just a way of representing 4 binary digits, not a new method of storing and analyzing electrical signals as information.

 

[f95toli]

...and even quantum computers are based on two-level systems, i.e. they are "binary".

The reason why we are using binary and not hex is that all computers are based on two-state system; to be more specific three-terminal devices (usually transistors) that are either on(1)=current flowing or off(0)=current not flowing.
Hence, binary is a "natural" representation for computers.

However, in principle you could build a computer using e.g. three-state devices but it turns out to be very complicated and AFAIK you do not really gain anything.

 

[zachtos]

New standards would be beautiful:

Standards in cooling: such as standard water cooling layed out in a cheap manner to keep systems cool and quiet.

Link all firmwares/BIOS/drivers/software so they can be updated and routinely checked automatically.

better portable HD standards for travel

security standards, such as built in fingerprint scanning for password/shopping online to help prevent identity theft.

 

[sdifox]

for one I would like to see more enviromental sound hardware. All this crazy stuff we are dumping into China and India is going to kill us eventually.

 

[krotchy]

The only thing I would love to see, no more PCI,PCI-X and AGP. Just PCIe 1x,4x,8x and 16x, and 32x (for future upgrades). This way you can plug anything ito a socket that suits it or a bigger one if you use all your small sockets. Also 32x slots should have double wide ports for intake/exhaust of graphics cards.