Rebirth of the Tech Madman

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While the big guys are looking forward to the macro layout, the younger guys are down-to-earth to fight for the market share in front of them.

For example, there are new trends in the field of operating systems, the platform closest to the hardware in terms of technical architecture.

Although the towering branches of Zheru are densely leafed, other trees can also obtain the sunshine and nutrients necessary for survival and growth in the gaps. Its skills include low-price competition in marketing, technical support of multiple hardware platforms, etc. Wait.

It is in such an environment that Microsoft and Novell started to complain more and more because of the network operating system in the mid-1980s.

Microsoft's ms-dos is a crappy product, not to mention the network function, which gives Novell's netware an opportunity. At its peak, it claims to occupy 90% of the ibm-pc platform market. Share.

Microsoft, who was jealous but couldn't compete, simply moved his hands and feet in ms-dos to achieve the purpose of not wanting to step on my shoulder and grab food.

Novell has long been prepared to replace ms-dos with another disk operating system, Gary Kildare's dr-dos, to provide netware with booting and boot functions, and to exempt users from licensing fees for this link.

This is simply hatred on top of hatred, and hatred on top of hatred.

Gein, when the Blue Giant was looking for an operating system for ibm-pc, he first found Gary Kildare, and then Gates took advantage of it. What is right and wrong here, it is estimated that the person involved is not clear now, only the heart disease is left.

It’s a pity that, compared to Microsoft’s prosperity, the owner of dr-dos, the digital research company, has become worse and worse, so Novell simply acquired it in 1991, and since then it has its own GM. operating system.

In addition to ibm-pc, netware can also run on hardware platforms such as Apple computers and unix computers.

However, Novell was not satisfied. In this year, it acquired unix_system_laboratories-the unix system laboratory or usl.

It was originally part of Bell Laboratories when it was first established. Until 1990, it was merged into another department of Bell Laboratories-unix_software_, and became an independent subsidiary. The organization, ownership and management rights are all vested in unix_software_. The parent company of Bell Labs is owned by American Telegraph and Telephone Company.

The unix system laboratory is mainly responsible for the development and license release of unix, but in fact there is nothing to do. The most famous toss was in 1992, it sued Berkeley software design for unix-related intellectual property rights. The company and the University of California Board of Trustees finally settled out of court this year.

It is estimated that American Telegraph and Telephone Company felt that it could not squeeze any oil and water from Unix, so it simply sold the Unix System Laboratory.

Through this transaction, Novell has obtained all Unix assets including all copyrights, trademarks, and the right to issue licenses, which further fills the territory of the general operating system. The threat to Microsoft is growing.

In this favorable situation, Novell began to introduce the latest version of its competitive product netware this year, that is, the fourth edition. The catalog service function, powerful and practical, has attracted widespread attention.

In the face of novell's steadily pressing from network operating system to general operating system, Microsoft put the counterattack on the latest operating system with built-in network functions-windows_nt_3.1, and officially announced it at this year's comdex spring show in Atlanta, Georgia. .

windows_nt_3.1 and windows_3.1 are completely different products. The former is a brand-new operating system. The target application groups are servers and workstations, and it is the first product in the series. The reason why it is called "3.1" is completely Because the latter is quite successful in business, this has played a little bit of marketing tricks on the version number.

In addition, the R&D team of windows_nt_3.1 is also very different. It is composed of a group of developers from dec company, and many specific implementations reflect dec’s early successful experience on vms, which makes Microsoft stand on the shoulders of giants. on.

In addition to the built-in network functions and native support in windows_nt_3.1, Microsoft does not give the survival ground for Novell's netware, but also devotes itself to hardware support.

Through the use of hardware_-the hardware abstraction layer or hal in the design, windows_nt_3.1 hides the various cpu instruction set structures and the differences of the various hardware platforms in each structure in the kernel to achieve platform independence .

Therefore, in addition to supporting Intel's x86 series microprocessors like ms-dos and windows, windows_nt_3.1 also supports risc microprocessors, such as mips's r4000 and dec's alpha-the latter is particularly noteworthy.

Although the development process of dec's alpha is relatively bumpy and the launch time is relatively backward, once it came out, the smoke of the risc microprocessor war spread to the 64-bit cpu battle.

Because the industry has been fighting on 32-bit risc microprocessors for more than ten years, the alpha of dec has made the competition more fierce.

At this stage, there are at least four risc microprocessors that have transitioned to or are in the process of transitioning to 64-bit-in addition to the alpha of dec, there are also the ninth generation sparc of Sun Microsystems, the fourth generation holder of Zheru, and ibm As for the third-generation power of RISC, mips, another pioneer in the field of risc, is obviously behind.

Among these competitors, the strength of Sun Microsystems is undoubtedly the weakest. Therefore, in order to expand its market share, it adopted the most relaxed license system and granted the specifications of sparc to Fujitsu, Panasonic, Philips, Texas Instruments, and A Companies of all sizes, such as Mdell, ICL, American Merchants, and Ross Technology.

Now, although the specifications of the ninth-generation sparc have been released, Sun Microsystems will have to wait for some time to produce the finished product, and it may even lag behind the rb-authorized compatible manufacturers.

The strength of ibm is naturally far more than that of Sun Microsystems, but because it is ambitious to enter power into the desktop computer market, and then formed a power_pc alliance with Apple and Motorola, so it inevitably separated some of Power. Resources, resulting in the third-generation power is also some distance away from the finished product.

The strength of dec, an established manufacturer, is not inferior-not so strong that its ambitions are so swollen that it is difficult to control the situation, nor is it so weak that it cannot be undertaken on its own from design, manufacturing, and even marketing.

In this case, the alpha microprocessor can be described as a blockbuster. The evaluation software score of its first mass-produced model alpha21064 directly exceeds the power of ibm and the holder of philosophers.

Of course, this result is in terms of single-chip cpu.

In fact, ibm's power and philosopher's holder all support multi-cpu connection, plus the peripheral optimization of the supporting chipset, operating system, database, etc., from the perspective of the overall system of server and workstation, it does not mean that dec is Alpha can crush everything in the market without a brain.

But it is undeniable that it is made with a 0.75 micron process and the operating frequency can easily exceed the alpha of 200mhz. The gimmick with the fastest cpu is indeed very popular and easy to make a fuss-Tang Huan attaches great importance to it.

In the eyes of the richest man, the background can be traced back to power in the 1970s. It is the most technically threatening. Unfortunately, IBM has dispersed its forces to engage in power_pc, and it is still in alliance with Apple and Motorola. The three parties are not one family after all. Blindfolded by the lard of ambition.

The sparc of Sun Microsystems is open to customers without hesitation, and it is difficult to create a truly grand pattern.

It's the alpha of dec, maybe it's possible to rely on 64-bit and the fastest trick to come back.

However, just as many years later in the original time and space, amd took the lead in launching a 64-bit x86 architecture compatible microprocessor. It has been a great success for a while, but Intel, which has more financial and technical reserves, can easily catch up with it. Kicked down and walked past easily, the holder of philosophers will be able to officially launch the fourth generation immediately, letting the alpha of dec retreat from the halo.

You know, under the layout of the richest man, holders of philosophers have advantages in technology, capital, market, third-party vendor support, etc., which competitors are extremely jealous of, but cannot match.

ibm deliberately engages in power_pc, and wants to send power to the desktop computer market. Fortunately, it is back in the field of personal computers, but the latest five-generation personal computers have begun to try to introduce the holder of this product branch, directly in risc personal computers. In computer products, it left Apple.

In the support and optimization of operating systems and databases, holder has the inherent advantage of being "a family".

The reason why dec’s alpha is ahead of 64-bit is not because of the lack of philosophers’ strength, but because in addition to the new instructions, processing units, cache, superscalar, etc., holders also need to consider the maximum compatibility with 32-bit architectures. Times, a considerable number of applications have been accumulated.

This is an extremely valuable resource, but sometimes it often becomes a heavy burden on technological innovation-and dec's alpha is a brand new product, so there are not so many worries.

For this "pain and happiness" technical problem, Tang it’s suggestion is to solve the virtual machine-the fourth generation holder adds a special design to the instruction architecture, Zheru’s high-end operating system-Vientiane, and then in the application program interface Make corresponding optimizations on the above. After all, the prices of memory and hard drives are not as high as they used to be. This ancient technology is rejuvenated by new wine in old bottles.

When Tang Huan inspected holder's R&D progress, he saw that the engineers under his command were about to break the test system.

On a server with 8 holder microprocessors in parallel, in the host operating system-Vientiane, five guest virtual machines are running at the same time, two of which also use the Fangyuan workstation of the Vientiane operating system~www.wuxiaspot.com~the other three A virtual PC using operating system and freedos.

Anders Heelsberg said with shining eyes: "Teacher, this is simply opening up a new application model."

"You see, the client virtual machines a and b of these two virtual Fangyuan workstations act as database servers, the World Wide Web and the e-mail server, respectively, and the client virtual machines c, d, and e of the three virtual Fangyuan personal computers act as the old ones, respectively. The fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer, the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer mmx, and the latest fifth-generation Fangyuan personal computer-completely using software technology to simulate a network composed of five hardware computers in reality. In contrast, solving compatibility is simply Just do it easily."

"Don't try to use this as a selling point, it's too advanced." Tang Huan typed a command casually and launched a cyber attack, which completely caused this gorgeous and almost exaggerated demo system to collapse.

"The actual application environment is tens of thousands of times more complicated than the laboratory." Tang Huan said leisurely: "What's more, our customers don't want to buy a few more computers. What they want is absolute stability and compatibility."

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In early August, on the occasion of Tang it’s birthday, the fourth-generation holder of the 64 architecture was officially released.

Among them, only entry-level CPUs used in the holder branch product line of the fifth-generation Fangyuan personal computer, the purchase price per 100 pcs is 3750 US dollars; the purchase price per 1000 pcs is 1875 US dollars; the purchase price of higher quantities is 1575 US dollars.

As a result, Tangit’s wafer fabs all over the world suddenly became tighter in production capacity, which affected the previous chips. So various chip foundries moved after hearing the wind, and it almost broke the threshold of Cupertino in Silicon Valley.