New Chips Might Lead the Next PC Revolution

摘要

Part of the PC's longevity as a tool for serious work is due to its versatility. On the surface, it is a completely different machine than the one spec'd out by IBM back in 1981, yet the hardware and operating software work in fundamentally the same ways. Running Windows, it is still possible to drop down into a command line that looks and behaves like the original DOS, which can still run many of the applications from 25 years ago.rnUnder the covers, however, virtually everything is different. A processor that began with eight bits of addressable space and running at 4.77MHz now has up to 64 bits of address space, up to 3GHz of speed, and multiple processor cores. The memory buses themselves can run up to 600MHz.