News - The "systemic computer" that repairs itself and never crashes

[HEXUS]

A great innovation for combat droids?

Read more.

[aidanjt]

Reads to me like micro-kernel and rubbish scheduling.

[JSanders]

what will happen if windows is installed?

[ionicle]

Terminator....?
Skynet?....?
Paranoia?...

[crossy]

what will happen if windows is installed?

I think it already has, after all the article said "The new systematic computer works in a more chaotic fashion than traditional sequential computers. Rather than using a program counter, the systems are executed at times chosen by a pseudorandom number generator, designed to mimic nature's randomness, explains the New Scientist."

Certainly the copies of Windows I've used have decided to do various things (Windows 7 backup and antivirus scans being my own personal favourites) at times that seem to be pretty damned random. And my tower pc (gaming pc) also has developed a "lovely" (sarcasm) habit of deciding to implement a power saving hibernation at crazy times - like in the middle of an A/V scan.

Windows slagging aside (it's just too easy) surely the self-healing really relies on having spare capacity somewhere. So to take the example given in the article, the hard disk can "repair" failing sectors by mapping that data to unused capacity held back for that reason. On the other hand, if some component in the drive electronics fails then your drive is DOA.

Wasn't there some talk about adopting some "fail resistant" strategy with a minimal kernel (heresy to Microsoft) and "optional" service tasks. So if a service task fails then the kernel is able to skip it or reload. Last article I read on this even suggested using some technologies from the various hypervisors that are out there and embed the kernel in the same way that BIOS is.

Self repair is probably possible (to a varying extent), but a crash proof computer strikes me a perpetual motion type device.

And what woudl John Connor say ...?

[3dcandy]

Nice to see the olde Amiga getting a pictorial mention

[simonpreston]

The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

[hapilynvraftr]

Furthermore the scientists are now “teaching the computer, via machine learning, to adapt to its environment”.

Well this is the start.

[zap117]

as long as hardware can still fail there will be no such thing as "crash proof" computers.

[JKL]

fixing problems whether they be hardware or software related is part of the fun in owning a computer, who amongst us has never had that eureka moment when you boot a previously dead PC and it springs into life ..... YES !