Nice idea. However there's one thing that you missed: AMD64 bit processors enable to run x86 32bit code without modification (same goes for Intel). That means in this scenario there is no translation involved - the CPU executes the 32bit instructions directly and OS just supports this scenario (it's similar to running 16bit applications on 32bit processors).
The truth is that on Mac OS X there is this translation technology being able to run PPC binaries on x86 (the thingy is pretty complex probably). However it doesn't work on all of them and I doubt it would be easily licensable to project like this. But one never knows. There are already things to base such work on: PearPC as PPC emulator and some others probably exist for other HW platforms.
Best regards
Radovan Skolnik
-----Original Message----- From: ros-dev-bounces@reactos.com [mailto:ros-dev-bounces@reactos.com] On Behalf Of Rick Langschultz Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 5:43 AM To: ReactOS Development List Subject: [ros-dev] Universal Kernel?
Hey everyone,
I have a feature suggestion for version 1.0 or later... I think it would be called the universal kernel. The kernel could be compiled and made to run on various architectures: ia_32, ia_64, PPC, XBOX, PPC64, etc. The computer would translate natively compiled files from other systems into ia_32 or ia_64 code. I know that Windows XP (64 bit) uses WoW which allows 32 bit programs to access 64bit memory or something like that. This way reactos could be installed on a variety of systems with one installation disc instead of a flavor of that disc. Just a suggestion for the future... Rick Langschultz rlangschultz@cox.net (Home) rlangschultz@ellemaespa.com (Work) rlangschultz@email.uophx.edu (School)
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