http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7377063.stm
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Interesting. I remember the mainframes I worked on at Burroughs back in the 60's & 70's implemented the instruction set with a resistor-based read-only-memory about the size of a shoe box.
They definitely weren't anywhere close to zero boot time, but they were pretty fast. Burroughs had a firm patent on head-per-track hard drives that were deadly quick. Zero head seek time, just rotational latency. Average latency on the fastest was around 5 milliseconds! We just LOVED to do disk benchmarks against IBM (or anyone else).
A wee bit has happened since then. :D This stuff looks pretty cool. Wonder when we'll see it.
Not trying to top anything but don't say IBM too loud cos I remember replacing those big ugly 10" or was it 12" platter hard drives and cabinets of tape stores. I worked for all the competitors at around that time except Burroughs which was considered to have one of the best stack systems going such as Vax and Univac, Honeywell, Dec et alles and kindof presided over, at my last job, the demise of the last 4 IBMs. Not because they weren't doing a good job but mainly because skilled people to look after them were in short supply and of course, expensive. The comms were the main stumbling block or just getting them to talk to another machine mostly and that's one of the reasons I had to learn machine code and Cobol. I gave up on them midlife and went back to my first love datacomms and networks which were just getting into real high speed radio at rapidly increasing frequencies. Lots of stuff to interest me in there after I was Cisco'd and plenty of lucrative jobs with good terms and 1st class worldwide travel.
:rotfl:
Shish, we could go on for hours, but the whippersnappers around here would likely chase both of us out on the back porch. :jester:
If I ever get back to your funny little island, I will make it a point to find my way to Gateshead, by the Tyne.
Sure thing Paratima.
I just remember that even the last ones were big enough to get inside though lying on your back across a couple bracing bars trying to plug that last loom in was the final straw for me. 4 hours for one plug and socket? Not funny and that was only a couple years ago. Actually, you'd mebbe be surprised at the number of guys around a lot of well known forums that are still making a good living from the beasts and not that old either.