h a l f b a k e r yViva los semi-panaderos!
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When you switch on your PC it takes so long before you can actually use it. You can delete programmes from the startup folder (in Windows) but still there are some programmes that are necessary to start the computer.
Why isn't it possible to make a computer that you switch on and immediately use, instead
of waiting for all these standard programmes?
OnNow
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/onnow/
Baked. [egnor, Aug 07 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]
(?) BeOS
http://free.be.com
The Be Operating System usually is 5 times faster than Windows in booting. [lockle, Aug 07 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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...or, is there a way of having the computer work immediately after power-up without putting the OS in ROM (like all the computers I had up until the early 80's)? |
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Well, my palm pilot has no boot up time. Anyone know how that works? I suspect that it's because everything except the built-in stuff in ROM is in some sort of RAM, and that the battery just keeps that going as long as it can between chargings. |
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No, your Palm just never actually turns off: When you "switch it off", it actually only just turns off the screen, and slows the CPU down to a crawl. It's more "in suspended animation" than switched off.
As for switch-on-and-play, don't laptops do that already? |
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Even a desktop PC "never actually turns off", because the real-time clock, at least, keeps running. (Newer PCs also keep parts of the power supply, keyboard, and even network interface cards running.) |
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The line between "actually turning off" and "suspended animation" is fuzzy. Does the screen turn off? Does the CPU halt? Is the dynamic RAM allowed to decay? Does the power supply still draw a trickle? |
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The real issue has nothing to do with whether the computer is "really off" or not, but with whether the computer can be quickly switched in and out of a mode where it doesn't make noise, doesn't generate heat, and doesn't consume too much power. |
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As a secondary problem, desktop computers often need to be fully rebooted to put them into a known state (usually after a system crash of some kind). Arguably this should just be fixed. (Even on a Palm, a hard reset takes a while, but it isn't much of an issue because you hardly ever have to do it.) |
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Of course, the Microsoft answer to this is to switch the computer into standby or sleep mode instead of rebooting or shutting down. |
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This is very ironic- since Windows doesn't always recover completely from Sleep mode, which means you have to reboot anyway! |
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If MS Windoze takes so darn long to boot, then PC manufacturers should consider adding NVRAM or EPROM chips to their boards. While you probably wouldn't be able to load the entire OS (tons of memory- think of the size of the Windows directory) we should at least be able to load the kernel onto some form of RAM or ROM chip. |
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This could possibly also mean you wouldn't need to reboot after any major system changes or updates. Simply rewrite the info to the chip and go. |
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Gee! on an MS system, that means you'd only have to reprogram or replace the ten or twenty EPROMs every six months or so. |
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One of the major problems with boot time is Legacy connections (PCI, ISA etc.) .. they are slow and take up time when booting, guess the mother board is scanning them, assigning IRQs etc. etc. |
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Recently I've been getting motherboards with EVERYTHING built it (graphics, sound, network etc.) .. they boot in seconds, all the way through to desktop stuff, and they crash less often. |
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Good luck with compatibility or trying to upgrade or replace something... |
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It's true that much of the Windows
(and possibly even Linux) boot
time is spent probing for sundry
ISA hardware. |
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In defense of the "legacy-free"
systems HoTWire refers to, they're
perfectly compatible and
expandable. Instead of using a
card-edge connector, you're
plugging in USB, FireWire, or
Ethernet connectors. |
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A Firewire video card? An Ethernet sound card? |
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I've seen SCSI framebuffers (for old macs that had only a scsi port for expansion), so a firewire one seems great by comparison. |
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USB speakers are already quite common, StarChaser; they accept digital input and perform the D/A conversion themselves (which is nice 'cuz it's away from the interference hell of a PC case), so that's basically a "USB sound card". |
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And what's so implausible about a FireWire video card, anyway? It's already used for digital video; it doesn't seem like a big leap to use it for GUI output as well. |
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Card-edge connectors have a lot of pins, and a motherboard backplane is flat and small, but there's really nothing magical about a PCI bus that lets you do things you can't do with other interfaces. Latency is the only real issue, and on the scale of a foot or two that's really only a problem for RAM. |
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Why don't you just put your machine on standby all the time? There is no reason why you should not be able to switch on and go if you just always keep it on standby. |
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this idea should be retitled "why does windows suck so bad?" |
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Since there are already millions of websites dedicated to that, no, it shouldn't. |
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Raskin demonstrated with the Canon Cat, that truly instant on isn't necessary. Apparently it takes a person about eight seconds to mentally adjust to the computer being ready and begin. (apparently it's not something that people notice themselves -- it has to be externally timed) |
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He achieved the 'instant on' effect by putting a screen shot of how the computer had been left onscreen immediately. Then the Cat took about six to seven seconds to finish booting up, but users didn't notice that. |
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By the time they were ready to begin, so was the machine. |
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(as for the known state discussed above, a 'safe' RAM dump ought to be left to speed this up) |
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Could you wire the computer to the room light switch or the morning coffee maker? That way it is already halfway booted up by the time you drunkenly or sleepily stab the not quite fake "on" switch. It could then shake a hula doll or sing a little song to distract you has it finishes booting. |
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la la la la la la la or doobie doobie doo |
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