……

While the bigwigs are far-sighted and focused on the macro layout, the younger brothers are down-to-earth to grab the market share in front of them. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

For example, there is a new dynamic in the field of operating systems, the platform that is closest to hardware in terms of technical architecture.

Although the towering tree of Zheru has dense branches and leaves, other trees can also strive for the necessary sunlight and nutrients for survival and growth in the cracks, relying on their skills including low-price competition in marketing, multi-hardware platform support in technology, and so on.

It was in this environment that Microsoft and Novell began to grow in the mid-1980s because of the network operating system.

Microsoft's MS-DOS is a crappy product, not to mention network functions, which gives Novell's NetWare an opportunity, which at its peak claimed to occupy 90% of the market share.

Microsoft, which was red-eyed but couldn't compete, simply moved its hands and feet in MS-DOS to achieve the goal of not wanting to step on my shoulder and grab food with me.

Novell had been prepared to replace MS-DOS with another disk operating system, Gary Kildare's DR-DOS, to provide NetWare with boot and boot capabilities, and to exempt users from licensing fees.

This is simply hatred on hatred, hatred on hatred.

Gain, when the Blue Giant was looking for an operating system for IBM-PC, first found Gary Kildare, and then Gates took advantage of it. The rights and wrongs in this, it is estimated that the parties concerned can't tell clearly now, and this is left with heart disease.

Unfortunately, compared to Microsoft's prosperity, the owner of DR-DOS, Digital Research, is getting worse and worse, so Novell simply bought it in 1991, and since then it has its own general-purpose operating system.

In addition to IBM-PC, NetWare can also run on hardware platforms such as Apple computers and Unix computers.

However, Novell was not satisfied, and this year, it acquired Unix_System_Laboratories, the Unix Systems Laboratory, or USL.

It was originally established as part of Bell Labs until 1990, when it was merged into another division of Bell Labs, UNIX_Software_Operation, and became an independent subsidiary, with organizational, ownership and management rights owned by the American Telegraph and Telephone Company, the parent company of Bell Labs.

The Unix Systems Lab is mainly responsible for Unix development and licensing, but in fact there is nothing to do, and the most famous time was in 1992, when it sued Berkeley Software Design and the University of California Board of Trustees for Unix-related intellectual property, and the result was settled out of court this year.

It is estimated that the American Telegraph and Telephone Company felt that there was no oil and water to be squeezed out of Unix, so it simply sold the Unix Systems Laboratory.

Through this transaction, Novell obtained all Unix assets, including all copyrights, trademarks and licensing rights, further filling the territory of the general operating system, and the threat to Microsoft is increasing.

In this favorable situation, Novell began to introduce the latest version of its flagship product NetWare, that is, the fourth version, this year, in which the directory service function is powerful and practical, which has attracted widespread attention.

Faced with Novell's step-by-step pressure from a network operating system to a general-purpose operating system, Microsoft put a counterattack on the latest operating system with directly built-in network functions - Windows_NT_3.1, which was officially announced at this year's Comdex Spring Show in Atlanta, Georgia.

Windows_NT_3.1 and Windows_3.1 belong to completely different products, the former is a completely new operating system, the target group is servers and workstations, and it is the first product in the series, the reason why it is called "3.1" is entirely because the latter is quite successful commercially, which is the marketing trick on the version number.

In addition, the R&D team of Windows_NT_3.1 is also very different, consisting of a group of developers hired from DEC, and many specific implementations reflect DEC's successful early experience in VMS, which can be regarded as standing on the shoulders of giants.

In addition to building network functions and native support in Windows_NT_3.1, Microsoft has also been careful about hardware support.

By adopting the Hardware_Abstraction_Layer hardware abstraction layer (HAL) in the design, Windows_NT_3.1 hides a variety of CPU instruction set structures, as well as the differences of multiple hardware platforms in each structure, into the kernel to achieve platform independence.

So, in addition to Intel's x86 series microprocessors like MS-DOS and Windows, Windows_NT_3.1 also supports RISC microprocessors, such as MIPS's R4000 and DEC's Alpha - the latter is particularly noteworthy.

Although the development process of DEC's Alpha was relatively bumpy, and the launch time was relatively backward, once it came out, the smoke of the RISC microprocessor war spread to the 64-bit CPU battle.

Because the industry has been fighting on 32-bit RISC microprocessors for more than a decade, DEC's Alpha has made the competition more and more fierce.

At this stage, there are at least 4 RISC microprocessors that have transitioned to, or are in the process of transitioning to, 64-bit - in addition to DEC's Alpha, there are also Sun Microsystems' ninth-generation SPARC, Zheru's fourth-generation Holder, IBM's third-generation POWER, and MIPS, another pioneer in the RISC field, is significantly lagging behind.

Among these competitors, Sun Microsystems is undoubtedly the weakest, so in order to expand the market, it adopted the most lenient licensing system, and granted SPARC specifications to Fujitsu, Panasonic, Philips, Texas Instruments, Amdyle, ICL, American Merchants, Roth Technologies and other large and small companies.

Now, although the specification of the ninth-generation SPARC is out, Sun Microsystems will have to wait a while before it can come up with a finished product, and may even lag behind RB's authorized compatible vendors.

IBM's strength naturally far exceeds that of Sun Microsystems, but because it is ambitious to enter the desktop computer market, and then has formed a POWER_PC alliance with Apple and Motorola, it inevitably divides some of POWER's resources, resulting in the third generation of POWER is also a long way from the finished product.

The strength of DEC, a veteran manufacturer, is neither strong nor inferior - not so strong that its ambitions are so inflated that it is difficult to control the situation, nor is it so weak that it cannot afford to rely on its own efforts from design, manufacturing, and even marketing.

In this case, the Alpha microprocessor can be described as a blockbuster, and its first mass-produced model, the Alpha21064, directly surpassed IBM's POWER and Zheru's Holder in the evaluation software.

Of course, this is in terms of single-chip CPUs.

In fact, IBM's POWER and Zheru's Holder both support multi-CPU connection, coupled with the optimization of supporting chipsets, operating systems, databases and other peripherals, from the overall system of servers and workstations, it does not mean that DEC's Alpha can crush everything in the market without brains.

But it is undeniable that Alpha, which is manufactured with a 0.75 micron process and can easily run at a frequency of more than 200MHz, holds the gimmick of the fastest CPU, which is indeed very fashionable and easy to make a fuss - Tang Huan attaches great importance to it.

In the view of the richest man, the technical background can be traced back to the 1970s POWER, which is the most threatening in terms of technology, but it is a pity that IBM has dispersed its forces to engage in POWER_PC, and it is also a so-called alliance with Apple and Motorola - the three parties are not one after all, and they are simply blinded by the lard of ambition.

SPARC of Sun Microsystems, which is not afraid to open the door to customers, is also difficult to create a real big pattern.

However, DEC's Alpha may rely on 64-bit and the fastest trick to make a counterattack.

However, just as a few years after the original time and space, AMD took the lead in launching a 64-bit X86 architecture compatible microprocessor, which has been in the limelight for a while, but Intel, which has more abundant funds and technical reserves, can easily catch up, kick it down, and easily step over, Zheru's Holder, will soon officially launch the fourth generation, so that DEC's Alpha will recede its halo.

You must know that under the layout of Mr. the richest man, Zheru's Holder has an incomparably unattainable advantage in terms of technology, capital, market, third-party manufacturer support, etc.

IBM is deliberately POWER_PC and wants to send POWER into the desktop computer market, but the latest Fangyuan fifth-generation personal computer has begun to try to introduce the product branch of Holder, and directly got rid of Apple in terms of RISC personal computer products.

In terms of operating system and database support and optimization, Holder has the innate advantage of "one family".

The reason why DEC's Alpha is ahead of the curve in 64-bit is not because Zheru is not weak, but because in addition to new instructions, processing units, caches, superscalar and other features, Holder needs to consider the maximum compatibility with the huge user base accumulated in the era of 32-bit architecture.

It's an invaluable resource, but it can sometimes become a heavy burden on technological innovation – and DEC's Alpha is brand new, so there aren't as many concerns.

For this "pain and happiness" technical problem, Tang IT's solution suggestion is to add a special design to the instruction architecture of the virtual machine - the fourth-generation Holder, and the high-end operating system of Zheru - Vientiane, and then optimize the application interface accordingly. After all, the price of memory and hard disk is not as high as it used to be, and this ancient technology has rejuvenated capital in old bottles and new wine.

When Tang Huan inspected Holder's R&D progress, he saw that the engineers under his command were about to break the test system.

On the server with 8 Holder microprocessors connected in parallel, the host operating system - Vientiane, there are five guest virtual machines running at the same time, two of which also use the Vientiane operating system Fangyuan workstation, and the other three virtual use the operating system studiOS and FreeDOS Fangyuan personal computers.

Anders Heersberg's eyes lit up and he said, "Teacher, this is a completely new application model. ”

"You see, the client virtual machines A and B of the two virtual Fangyuan workstations act as database servers, the World Wide Web, and e-mail servers respectively, and the customer virtual machines C, D, and E of the three virtual Fangyuan personal computers serve as the old fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computers, the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computers MMX, and the latest fifth-generation Fangyuan personal computers -- completely using software technology to simulate the network composed of stage hardware computers in reality. In contrast, solving compatibility is simply a no-brainer. ”

"Don't try to use this as a selling point, it's too far ahead of its time. Tang Huan casually typed in an order and launched a cyber attack, which completely made this gorgeous and almost exaggerated demo system really collapse.

"The real-world application environment is far more complex than the laboratory. Tang Huan said leisurely: "What's more, our customers don't have to pay for a few more computers, they want absolute stability and compatibility." ”

……

At the beginning of August, on the occasion of Tang IT's birthday, the fourth-generation Holder of the 64 architecture was officially released.

Among them, only the entry-level CPUs used in the fifth generation of Fangyuan personal computer Holder branch product line, etc., are purchased at $3,750 per 100 units, $1,875 per 1,000 units, and $1,575 for higher quantities.

As a result, Tang IT's wafer factories all over the world suddenly became tight, so that the previous chips were affected, so various chip foundries moved when they heard the news, and they simply stepped on the threshold of Cupertino in Silicon Valley.