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No Operating System
by: Paul Siegel
Imagine a computer with no operating system. If you can do that, you can imagine a computer that is extremely difficult to hack into. A computer that is almost immune to viruses. A computer that rarely crashes. Too good to be true? No, such a computer has been invented. Eric Hauk and Eric Uner, 2 former Motorola engineers, invented this computer. They became so frustrated and annoyed by hack attacks and by all the time they wasted installing software patches, that they decided to change their server. Instead of an operating system, they designed a chip storing a "kernel" of only about 4 Kilobytes of code. They founded Bodacion Technologies Inc. (http://www.bodacion.com) to market their computer, which is called Hydra. This is essentially the same idea that is used for medical devices and for game-playing machines like Nintendo. Nintendo rarely breaks down even though young hackers are constantly trying. Why is an operating-system-less computer more sturdy than one with an operating system? What do many viruses do? Once they get into the system they manage to modify operating-system instructions to kill the whole system. But if operating-system instructions do not exist, or rather they exist in hardware, they cannot be modified. Result: a computer you can depend on. Of course, this tremendous reliability comes at price. Why does the operating system have millions of lines of code? To increase the flexibility of the computer. This is why such computers are called general purpose computers. Without the O.S., the computer loses this flexibility and becomes one that is tailored for a given purpose. Producing many tailored non-O.S. computers is now worthwhile in order to achieve greater reliability. It seems to me that this new technology is better than it appears to be at first blush. It may even be used to make general purpose computers more resistant to viruses. If a non-O.S. computer were used as an input-output device for a conventional O.S. computer, it could kill viruses before they reach the conventional computer. I believe that non-O.S. computers have a great future! About the Author Paul -the soarING- Siegel is a provocative Internet speaker and author of HELPFULNESS MARKETNG, a book stressing learning, cooperation and community. Learn about it and also get your ebook reviewed at http://www.learningfountain.com/. Subscribe to newsletter, LearningFOUNT, by sending blank email to: mailto:LearningFOUNT-subscribe@topica.com.

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