> As users ask for more features the the hardware capabilities will increase > dramatically and home-grown microcontroller derived code plus minimal OSes > will be > replaced by a 'real' OS. Because both developers and users will demand IPv6 > compatibility, or Bluetooth connectivity, or storage support, or any random > range > of features we have in the Linux kernel.
There are already tiny OS's with that feature set but they don't feel Unixish and aren't quite so fun to program. > Even taking the 1MB size at face value (which I don't: a networking enabled > system > can probably not function very well with just 1MB of RAM) - the RAM-starved 1 > MB > system today will effectively be a 2 MB system in 2 years. Probably not - I may be wrong but power and what you can and can't put on the same die are likely to mean that small RAM devices are here for a while and in fact the CFO will be ordering the engineers to get it in less RAM to save 20 cents a unit. > And yes, I don't claim Moore's law will go on forever and I'm oversimplifying > - > maybe things are slowing down and it will only be 1.5 MB, but the point > remains: > the importance of your 20kb .text savings will become a 10-15k .text savings > in > just 2 years. In 8 years today's 1 MB system will be a 32 MB system if that > trend > holds up. Power means it's more likely IMHO that todays 256K RAM system will in a few years be either a 64K RAM system or have tons of persistent memory. Alan
