Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

Keith, Mac G5 & Hypertransport: In the past, Apple has been known to put x86 coprocessor cards in the Mac so that the same machine can run Windows applications concurrently. Don't know if they have any such product right now.

With a Hypertransport motherboard, it would be real easy to implement an MP system that has an AMD processor to run Windows and a G5 for Mac OS. Especially since each processor gets its own local memory. You would not enable the ability to read/write remote memory (which means a low cost Athlon64 would be sufficient), instead loosely coupling the processors so that they can share data through a DMA operation over aHT, probably in the form of IP packets. One processor would act as the I/O service processor (in addition to its other duties) so you would need a simple mailbox protocol to service I/O requests.

No significant work needs to be done to the two OSs because they each have full control over their environment. You just need some driver work to manage the I/O mailbox protocol and one OS needs to host the window for the display of the other OS (or they can each be given the own monitor on a dual-head video card). The keyboard and mouse input goes to whichever OS has the cursor focus.

That product just begs to be developed! :)