Behind the technology - the business (Score 2)

I concur, and I would advise reading of the DETAILED DESCRIPTION if you scroll the page down a bit.

What is interesting is that they appear to have created a CPU capable of running applications designed for one of many target systems (Intel x86/Pentium, PPC, Postscript and Java even) by buffering the instructions, optimising them, and then checking their execution for errors before execution occurs. Quite brilliant and mind-bogglingly complicated.

Note the business-angles hinted at: speed and optimisation come at significant cost; cost of producing any microprocessor is out of reach of most companies (inferring a mass market), large number of applications written for many targets (Windows, java, etc.), problems associated with traditional thinking with regard to optimization and parralel processing.

To create a microprocessor which overcomes the above at viable cost to both manufacturer and customer would be enormous!

Just think of it, you're running the Transmeta CPU which is running some OS, and running Office 2000 through it and knowing that the CPU will trap any problems before they occur! This is a hardware VM-Ware!

Ooh I'm drooling already!

James Green