Extremely Peripheral Processing Units -- will they work?

[Green Xenon]

Hi:

 

I'm thinking of a computer that does not need a central processing unit. Instead it uses multiple asynchronous peripheral processing units. Does such a PC exist? Can Windows run on it?

 

 

Thanks,

 

Green Xenon

[TonyMcC]

I don't see why not. For various "tasks", some illegal, many computers already work together to achieve a common aim. It seems a simple step to just have many processors connected to the same bus bars and hardware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster

Edited May 1, 2011 by TonyMcC

[Green Xenon]

I don't see why not. For various "tasks", some illegal, many computers already work together to achieve a common aim. It seems a simple step to just have many processors connected to the same bus bars and hardware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster

 

Checked the link. Not really what I expected. I was thinking that this hypothetical PC would have a 1-bit, 1 Hz, asynchronous processing unit for each bit of information that is being "processed". In addition, each of those bits would have their own 1-bit solid-state RAM.

[insane_alien]

soo... transistors?

 

that seems a little but wasteful especially as we could easily build a 1bit computer that would run much much faster than 1Hz.

 

I also fail to see the advantage of 1-bit of cache, typically you want to store more than that.

[Xittenn]

Could you elaborate Green Xenon?

 

What kind of operations do you expect to gain through such a system? Regardless there will still be a dependence on data width unless opcodes are interpreted serially. This doesn't exist and for it to work I think you would be creating a need for more buffers and memory to allow for serial instructions. I'm sure this could become optimized and be made a viable solution, but again it isn't on the standard market and I can't think of an example off of the top of my head.

 

1Hz???????????????

[Green Xenon]

If there are x number of asynchronous peripheral processing units operating at 1 Hz, then is it possible to obtain an effective frequency of x Hz by using all their 1 Hz signals? This is what I'm attempting to accomplish.

 

Also, if x number of bits have their own cache, wouldn't the ultimate result be a cache of x bits?

 

In this hypothetical PC, each processing unit is fixed to 1 bit per cycle. Brainiac processors rely on more bits-per-cycle to obtain a higher effective processing speed. Speed-demon processors rely on a higher processor frequency to obtain a higher effective processing speed. It is important to understand that more Hz doesn't necessarily equate to faster processing.