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posted by martyb on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the matryoshka-dolls dept.

Softpedia reports

The ReactOS project recently showcased on YouTube [that it's] possible to virtualize the Mac OS X 10.4 operating system on their free and open-source Windows alternative operating system.

Our "Watch" series of articles continues today with a very interesting one where you can see Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger running inside the ReactOS computer operating system, which we believe has come a long way, and it's beginning to look like a viable alternative to Microsoft's Windows 7 or Vista operating systems, perfect for desktop computers and laptops.

The latest release, ReactOS 0.4.8, showed us last month that it's now possible to use Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows Vista software on the free and open-source operating system that's binary compatible with computer programs and device drivers made for Windows.

It also introduced initial support for reading data from NTFS formatted drives, a new app similar to the DrWatson32 software for Windows, some user-visible changes like support for balloon notifications in the system tray area, and support for unmounting network drives directly from the file explorer.

The video is available on YouTube


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Friday May 11 2018, @05:02AM (2 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday May 11 2018, @05:02AM (#678267) Journal

    There does not exist a single Turing complete computer in this universe. All existing computers have finite memory, but a Turing machine has an infinite tape. You cannot simulate an infinite tape with finite memory.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday May 12 2018, @03:16AM (1 child)

    by darkfeline (1030) on Saturday May 12 2018, @03:16AM (#678683) Homepage

    That doesn't really matter, because there is neither infinite time nor infinite energy in the universe, so even if you had infinite tape, you would still be limited to using a finite amount of that tape.

    Furthermore, there is no useful application for having infinite memory. Presumably, you want to do something valuable that's not just twiddling bits on an imaginary tape for eternity, which would require the program to reach a decision and halt. So all programs that would ever be run would only use a finite amount of memory. A program that halts does not require infinite memory.

    Even in the realm of theory, a computer has to compute something, not just move bits around forever.

    While the Turing machine is formalized as having infinite tape, a Turing machine only needs an arbitrarily large finite tape to decide.

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    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday May 12 2018, @11:44AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday May 12 2018, @11:44AM (#678780) Journal

      Furthermore, there is no useful application for having infinite memory.

      The point is not that you'll use all the infinite amount of it, the point is that you never run out of memory to use. For any computer, I can give you a problem it cannot solve simply because it has not enough memory. A Turing machine could solve that same problem because thanks to its infinite tape it has access to unlimited memory.

      Or in short, it's not the actual infinity that's relevant, but the potential infinity.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.