hmm.. what would it take to make this happen?

[virus1]

so here is my idea. this would be mostly for the mac pro, but possibly for other macs, and i know this is not possible with the current hardware, but maybe with a few revisions...

so imagine this: you are working, and you realize you need to use windows (for some reason...) now you open up an app and press "boot windows on processor B". then, in the case of the mac pro, the second core duo is taken away from osx, and off another internal hd, windows boots onto it. then you can use windows (natively), and possibly even switch between it and osx on the other processor. then when you are sick of it again (that was fast.. ), you turn it off, go back to osx, and through that app, tell it to use processor b for osx again.

now think about what a computer has, and what would make this possible. a computer has a processor (mac pro already has 2 of), a hd (mac pro has many of, one of which could be for windows), a keyboard, mouse and screen (switchable through a software controlled KVM switch(or whatever it is called))and now come the two difficult parts. the missing parts are the motherboard and the graphics card. the mac pro has space for another graphics card (i think), and the motherboard would have to be installed.

so the biggest flaw i can see is weather or not two computers can share a motherboard, and i doubt they can. the question is, is it possible to modify that? is it possible to seperate the computers but include switches to the main motherboard?

now i am sure my plan has a huge number of flaws, (and i know a bunch of them), but how does the idea sound? expensive? impossible? can the flaws be worked out? does it seem like something apple might do with the mac pro in the future? more importantly, call me an idiot! question my sanity! flame me!

enjoy yourselfs.

 

[After G]

The problem is not the availability of hardware, it's really how to split it. Someone more enlightened than me on this subject may care to put their two cents in, but there's a level in software at which the OS communicates with the hardware, and it's really hard to emulate, at least from what I've heard. VT-X on Intel is the start of it, but there's a ways to go.

The graphics card isn't really a problem, as most modern systems can run more than one. OS X can run 4 video cards (if the right ones are picked). It shouldn't be too much of an issue to run one on another OS.

The motherboard ... splitting some things may be difficult. I don't see your idea as undoable. It would be nice ... but then someone would have to do cut-copy-paste and other interaction between them ... that would get messy.