Why not produce a chip that could store all the read-only parts of an operating system on an on-board chip or PCI card. All personallised parts can be stored on the hard-drive and any updates could be used to flash the chip. The chip could use flash memory and upload this to the onboard memory to increase speed, a constant charge could keep the information in the memory (If power failure - reloads into ram). The benefits will be * copy-protection (if implemented properly)* Read-Only protection (stops some viruses)* faster load times (instant OS)
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For an OS such as Windows, it would be costly to have Flash memory (at current prices, nearly $300).
Not easy for M$, but Linux has been there, done that. You can burn a CD today with a Linux image which stores user data on the HD, but otherwise leaves the HD alone. Puppy linux even writes changes back to the CD using the multi-session feature.It's a nice idea, but it hasn't set the world on fire.
This already exsists. They are usually called thin clients, because a readonly OS is only realy good enough to get it up and running and get the hardware functional, then it will start pulling the programs up from citrix or terminal services. Look at wyse terminals. They can save time, but they have some huge down sides. Lets say you are one person... you have to learn all this just to run a single PC?! No dice, you would scare people away. Lets say you have 1000 computers you have to look after... traditional setting your computer boots up, you login to the network, if the server is down, it will still login (WinXP) and you will have limited access, atleast you can still get something done. With a thin client if the server is down, so are all 1000 computers... and they are ALL calling YOU at the same time. Not fun. Your concept has been tried many times and ways, and I wouldnt touch it with a 10 foot pole.
As for using a flash card as a hard drive... its all fun and games until you figure out that flash cards go bad very quickly and are not made to be used for reading data all the time. I have 2 servers that use these, and they work well... until a flash card goes bad... the nice thing is its up real quick because all I have to do is pull the card and put in a new one. I suspect you could RAID 0 mirror the cards for added reliability.... but this may make them go bad faster.
Ben