> If you aim for 0 compatibility, perhaps even can design your cpu, could an OS be much simpler?
Yes, but a lot (possibly most) of the benefit is likely to be from dropping bug-for-bug compatibility with defects of preexisting operating systems and instruction set architectures individually. (Like x86 segmentation or unix tcsetattr/termios, for a pair of very obvious examples.)
For paging specifically, you'll have something functionally equivalent unless your system is deficient in the same ways a 6502 is (no virtual memory or memory protection). You might come up with something functionally equivalent but better, but if so that would be a novel discovery (either in the scientific sense, or in the sense of "I discovered a research paper from 1960 that solves this problem trivially as long as you have larger than 6-bit bytes and more than 64K[0] of RAM.").
0: Something like four rooms of vacuum tubes in 1960 money, which is why it never caught on. (/not-even-all-that-s)
The last part of this comment is brilliant. There may be large swathes of outstanding old research that had requirements that back then were out of reach but are now entirely mundane and easily achievable (even if they still wouldn't have a hope of reaching mainstream because of compatibility).
Yes, but a lot (possibly most) of the benefit is likely to be from dropping bug-for-bug compatibility with defects of preexisting operating systems and instruction set architectures individually. (Like x86 segmentation or unix tcsetattr/termios, for a pair of very obvious examples.)
For paging specifically, you'll have something functionally equivalent unless your system is deficient in the same ways a 6502 is (no virtual memory or memory protection). You might come up with something functionally equivalent but better, but if so that would be a novel discovery (either in the scientific sense, or in the sense of "I discovered a research paper from 1960 that solves this problem trivially as long as you have larger than 6-bit bytes and more than 64K[0] of RAM.").
0: Something like four rooms of vacuum tubes in 1960 money, which is why it never caught on. (/not-even-all-that-s)