The core concept behind SOM is using unique chalcogenide materials that perform double duty as both the memory cell and the selector device. In traditional phase-change or resistive RAM, you need a separate component, like a transistor, to act as the selector to activate each cell. Conversely, the chalcogenide material in SOM switches between conductive and resistive states to store data.
I don’t know. Probably? It’s certainly currently far more active. Last time I looked at it, it wasn’t suitable for running in bare metal, which MINIX is. But I haven’t looked in a few months, so it could be now.
I think virtual memory was the big blocking issue in MINIX, although my current desktop has way more memory than I’ll ever use, so maybe it’s worth looking at again. Still, it never had the contributor support to advance it beyond a teaching tool, and Redox appears to be farther along here.
There are some tools I won’t do without, and that’s probably my biggest blocker. But, yeah - I have high hopes for Redox. I wish they wouldn’t focus on bespoke windowing and just adopt Wayland, or X even (although the latter would be an odd choice). Seems like a lot of work going into something that’s very limiting, and it smells a lot like a terminal case of NIH syndrome. I’ll admit I’m not following the project closely, though; I could be wrong.