1. A method for achieving a protected space in an operating system of an adaptive computing engine, the adaptive computing engine comprising hardware computing matrices that are configurable, each of the configurable hardware computing matrices comprising a plurality of heterogeneous computational units each including a plurality of computational elements and an interconnection network between the computational elements having interconnections that are configurable to configure the computational unit to perform a function, the plurality of heterogeneous computational units including a first type of simple computational units and a second type of complex processing computational units, the method comprising: receiving a demand for an element of the operating system outside of the protected space to have a function performed by the adaptive computing engine by configuring the interconnections of the interconnection networks between at least the computational elements of at least the first type of simple computational units and the second type of complex processing computational unit; configuring at least one of the hardware computing matrices to verify that the function can be performed without adverse effects by configuring its interconnections between its computational elements of its respective computational units; causing a resulting denial or allowance of access to the element of the operating system outside of the protected space for performing the function dependant on whether the at least one of the hardware computing matrices verifies that the function can be performed without adverse effects.