🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec16.043917.1193@cc.umontreal.ca> kosmatoo@JSP.UMontreal.CA (Kosmatos Odisseas) writes:
>I was wondering whether there are any plans on supporting virtual memory
>with MultiTos. Virtual Memory seems like a great feature. Example, with
>v.m. one will never have to worry about their terminal program's capture
>buffer getting full. Now, I have a feeling MultiTos does not yet support
>v.m. because nobody seems to have mentioned it as one of its features.

There is no VM at the moment. However, the ideas on memory ownership in the
current version of MiNT are what is required for a basic VM implementation.
I would guess that it's just a matter of time before it's added, but I guess
that Eric has other priorities right now!

>(At our university, we have tons of 16Mhz,68020-based workstations for the
> first-to-third year students that use virtual memory THROUGH A NETWORK,
> [meaning no local hard disk, a virual memory page swap has to be done 
>  through a busy network] and run quite well. You NEVER (ever) have to
> worry about running out of memory.

Not quite true -- you can run out of swap space on the server, and there is
a limit to the total amount of memory a process/user can have. And swapping
over the network is still much slower than swapping onto a local hard disk.

>------- topic 2 -------
>
>Another topic I was wondering about was whether MiNT (and thus MultiTos)
>does the following: When a program is loaded, say program X. If the program
>is loaded again in another window / by another user / by a background shell
>script, will the operating system notice that it is already loaded and just
>use the copy in memory (but having a local stack and program pointers)
>or will it load the program all over again (thus wasting precious primary
>memory)?

You mean sharable code segments? A good idea, but there are problems with
programs that use self-modifying code. I hope that these are few and far
between (because they'll cause problems with processor caches as well).
Llamamtron is an example of such a program -- the sample replay routine is
self modifying :-(

Perhaps there could be a bit set in the program header to indicate that its
code can be shared... Eric?

>"''''" Odisseas Kosmatos "'"'' kosmatoo@jsp.umontreal.ca "'"''" My Idol. Please

Mat

| Mathew Lodge                      | "What think you, my lord, of... Love?" |
| mjl-b@minster.york.ac.uk          | "You mean rumpy-pumpy?"                |
| Langwith College, Uni of York, UK |  -- Blackadder II                      |