Having cut my UNIX teeth on the JHU 11/45, I can tell you very much that
it did have split I/D. V6 supported split I/D for user mode programs.
The kernel originally wasn’t split I/D. Version 7, if I’m recalling
properly, did run the kernel split I/D on the 45 and 70.
------ Original Message ------
From "Kenneth Goodwin" <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
To "Will Senn" <will.senn(a)gmail.com>
Cc "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" <tuhs(a)tuhs.org>
Date 8/3/23, 5:05:31 PM
Subject [TUHS] Re: Split addressing (I/D) space (inspired by the death
of the python... thread)
At the risk of exposing my ignorance and thus being
events long long
ago in history....
And my mind now old and feeble...
😆 🤣
1. I don't think the 11/45 had split I & d.
But I could be wrong.
That did not appear until the 11/70
And was in the later generation 11/44 several years later.
2. The kernel determined it by MMU type and managed it solely. The
assembler and loader always built the binary object file as the three
sections - instructions, data and bss spaces so loading an object file
could be done on any platform.
Programmers generally did not worry about the underlying hardware
3. I don't recall if a systype style system call was available in v7 to
give you a machine type to switch off of.
With something like that you could determine memory availability hard
limits on the DATA/bss side if you needed to.
But that was also easily determined by a allocation failure in
malloc/sbrk with an out of memory error.
If you really needed to know availability, you could have a start up
subroutine that would loop trying to malloc ever decreasing memory
sizes until success and until out of available memory error.
Then release it all back via free(). Or manage it internally.
As I recall however vaguely, there was an attempt to split the kernel
into two pieces. One running in kernel mode and one running in
supervisor mode in order to double the amount of available instruction
and data spaces for the operating system. I recall playing around with
what was there trying to get it to work right.
I was trying to support over 200 users on a pdp 11/70 at the time
running a massive insurance database system.
On Thu, Aug 3, 2023, 4:35 PM Will Senn <will.senn(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>Does unix (v7) know about the PDP-11 45's split I/D space through
>configuration or is it convention and programmer's responsibility to
>know and manage what's actually available?
>
>Will
>
>On 8/3/23 12:00, Rich Salz wrote:
> > What, we all need something to kick now that we've beaten sendmail?
> > How about something unix, ideally a decade old?
>