11 Aug
2010
11 Aug
'10
10:45 a.m.
The PDP-11 is inherently a 16-bit-pointer machine; it has no concept
of 32-bit pointers, so it is always either in the x86 small or the x86
tiny model.
I guess it's logical that after the years, intel could at least make *some*
improvements....
On DEC's operating systems, you could indeed set
up overlays
that allowed code to be swapped in and out, either to disk or to unmapped
physical memory (much quicker!) However, AFAIK ld(1) never provided that
capability to userspace, although the technique is used inside the kernel.
In any case, such tricks don't help with data space, which is strictly
limited to 64K.
And that pretty much seals the deal. Oh well, it's amazing how big things
have grown over the years....!
--
There is / One art John Cowan <cowan(a)ccil.org>
No more / No less http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
To do / All things
With art- / Lessness
Thanks anyways!
Jason