Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Lies, lies, they're telling us lies... Message-ID: <8779@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: 30 Nov 89 23:28:53 GMT References: <5003@nigel.udel.EDU> Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 31 in article <5003@nigel.udel.EDU>, acm131@eric.ccs.northeastern.edu (Craig Scott Lennox) says: > In Message-Id: <544@xdos.UUCP> Doug Merritt > writes: >> There's nothing wonderful about being forced to break huge data structures >> into smaller 64K chunks. Nor for code, for that matter. > Well, according to the IBM rep, there *is*. ... But he said that segmented > architecture makes multi-tasking more efficient, because to change context > you merely reload the code, data, and stack segments. Instead of copying the > entire contents of page zero, out and in, etc. etc. First of all, nothing I've heard of in recent times needs to copy page 0 in and out. Who'd do something that foolish? Multifinder? In any case, that would be multitasking programs never designed to multitask in the first place. Real multitasking on the Amiga doesn't require anything like that for a context swap, and no modern UNIX would either. This guy is obviously a salesman, and I bet he's not a bad comedian either... On the other hand, you might ask him what happens to segmented architectures when you want virtual memory, like under OS/2. It's much the same reason they added paging (though rather primitive compared to the '030's paging) to the '386 and use it under real operating systems like UNIX. He might not know, but based on the lines he's fed you so far, it's a fair question and I'd like to hear the answer he comes up with. >> Doug -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Too much of everything is just enough