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From: geoff@ITcorp.com (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: /dev/drum???
Message-ID: <1990Nov8.090719.22576@ITcorp.com>
Date: 8 Nov 90 09:07:19 GMT
References: <10193@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Organization: Interrupt Technology Corporation, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 16

In article <10193@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> whelan@huey.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu
(The Obscure Guru) writes:

> 	I was recently perusing the /dev directory on a next
> when I came upon the entry /dev/drum.  This seemed a bit odd, I thought
> that drum memory went out of fashion long, long ago.  The man pages
> didn't have anything to say about drum.  Does any have any insight
> on this odd device entry?

Well, drums used to be popular for swapping, since they were too small
for useful file storage but very fast.  So instead of /dev/swap, you
had /dev/drum.  System V now has /dev/swap, but BSD still uses
/dev/drum.  Since Next is BSD-derived and many applications have
/dev/drum wired in, this device provides access to the swap file.
-- 
	Geoff Kuenning   geoff@ITcorp.com   uunet!desint!geoff