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From: gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Don Gillies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Why do application partitions exist?
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.062709.8177@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 91 06:27:09 GMT
References: <1991Feb5.182501.4325@wam.umd.edu>  <1991Feb6.085236.15677@sol.UVic.CA> <39068@cup.portal.com> <91041.160007CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Lines: 18


There exist systems (Xerox Star) where every new stack frame is
allocated from the heap.  These systems have blazing fast memory
managers, to make procedure calls suitably fast.  In the Xerox
implementation, all stacks shared a fixed pool of frames (this was
necessary to get fast allocation).  You could still run out of stack,
without using up the entire heap.  But then again, stack overflow was
a system error, not a memory smash, as it is in current mac
applications.


Don Gillies	     |  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
gillies@cs.uiuc.edu  |  Digital Computer Lab, 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana IL
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"UGH!  WAR! ... What is it GOOD FOR?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"  
	- the song "WAR" by Edwin Starr, circa 1965

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