Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!intelhf!ichips!ichips!glew From: glew@pdx007.intel.com (Andy Glew) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Be Prepared... Message-ID: Date: 23 Feb 91 04:17:10 GMT References: <7517@uceng.UC.EDU> <12064@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Sender: news@omews63.intel.com (News Account) Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon Lines: 25 In-Reply-To: lindsay@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu's message of 23 Feb 91 00:25:25 GMT One of perennial topics in the OS world is the latest idea for using memory. I don't see why other problem domains shouldn't also find ways to spend memory. -- Don D.C.Lindsay .. temporarily at Carnegie Mellon Robotics Anecdote: Gould NP1 was supposed to be a massive memory system. It was not supposed to be shipped with less than 256 megabytes of memory. This was based on the company's chief technical guru's projections of where DRAM prices were headed. But then the DRAM drought occurred, when all the US companies got out of memory production, and DRAM prices and densities stayed nearly level for a few years. The first NP1's had to be shipped with "only" 64 megabytes. Cutting the kernel down so that a 16 megabyte system was useable was a thorny project. The NP1 UNIX team used a lot of those ideas for using cheap memory. And then memory wasn't so cheap anymore... -- Andy Glew, glew@ichips.intel.com Intel Corp., M/S JF1-19, 5200 NE Elam Young Parkway, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124-6497 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com