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From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Why do application partitions exist?
Message-ID: <1991Feb6.135730.4792@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 91 13:57:30 GMT
References: <1991Feb5.182501.4325@wam.umd.edu> <48874@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: University of Illinois at U-C
Lines: 26

In article <48874@apple.Apple.COM> stevec@Apple.COM (Steve Christensen) writes:
>While you do occasionally need to tweak the partition size, it's usually set
>correctly for most applications, and if it's not, a quick change in the Finder
>will fix it permanently...

How much memory do you have in your mac, Steve?  8 meg? More?  It's easy
to "fix applications permanently" when you have a lot of RAM to play with.
It is a much bigger problem for all those people with 1M and 2.5M machines.
(I see this from both sides, having one Mac at 8M and one at 2M.)

If *I* were going to revise the mac's memory management model (and the tooth
fairy were doing the programming), I'd want:

1. Protection
2. Dynamic partition sizing (with perhaps min and max limits)
3. Virtual memory

In that order, too.

Dynamic partition sizing would help all those people with 68000 macs, for
whom VM is useless, and who are the most likely to be tight on memory
anyway.  (4M of memory is $200; that's a sizeable chunk of change compared
to a $900 Classic, but is hardly worth noticing on a $10000 fx.)
--
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu  UUCP: uunet!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!s-dorner