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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: Linking Time
Message-ID: <6736@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-May-86 16:12:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6736
Posted: Mon May 26 16:12:26 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 26-May-86 16:12:26 EDT
References: <219@zeus.UUCP>, <5100078@ccvaxa>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 17

> Terry Poot mentions the NS32000's module tables. Does anybody know of any 
> applications that actually USE these modes?

They're unpopular because they're slow.  Even ignoring the linking operation
itself, accessing stuff through the module table simply isn't quick.  It
*is* a bit more compact, but that isn't quite such a concern these days.

A further complication is that the module table is constrained to be in the
first 64KB of the address space.  This means that the issue has to get
thought about early on, so that memory layout will permit it.  In particular,
the resulting layout isn't compatible with the old PDP-11-derived layout that
is popular for Unix ports.  The result is that people tend to decide that
it's more hassle than it's worth.
-- 
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revenue from otherwise-unused	Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
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