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From: martyl@rocksvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: what does brk do on segmented architectures?
Message-ID: <94@rocksvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Oct-87 13:32:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocksvax.94
Posted: Fri Oct  2 13:32:50 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Oct-87 07:12:23 EDT
Organization: Xerox: Henrietta, NY
Lines: 32
Xref: utgpu comp.os.minix:1696 comp.unix.wizards:4329

What should brk do on a segmented architecutre (like the 80286) without a 
linear address space.

If a process wants to change its memory allocation, what should break do
across segment boundaries (I'm really looking for a means to malloc/free 
memory blocks rather than just change a pointer to the top of the processes
virtual address space -- I don't see how this works on 286 machines).

Or would it be more meaningful to do something along the lines of the Sys V
shared memory stuff where a process could allocate additional regions as
additional private memory blocks).  Then the process would be reasponsible
for its own memory management by mallocing/freeing blocks as needed.

I suppose brk could be implemented across multiple segments, but some standard
set of conventions would have to exist between the operating system and the 
client programs.

Any ideas?

What do other 286 Unixes implement?  (I don't have access to any real 286
unixes yet).

marty leisner
xerox corp
ARPA:  leisner.henr@xerox.com
UUCP:  martyl@rocksvax.uucp

-- 
marty leisner
xerox corp
leisner.henr@xerox.com
martyl@rocksvax.uucp