Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!s1!kh
From: kh@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk (Kevin Hammond CMP)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: When will MacOS get virtual memory?
Summary: Is VM really the answer?
Message-ID: <157@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk>
Date: 11 Oct 88 20:06:55 GMT
References: <1526@oakhill.UUCP> <551@dms.UUCP> <8253@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <5721@zodiac.UUCP>
Organization: UEA, Norwich, UK
Lines: 13

Having had some experience of working with VM  operating systems,  I'm
not sure that they really are that wonderful.   Demand Paging perhaps,
to avoid writing overlays (you have something a  bit like this  on the
Mac with the segment loader, I suppose), but  VM?  The problem is that
if you really need more memory than you've got, you will always thrash
(we have this problem with  our Sun workstations,  it makes them  very
slow), and if you don't you don't really have a problem.  Buying  more
memory (or  writing more efficient  programs) usually seems the better
option if you have the choice.  Paging from a floppy or slow hard disk
isn't my idea of fun either.
-- 
Wot? No Signature?			UUCP:	...!mcvax!ukc!uea-sys!kh
					JANET:	kh@sys.uea.ac.uk