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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs AmigaDOS
Message-ID: <8050@killer.Dallas.TX.US>
Date: 9 May 89 01:03:17 GMT
References: <5664@microsoft.UUCP>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 45

in article <5664@microsoft.UUCP>, t-stephp@microsoft.UUCP (Stephen Poole) says:
> I am certainly no big Windows fan and am not defending it.  You, however,
> completely missed the point.  Windows is a more intelligent OS in that it
> demand loads code and resources.  In terms of memory management in general
> it certainly qualifies as a second-generation PC operating system,
> regardless of other problems it may have.  Overlays on the Amiga are a
> laughable substitute for VM or demand loading.

From the Manx "C" documentation:

" +O[_I_] option: The linker now handles segmentation (overlay) using this
option. THe executable code in the object modules that follow will be
placed in code sgement _i_. If _i_ is not specified, use the first
empty segment number. If the segment already exists, append the code
to its end. When segments are used, the linker generates a reference
to the symbol .segload which is defined in a library module,
_segload.o_. This module MUST be in the root segment for the program
to function properly. The module is also available directly in the
_lib_ directory.
   
  "Segments are loaded into memory as needed and remain in memory
until explicitly removed by the program. The program does this by
calling the _freeseg()_ routine with the address of a function which
is in the segment to be unloaded.

  "For more information, see the new Code Segmentation section of the
Technical Information Chaptor."

So, Mr. Microsloth, does this sound a lot like what Windows is doing?
I don't know if AmigaDOS itself supports segmentation of this sort,
but Manx "C" certainly does, and for quite a while Manx was the choice
of the developer community (until Lattice came out with 5.0... I don't
know if 5.0 has a similar functionality, not having used Lattice).
Amiga programmers haven't generally used this capability, probably
because most Amiga programs run quite well in 1 meg of RAM (the Amiga
has not yet spawned the mega-program, although Excellence and its ilk
are coming close).  In any event, all that's required for this kind of
thing is an OS that allocates all data structures and programs
dynamically, the OS doesn't necessarily have to directly support it.

--
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