Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cimshop!davidm From: cimshop!davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Getting memory protection? (Re: Programming MS-Windows vs. Amiga) Message-ID: Date: 9 Mar 90 18:29:23 GMT References: <5763@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> Sender: davidm@cimshop.UUCP Organization: Consilium Inc., Mountain View, California. Lines: 32 In-reply-to: wayneck@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM's message of 8 Mar 90 20:10:33 GMT In article <5763@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> Wayne C Knapp writes: Memory protection is worth a lot when it comes to reliablity. If I were starting out today I would never use a multi-tasking computer that didn't have hardware memory protection. I don't fault you for this position. The thing is, though, that the Amiga developers didn't start out today. At the time, the tradeoffs that led to the Amiga were probably very reasonable. The main complaint against the Amiga in this thread seems to be lack of memory protection. The question now, therefore, becomes, given the current state of the system, what is the logical STEP-BY-STEP approach to getting memory protection into the system without breaking 95% of everything that has gone on before? As a silly first shot, what about software memory protection in the form of a task running as a resource manager (a la AREXX)? Those processes following the "standard" for software memory protection will not crash the machine due to a protection violation. Other processes that aren't written according to this standard will still work, but may cause problems. "Peer pressure" can then be used to get them to conform. Ultimately, this software memory protection might be movable to hardware in the form of an add-on board to achieve better performance and, yet, early Amigas could still reap the benefits. -- =================================================================== David Masterson Consilium, Inc. uunet!cimshop!davidm Mt. View, CA 94043 =================================================================== "If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"