Re: Some words of encouragement

[David Given <dg@cowlark.com>]

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On 25/02/12 20:29, Brad Normand wrote:
[...]
> Basically, yes.  It'd be a 4GB virtual address space, but could be
> backed by a real 4GB RAM if there was appropriate hardware.  Otherwise
> it could be backed by swap.

If you're going to simulate virtual memory you'll need to tell the OS
when you've *finished* using a segment, so that it can save it to disk
again.

Both GEOS and PalmOS did this. You'd allocate a block of memory from the
system and get a handle; to actually use the handle you'd have to lock
it, and then unlock it again when you were finished. If you changed the
contents you would have to dirty it.

int handle = Allocate(100);
char* ptr = Lock(handle);
*ptr = 0;
Dirty(handle);
Unlock(handle);

It worked very well. GEOS used it for both persistent storage and
virtual memory simulation. You could open a multimegabyte document and
the data would be invisibly loaded on demand; from the API point of view
you got a persistent heap in a file. Lovely system, died due to being
impossible to write code for and lousy marketing.

http://www.breadbox.com/

(Free evaluation version, requires DOS.)

Of course, they both used object handles rather than simulating a flat
address space.

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