[ih] vm vs. memory

[Dan Cross]

On Tue, Oct 24, 2017 at 3:42 PM, Brian E Carpenter
<brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/10/2017 01:12, Paul Vixie wrote:
>> Joe Touch wrote:
>> ...
>>> IMO, they’re no more a stop-gap to networking than VM is to memory.
>>>
>>> But we’re digressing from the original thread...
>>
>> that's hard to say, but i've forked the thread anyway.
>>
>> vm is an example of something that started as a workaround but
>
> I disagree with that evaluation. It started in practice with the
> famous "one-level storage system" paper from Manchester**, with the
> specific goal of making a small high-speed memory look like a much
> larger one. I don't think it was viewed as a work-around, but rather
> as a brilliant engineering solution to the high cost of high-speed
> memory, vastly easier to use than explicit overlays.
>
> **One-Level Storage System, T. Kilburn, D. B. G. Edwards, M. J. Lanigan, F. H. Sumner, IRE Trans. Electronic Computers EC11(2), April 1962, 223-235.
>
> Full disclosure: I am biased. Frank Sumner was my M.Sc. supervisor.

The VM system in Atlas was, apparently, controversial. Rob Pike said
that the decision to put VM (in Paul's sense) into Plan 9 resulted in
raising his boss's ire, due to a bad experience with Atlas:
https://marc.info/?l=9fans&m=111558822910429&w=2

        - Dan C.