miguel@eng.umd.edu (Frank San Miguel) (06/05/90)
I've been reading the c.s.a since A3000 was announced and I still haven't heard an adequate description of memory management on the A3000. There was some mention of _ENFORCER_ option, but I don't know what this is. Question: The 68030 has a nifty MMU which supports multiple levels of mappings. It seems like it wouldn't be a big deal to provide memory protection using the MMU - not real virtual memory, just some protection so GURU is less heard from. The memory allocation routines would have to be changed, but the mapping would be done transparently. When I asked my local dealer this question, he said memory protection is on its way in future revs of the OS, but that "memory protection is VERY hard to do." I don't get it - there are alot of tricky things about operating systems, but it seems that memory protection deserves a fair amount of attention from system designers, especially in a multitasking machine like the Amiga!!! Since I haven't done any low level programming on the Amiga, I assume I've missed something. Are there are problems with chip ram, addressing of the custom chips, or compatibility problems. Can anyone (Commodore included) shed some light on this subject? - Frank San Miguel