[comp.emacs] How Can Emacs Run When Memory Starved?

david@WUBIOS.WUSTL.EDU (David J. Camp) (02/12/91)

I have had problems with long delays using emacs, when it got swapped
out after a period of inactivity.  I suppose it simply took too long
to reload 1MB of program from the disk.

I suggest that the GNU operating system support a special provision
for interactive jobs.  Whenever a job receives input from a tty, it is
assigned interactive status.  This will give its memory pages a
priority over non-interactive jobs.

For example, a page used by an interactive job can age more slowly
than one for a noninteractive job.  This will allow users to pause
for a while, without losing their place in memory.  -David-

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