glenn@extro.ucc.su.oz (G. Geers [ext 3241]) (09/20/88)
First I guess I should thank everyone who sent replies either on the net or by mail. It looks as if I stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest ! I am still curious as to why the designers of Microport omitted segment swapping (despite the bugs in the 286) ? I only ask this because I've had another look at some books on OS/2 in the bookshop on campus. They quite clearly state (all of them !) that if a segment is not present in real memory it is swapped in on demand (new term: demand segment swapping ?) They go on to say that the absolute minimum config is 1.5Mb which I imagine is large enough to keep segment swapping down to a minimum. Has anyone seen OS/2 running ? Does it really swap segments ? Or have the manual boys/girls goofed again (no offence guys!) ? Oh, I didn't include the Xenix designers above because they're from Microsoft and they built OS/2 so I can see an economic reason for not including the feature in Xenix 286. OS/2 does not demand page on the 386 so UNIX/XENIX is still the better deal for machines with this processor. It runs in 286 emulation mode I guess. Sorry for being persistent but when your're trying to decide how you spend your money I suppose you have to be. Replies to the net or by mail are fine. Glenn