Just can't get enough of that Moose!

[Dennis Marer]

Hi!

	Gary, I can't wait to see the IPC stuff! :-)

	Just one point to make more clear:

> >    And we should restrict or limit anything with such a drastic impact
> > on system performance.
> 
> No. The obvious restriction is not to have virtual memory. If the user wants to
> use more memory then s/he has then s/he pays the price in speed.
> I don't see any point in providing virtual memory and then saying you can only
> use it to a certain extant.

	It think the problem is not with virtual memory.  The problem is in
a system which utilizes virtual memory but allows tasks to allocate memory
which is guaranteed to always exist in physical memory (using MEM_PHYSICAL).
This means less space is available for virtual memory to play around in.
Consider if on a PC with 4MB physical memory I did:

		MemoryAllocate(3*1024*1024,MEM_PHYSICAL);  // Allocate 3 megs

	The rest of the system would be screwed.  I don't want to restrict
physical memory to just device drivers (like with the other MEM_ flags) but
there's no good way to limit how much physical memory a task can use.  I can
see the need for this type of memory (audio and video applications) but those
require special device drivers anyway.  Can anybody think of a reason a normal
application might require a portion of its memory to be physical?   Is there
any application which just plain wouldn't work if it couldn't respond to some
event fast enough?

> > =>
> > =>Hmm. I think I detect the need for a glossary of terms :-)
> > =>
> >    Doubtless true, but we should probably decide what we want to do
> > before defining terms. Otherwise, we would probably end up with a
> > complete OS dictionary.
> 
> Hmm. But if we don't we could end up with a comunication problem. 
> :-)

I'll volunteer to start to work on that glossary - it sortof goes hand in hand
with the specs.  Can anyone give me the precise definition of a thread?  My
OS book doesn't really define it well...thanx!


				Dennis