Re: Another New Hardware Thought

[Tristan Mumford <xtristan.xmumford@xgmail.xcom>]

mdj wrote:

> A curious idea, but you really need an OS to support it.
> 
> MMU's really only become useful when you're running more code than
> you've got RAM, facilitating virtual memory. There aren't really any
> practical applications that such small machines can run that require
> that amount of addressable space.

Thats true. And it's sure not necessary for multitasking in a specifically
written OS.
MMUs are nice but not necessary.
It may be a little OT, but the Amiga 500 multitasked really well and it
didn't have an MMU. All that's needed for pre-emptive multitasking
generically speaking is a CPU that has half decent interrupt support.

As for the virtual memory issue. It's possible to have virtual memory on an
MMU-less machine. It's just somewhat less elegant. No matter whether it's
software or hardware driven it still requires an OS that supports it. So
while it would be nice, it would probably need it's own OS to take
advantage of it.

Tristan.
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