AT&T "nth Edition" vs. "Release n"

Doug Gwyn gwyn at smoke.brl.mil
Tue Mar 5 03:16:53 AEST 1991


In article <10556 at dog.ee.lbl.gov> torek at elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) writes:
>Until recently, for instance, the `base' technology in System V (by
>which I mean `the algorithms that had not been rewritten or otherwise
>fixed to handle modern systems') dated back to the mid 1970s, rather
>than the mid-1980s (which is when many of the `base' algorithms in the
>4.2BSD kernel were redone [FS & IPC; the VM was left rotting and is
>only now being fixed---but at least expansion swaps were just a last
>resort, rather than an everyday occurrence as in SysV]).

In fact UNIX System V was not using the virtual memory system to which
Chris refers any time in the recent past.  Before the switch to VM a
la Sun, UNIX System V had been using a "region"-oriented system based
on concepts similar to DEC's VAX/VMS.  There are advantages and
drawbacks to both approaches to virtual memory.  In fact there were
many technical aspects of UNIX System V that were superior to 4BSD,
just as there were some that were inferior.

All religions are equally wrong.



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