On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, David Seifert wrote:

: > NetBSD/vax can run nicely on a 2MB machine :-)
: 
: I have a ns32k box that can run a BSD-based OS in 0.75 MB.
: It runs okay in 1 MB and nicely in 3.

I have a PDP-11 simulator that can run V5 UNIX in 256K and a 1MB virtual
_disk_.  And?  :)

: Now I know that ns32k is one of the most efficient architectures,
: that the alpha is RISC and 64 bits and has a larger page size, but
: 10 times as large???  Something seems wrong here?

Pointers and longs are twice as big.  (64 bit vs. 32 bit.)  Pagetables are
_much_ bigger.  The instruction set is nowhere near as compact (this is
RISC).  And, the subjective reason:  Alphas were designed in the "new
computing" world, where extra memory isn't as much of a concern.

I wonder if V6 UNIX can be ported to run on a 65816 processor....

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)