What to do with slow Chip/ST RAM

[David Brownlee <abs%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

        Both amiga and atari have the concept of 'fast' and 'slow' RAM.
        For a system with a reasonable amount of fast RAM using the
        slow RAM can actually slow things down, though it seems like
        a shame to waste it...

        Jared has written a driver for the sgimips O2 to allow it to
        access some of its extra memory banks as a block device, which
        means it can use it as a RAM swap device. (The issue with the O2
        is different, as the current NetBSD kernel cannot use that extra
        memory directly, but the principle is related).

        Would anyone be interested in adding support to use chip/ST
        RAM on the amiga/atari in a similar fashion (obviously some of
        it is likely to be reserved for device DMA).

        Would be bery interesting to see a benchmark before/after :)

        Jared's latest patch for an MI altmem device are at:
            http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/jmcneill/altmem/

        and his original posting is at:
            http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-sgimips/2009/03/09/msg000479.html


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