Subject: Re: NetBSD without MMU ?
To: Perry E. Metzger <perry@wasabisystems.com>
From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>
List: tech-embed
Date: 04/15/2002 20:23:53
"Perry E. Metzger" wrote:
> 
> woods@weird.com (Greg A. Woods) writes:
> > > replacing fork()+exec() with spawn(),
> > > eliminating use of mmap, etc.)
> >
> > You don't _need_ an MMU to implement fork()....  (eg. as in MINIX)
> 
> MINIX uses the x86 segment registers to much the same purpose as an
> MMU. It is hard to do fork without any memory management at all.

See, for instance, Minix for the m68000, where they hacked up the 
compiler to generate base+displacement addressing so they could grab
a couple of address registers to use as the pseudo code and data
segments.

-- 
            "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"

Wes Peters                                                         Softweyr LLC
wes@softweyr.com                                           http://softweyr.com/