Assignment handed out on Sunday, March 4, 2001

Due in Recitation on 3/5/2001:

I've included a link to the UNIX paper below, in case your copy, like mine, was missing pages


• Read Virtual Memory for an Object-Oriented Language. For recitation, come prepared with a 5 minute summary of the paper (i.e., what problem is being solved, what approach is being used, ...)
• Read Disk System Architectures for High-Performance Computing. For recitation, come prepared with a 5 minute summary of the paper (i.e., what problem is being solved, what approach is being used, ...) Make sure you understand the different RAID levels (e.g., assumptions, objectives, tradeoffs)
• Read the classic The UNIX Time-Sharing System. Your writing/discussion assignment:

  The decision to base all UNIX I/O around a stream-based model was based partially on the assumption that most devices were sequential and that programs would have a 16-bit memory address space. If Ritchie and Thomas instead designed UNIX with systems such as the X Window System in mind, how might their I/O design be different? Would you want the same kind of I/O for files and devices? Take a side and defend it. Give at least one concrete and convincing example of why stream-based I/O may or may not be appropriate for bit-mapped displays (e.g., running X).
  
  Clue: Think about the I/O needed to move windows on a bit-mapped display.