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A paging system makes efficient decisions on which memory to relegate to secondary storage, leading to the best use of the installed RAM. In addition the operating system may provide services to programs that envision a larger memory, such as files that can grow beyond the limit of installed RAM.
Some systems, such as the GE 645 and its successors, used both segmentation and paging. The table of segments, instead of containing per-segment entries giving the physical base address and length of the segment, contains entries giving the physical base address of a page table for the segment, in addition to the length of the segment.
In a system using segmentation, computer memory addresses consist of a segment id and an offset within the segment. [3] A hardware memory management unit (MMU) is responsible for translating the segment and offset into a physical address, and for performing checks to make sure the translation can be done and that the reference to that segment and offset is permitted.
If the paging unit is enabled, addresses in a segment are now virtual addresses, rather than physical addresses as they were on the 80286. That is, the segment starting address, the offset, and the final 32-bit address the segmentation unit derived by adding the two are all virtual (or logical) addresses when the paging unit is enabled.
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, [1] is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as segmentation, virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking designed to increase an operating system's control over application software.
Similarly, a page frame is the smallest fixed-length contiguous block of physical memory into which memory pages are mapped by the operating system. [1] [2] [3] A transfer of pages between main memory and an auxiliary store, such as a hard disk drive, is referred to as paging or swapping. [4]
A page table is a data structure used by a virtual memory system in a computer to store mappings between virtual addresses and physical addresses. Virtual addresses are used by the program executed by the accessing process , while physical addresses are used by the hardware, or more specifically, by the random-access memory (RAM) subsystem.
Mass storage units, including a fast drum that could be used as a paging device. Hardware support for both segmentation and paging with support for a content addressable memory (CAM) so as to reduce virtual memory overhead. They proceeded to visit among others Burroughs, CDC, DEC, General Electric, IBM and Sperry Univac.