| ▲ | inkyoto 3 days ago | |
«Memory technology» as in «a single tech» that blends RAM and disk into just «memory» and obviates the need for the disk as a distinct concept. One can conjure up RAM, which has become exabytes large and which does not lose data after a system shutdown. Everything is local in such a unified memory model, is promptly available to and directly addressable by the CPU. Please do note that multi-level CPU caches still do have their places in this scenario. In fact, this has been successfully done in the AS/400 (or i Series), which I have mentioned elsewhere in the thread. It works well and is highly performant. | ||
| ▲ | jason_oster 3 days ago | parent [-] | |
> «Memory technology» as in «a single tech» that blends RAM and disk into just «memory» and obviates the need for the disk as a distinct concept. That already exists. Swap memory, mmap, disk paging, and so on. Virtual memory is mostly fine for what it is, and it has been used in practice for decades. The problem that comes up is latency. Access time is limited by the speed of light [1]. And for that reason, CPU manufacturers continue to increase the capacities of the faster, closer memories (specifically registers and L1 cache). [1] https://www.ilikebigbits.com/2014_04_21_myth_of_ram_1.html | ||