Re (2): [Oberon] Flash drives

[shark at gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca]

Doug,

dd> I was musing on what consequence this would have on "disk partitions"
> since there are no cylinders for flash drives. 

Eventually EEPROM storage might be available with 
addressing similar to RAM.  Advantages?
- A simple linear address, without disk emulation, 
will allow more efficient access.
- Allocation of just the storage needed for a file
will avoid wasting space when the file does not end 
at the end of the last block.
- Garbage collection algorithms will be very similar 
to those from RAM.

Adapting applications to load a file from an EEPROM
rather than a disk will need work. (Simplification!)

dd> What are the consequences for multiple operating systems residing on the
> same flash memory?

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/multiboot/
mentions "... load the OS image from a variety of sources, 
including floppy disk, hard disk, and across a network."

The EEPROM is not mentioned yet ... but USB memory acts 
just as a disk.  That should be sufficient for now.

Regards,              ... Peter E.




Desktops.OpenDoc  http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/