Measurements of segment size

ABSTRACT

Distributions of segment sizes measured under routine operating conditions on a computer system which utilizes variable sized segments (the Burroughs B5500) are discussed. The most striking feature of the measurements is the large number of small segments—about 60 percent of the segments in use contain less than 40 words. Although the results are certainly not installation independent, and although they are particularly influenced by features of the B5500 ALGOL system, they should be relevant to the design of new computer systems, especially with respect to the organization of paging schemes.

REFERENCES

• 1: E. G. Coffman , L. C. Varian, Further experimental data on the behavior of programs in a paging environment, Communications of the ACM, v.11 n.7, p.471-474, July 1968 [doi>10.1145/363397.363398]
• 2: Peter J. Denning, The working set model for program behavior, Communications of the ACM, v.11 n.5, p.323-333, May 1968 [doi>10.1145/363095.363141]
• 3: B. Randell, A note on storage fragmentation and program segmentation, Communications of the ACM, v.12 n.7, p.365-ff., July 1969 [doi>10.1145/363156.363158]
• 4: B. Randell , C. J. Kuehner, Dynamic storage allocation systems, Communications of the ACM, v.11 n.5, p.297-306, May 1968 [doi>10.1145/363095.363138]
• 5: Reference manual for the Burroughs B5500 system. Burroughs Corp., Detroit, Mich., 1964.
• 6: TOTSCHEK, R.A. An empirical investigation into the behavior of the SDC time-sharing system. Rep. SP2191, AD622003, System Development Corp., Santa Monica, Calif., 1965.

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
core utilization, memory allocation, page sizes, paging, resource allocation, segment sizes, segmentation, storage allocation