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Thanks for responding. I would however argue that the existence of hierarchy in physical memory is orthogonal to the existence of a linear address space. Cache

by twtw 8y ago

Thanks for responding. I would however argue that the existence of hierarchy in physical memory is orthogonal to the existence of a linear address space. Caches work really hard to maintain the ability of programs to use a single linear address space.

fulafel 8y ago
Ways in which memory is not linear: many asymmeyric multiprocessing setups (eg gpu/cpu), distributed processing (eg openmp), multiprocess systems w several virtual spaces, harvard architecture systems, segmented architectures, disk vs ram. Many of these may be considered performance motivated departures from linear address space, especially if performance includes reliability in addition to execution speed. (Otoh virtual memory can be used to create the appearance of single address space for any of the above, and sometimes has been - eg as/400)