3 ms·
> Those machines were completely different than the "big iron" of the day -- they were single-user, single-tasking systems with no meaningful memory protection
by 0815test 8y ago
> Those machines were completely different than the "big iron" of the day -- they were single-user, single-tasking systems with no meaningful memory protection
The PDP-7 and PDP-11 were also like that. (And yes, they were used for multi-user scenarios, but even an early micro could be so used, if you e.g. ran a BBS on it.) Memory protection and the like are important features to be sure, but they don't define a segment class. And the micros quickly gained these features anyway, with machines like the Motorola 68020 and the Intel i386. The early OS's like MS-DOS/Win 9x and Classic Mac OS didn't make use of them, but this was entirely due to performance concerns, combined with running a CPU-intensive GUI. The transition to a memory-protected, secure-by-default OS was entirely foreseeable, even aside from the sensible concerns about an "internetworked world".