91 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
91 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
The Paging Game
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The following is a technical update to IBM's explaination of how virtual
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memory works. It was written by Jeff Berryman of the University of British
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Columbia and distributed at a share meeting shortly after IBM announced
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virtual memory for the 370 series.
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RULES:
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------
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1.) Each player gets several million 'things'.
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2.) 'Things' are kept in 'crates' that hold 4096 'things' apiece.
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'Things' in the same 'crate' are called 'crate-mates'.
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3.) 'Crates' are stored either in the 'workshop' or the 'warehouse'.
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The workshop is almost always too small to hold all the crates.
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4.) There is only one workshop, but there may be many warehouses.
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Everybody shares these.
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5.) To identify things, each thing has its own 'thing number'.
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6.) What you do with a thing is to 'zark' it. Everybody takes turns
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zarking.
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7.) You can only 'zark' your things or shared things, not anyone else's.
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8.) Things can only be 'zarked' when they are in the workshop.
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9.) Only the 'Thing King' knows whether a thing is in the workshop or
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the warehouse.
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10.) The longer the things in a crate go without being zarked, the
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grubbier the crate is said to become.
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11.) The way you get things is to ask the 'Thing King'. He only gives
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out things in multiples of 4096 (that is, 'crates'). This is to keep the
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royal overhead down.
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12.) The way you zark a thing is to give its thing number. If you give
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the number of a thing that happens to be in the workshop, it gets zarked
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right away. If it is in a warehouse, the Thing King packs the crate containing
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your thing into the workshop. If there is no room in the workshop, he first
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find the grubbiest crate in the workshop (irregardless of whether it is yours
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or someone else's) and packs it off (along with its crate-mates) to a
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warehouse. In its place he puts the crate containing your thing. Your thing
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then gets zarked, and you never knew that it wasn't in the workshop all along.
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13.) Each player's stock of things has the same thing numbers (to the
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players) as everyone else's. The Thing King always knows who owns what thing,
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and whose turn it is to zark. Thus, one player can never accidentally zark
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another player's things, even though they may have the same thing numbers.
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The Paging Game..... NOTES:
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----------------------------
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A) Traditionally, the Thing King sits at a large, segmented table,
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and is attended by pages (the so-called 'table pages') whose job it is to
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help the Thing King remember where all the things are and to whom they
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belong.
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B) One consequence of rule # 13 is that everyone's thing numbers
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will be the similar from game to game, regardless of the number of players.
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C) The Thing King has a few things of his own, some of which get
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grubbier, just as player's things do, and so move back and forth between the
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workshop and the warehouse. Other things are used too often to get grubby, or
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are just to heavy to move.
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D) With the given set of rules, Oft-zarked things tend to get kept
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mostly in the workshop, while little-zarked things stay mostly out in the
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warehouse. This is efficient stock control.
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E) Sometimes even the warehouses get full. The Thing King then has to
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start piling crates upon the dump out back. This makes the game slower because
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it takes a long time to get thing off the dump when they are needed in the
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workshop. In this case, the Thing King selects the grubbiest crates he can
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find in the warehouses and sends them to the dump in his spare time, thus
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keeping the warehouses from getting too full. This also means that the
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least-often zarked things end up on the dump, so the Thing King won't have to
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get things from the dump so often. This speeds up the game when there are a lot
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of players and the warehouses are getting full.
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