A heuristic for page turning in a multiprogrammed computer

One school of thought for future computer systems involves the use of large computer complexes, time-shared among many users. Because internal computer speeds are so much greater than communication speeds with the outside world, machine efficiency requires that a large system be capable of working on many programs at once, and working on each in turn while others are completing input-output operations. One approach [1] to a successful multi-programmed computer has been called “page turning”, where the object programs are automatically broken into blocks of a fixed size (pages) and these pages are then shuffled in and out of the main store automatically by the operator system as reference to the data or instructions contained in each page may dictate. Experience to date indicates that this process is prohibitively time-consuming if significant hardware features are not included to aid the executive program in carrying out this task. It is not the purpose of this note to discuss these hardware features but to address specifically a single aspect of the situation which remains a problem even if adequate hardware features are provided.

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