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Re: locore.s' history?


From: "Thomas E. Spanjaard" <tgen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 18:24:46 +0200

Zera William Holladay wrote:
Hi, I've been reading "Operating System Source Code Secrets Volume."  The
authors imply (I can't remember the exact quote) that locore has a
history.  Does anyone know where this name came from, or where it first
appeared?  My intuition tells me "locore" means low memory (as in old
magnetic core memory)?  Just curious.

"locore" means "low core", and core refers to the RAM which used to be magnetic drums. It was called "core memory" because it was closer to the processing hardware than the tapes, disks et al. It got this name due to the place in the memory address space where the code in this file got loaded: the lowermost part of RAM, address 0 usually. This was some requirement in the early days, although I'm not sure why.


Cheers,
		-- Thomas E. Spanjaard
		   tgen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



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