Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 00:23:49 -0600 (CST) From: Yale Patt To: ee360n-15280@sunfire2.ece.utexas.edu Subject: the night before: a student writes... Professor Patt, If you do not mind, could you answer a question concerning virtual memory? Sure. Although pretty soon now, you should be thinking about sleep. The exam is a good one, I think. But you will need to be wide awake. Does the page offset in a virtual address determine the size of the page (and the frame since page size=frame size)? Actually, it is the other way around. The ISA specifies a page/frame size, and the offset is therefore the corresponding number of bits. Such as if the virtual address is 32 bits long and the page offset is 13 bits then the page size is 2^13=8KB? Such as, if the page/frame size (you do know they are the same) is 8KB, the offset must be 13 bits. If this is incorrect (which it probably is), then what determines the page (and frame) size? Confidence, man, confidence. Please. Here you are, enjoying this very strong course in computer architecture, which is requiring some effort on your part. The result should be confidence in what you know! Good luck tomorrow. Good night! Yale Patt This is relating to question three on the posted practice exam, which my study group was unable to figure out. Thank you, <>