Liangxu Linux

Jun 2, 2025 · Fundamentals

How Early OSes Managed Scarce Memory: Fixed Partitions, Dynamic Allocation, and Overlays

The article traces the evolution of memory management in 1960s mainframes, explaining fixed partitioning, its inefficiencies, the shift to dynamic partitioning, the problem of fragmentation, and how overlay techniques paved the way for modern virtual memory.