Rings and segments are pretty much orthogonal concepts. C is hardly unique in not supporting segmentation. The only languages I am aware of that even come close are Burroughs Algol and PL/I (and as always Basic Assembly). (Lisp?)
But overriding is the fact that x86 supporting segments does not imply that all the other supported architectures also support. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dave Feustel Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 6:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: x86 rings? On Thursday 04 August 2005 04:47 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Unless I am very much mistaken, this is Unix not Multics. > To do anything with the rings, you must make userland > into a three-ring circus. That is precisely the point. The C programming language and Unix are incompatible with the x86 segmentation model, including rings, although amazing accommodations were made within C for 286 segments by Intel and Microsoft, et all before 386 flat addressing took hold. While x86 rings and segments were neat and useful, if extremely awkward to use within C, they are rapidly disappearing into the dustbin of history. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of > Dave Feustel > Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 4:05 PM > To: Theo de Raadt > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected] > Subject: Re: x86 rings? > > > Ed, > > Ever read anything about MIT's Multics and the GE 645?
