| 摘要 |
The present invention provides a system and method for reducing memory requirements in a low resource computer system. Although examples herein are described in terms of embedded systems, the present invention is equally applicable to other low resource computer systems, such as palmtops, and laptops. Memory requirements, such as RAM requirements, can be reduced by combining virtual memory with a secondary memory with statically compressed contents. According to embodiments of the present invention, executable image of memory, such as the image of RAM, is compressed at image production time. The compressed image is then stored in a non-volatile memory, such as FLASH memory. At run-time, when a request identifying a virtual address is received, it is determined whether a physical address in the physical memory, such as RAM, is associated with that virtual address. If there is no physical memory associated with that virtual address, then a physical address is obtained to be associated with that virtual address. The obtained physical address can be either an available physical address (having no current association with a virtual address), or a physical address which is made available (by severing a current association with a virtual address). Data related to the requested virtual address may be extracted from the compressed image stored in the non-volatile memory, decompressed, and stored in RAM at the location of the obtained physical address. The physical address may then be mapped in order to be associated with the requested virtual address.
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