Date   : Mon, 06 Jun 1983 14:22:00 EDT (Monday)
From   : Steve Dyer <sdyer@bbn-unix>
Subject: Re: RAM disks with UNIX

It's quite possible to use a RAM disk as a root (or swap) device for UNIX--
in fact, that's a quite popular way to bootstrap up a kernel before working
disk hardware is available.  Just write a software device driver which
accesses a RAM partition instead of the disk.  Trouble is, UNIX likes LARGE
disks, so unless you have lots of RAM available, it doesn't buy one much.
(I mean, it's OK for bootstrap purposes, but lousy for a production system.)
And the amounts of RAM we're talking about (2-20mb) are still economically
infeasible for most small systems, though this should change soon.

Steve Dyer
sdyer@bbn-unix