2.10 Memory Allocation

The hardware does not dictate the way areas in physical memory which correspond to the valid parts of pages should be allocated (except to the extent that they must begin and end on a 32 word boundary). These areas may be allocated in any order and may overlap to any extent.

In practice the allocation of areas of physical memory is much more disciplined as we shall see in Chapter Seven. Areas for pages which are related are most often allocated contiguously and in the order of their page numbers, so that all the segment areas associated with a single program are contained within one or at most two large areas of physical memory.