Memory management - Definition and Overview

Memory management is the act of managing computer memory. In its simpler forms this involves providing ways to allocate portions of memory to programs at their request and free it back to the system for reuse when no longer needed.

Virtual memory systems increase the effectively available amount of RAM using disk swapping and the quality of the virtual memory manager can have a big impact on overall system performance.

In addition to standard memory management DOS led to the development of programs known as memory managers which moved portions of the operating system outside their normal locations to increase the amount of memory which could be used by application programs. Examples are EMM386, supplied as part of the operating system in later versions, and QEMM. These allowed use of memory above the 640 kb barrier, where memory was normally reserved for ROMs, and high and upper memory.

See also

• virtual memory
• pointer
• handle (computer science)
• reference (computer science)
• garbage collection (computer science)

External links

• The Memory Management Reference (http://www.memorymanagement.org/)