Finding physical memory size

[John G Dobnick]

Submitted-by: jgd at convex.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick)

Following up on my own posting, which I _did_ say was silly, and which
a few kind people have assured me _was_ silly [I knew I shouldn't have
posted that thing New Year's Eve -- too much eggnog around],

>From article <16397 at cs.utexas.edu>, by jgd at csd4.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick):
> 
> Our CONVEX system, which claims POSIX compliance, has a system call
> that returns "system configuration" information.  If my memory serves
> (I'd check, but the books are at work, and the machine is being "PM"ed),
> the C-library function 'getsysinfo' retrieves this information.  Among
> the items retrieved are
> 
>     *	System type
>     *	Operating system type
>     *	Operating system level (or version number)
>     * Processor type
> 	Processor serial number
> 	number of Processors 
> 	Processor option mask 
> 	Memory interleave factor

(* -- uname fields.  All others are CONVEX extensions)

Memory didn't serve -- what I was thinking of was the "uname()" call,
which does _not_ include any hardware specific information -- only OS
related things.  [It's amazing how eggnog muddles the thought processes]

The hardware specific information another source and is an implementation
specific extension.

Please allow me to rephrase my question as:

    Was consideration given to including some mechanism to retrieve
    hardware configuration information via 'standard' means?

[I'll shut up now.  Besides, there's still some eggnog left. :-)]
-- 
John G Dobnick  (JGD2)
Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
INTERNET: jgd at csd4.csd.uwm.edu             ATTnet: (414) 229-5727
UUCP: uunet!uwm!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!jgd

"Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation,
and is thus a source of civilized delight."  -- William Safire

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 57