Origin of "partition" in storage devices

[Fred Cisin]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2022, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> Yes, RT-11 is a somewhat unusual file system in that it doesn't just 
> support contiguous files -- it supports ONLY contiguous files.  That 
> makes for a very small and very fast file system.
>
> The only other example I know of that does this is the PLATO file system.

The UCSD P-System had contiguous files.  If small files had been deleted, 
so that space was fragmented, you had to run a "CRUNCH" program to 
defragment it.   Directory entries had the starting location and length.




> As for partition vs. file, the two differences I see are: (1) layering: the partition is below the file system.  (2) partitions are originally entirely static (set at creation and never changed) and even later on changed only rarely and typically with substantial technical difficulty.
>
> 	paul
>

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Fred Cisin                      cisin at xenosoft.com
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