Talk:Bank switching

Illustration needed

ja:Image:Bankimage.jpg might be useful.--222.1.179.209 06:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

No, that image has too much Japanese text in it to be intelligble to those of us who don't read Japanese. But the article does need a block diagram of some kind.--Wtshymanski 21:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Video

Is there more to explain about bank switching in video processing? As I understand, the issue there is timing rather than address size. Isn't one page displayed while another is drawn; the fresh page only displayed when complete? Thanks to anyone who can explain more. ... PeterEasthope (talk) 22:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Double Buffering in Computer Graphics is a very useful technique. But the hardware involved, the reasons for using it, etc. are all different from bank switching. Alas, it would be easy to confuse them, because I've heard quite a few people call one of them "page switching", and quite a few other people call the other one "page switching". What can we do to avoid confusion between these two kinds of "page switching"? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 20:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

From what you say, the term "bank switching" should not be applied in video processing. This article could mention that "double buffering" is the correct term and refer to the other article. PeterEasthope (talk) 00:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Technique

The article doesn't describe the philosophy or technique of the bank switching. It just explains how useful it is, but nothing about its usage or how the "trick" works. pictureuploader (talk) 18:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added a diagram but I should also add some explanation of how it would work. Some magic subroutine must live in common memory that keeps track of what bank is currently active and what bank is next to be accessed; then the subroutine must set up some memory controller hardware that controls which chips actually get to respond to the CPU memory access cycles. It's a start, anyway...--Wtshymanski (talk) 02:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Microcomputers

One should note that a PIC microcontroller is not a microcomputer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.76.152 (talk) 15:12, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Cromemco

The Cromemco can only do 7 banks according to the emulator and all the manuals I have... is 8 right ???? 82.70.14.226 (talk) 22:00, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

From the Cromemco 32K Bytesaver manual: "The BANK ENABLE/DISABLE switch enables multiple 64K memory banks (bank 0 - bank 7) when ON and disables multiple banks when OFF (normal direct 64K addressing)".

From the Cromemc 16KZ Manual: "A special bank select feature is incorporated on the 16KZ that allows memory space to be organized into as many as 8 banks of 64K each".

From the Cromemco SCC (single card computer) manual: "By incorporating Cromemco's memory products with _Bank Select_, memory may be expanded further to 512 KBytes organized as eight 'banks' of 64 KBytes each".

--Guy Macon (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPOV - too PC centric and ahistorical

Bank switching did not originate with PCs, and statements specific to microprocessors, or to specific microprocessors, belong in appropriately labelled sections. In particular, Bank switching#Technique should be generic. Historically bank switching used an internal register for the bank number. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

In what way is Bank switching#Technique PC-centric? The techniques described appear to be the ones used on Z80 CP/M machines and on the Commodore 128 as well as the early PC ISA extended/expanded memory cards that cam out when large Lotus 123 spreadsheets started using more than 640K. -Guy Macon (talk) 16:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Because it assumes external bank registers and microprocessor support chips. IBM marketting notwithstanding, I consider, e.g., the S-100 bus machines, to be PCs just as much as the IBM PC, and the Techniques section ignores everything earlier than that. The whole section needs to be separated into generic material and material specific to particular systems. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Problematic definition in the intro

Intro section says:

"Unlike memory management by paging, data is not exchanged with a mass storage device like disk storage. Data remains in quiescent storage in a memory area that is not currently accessible to the processor (although it may be accessible to the video display, DMA controller, or other subsystems of the computer) without the use of special prefix instructions."

It is presumed paging is the same as page swapping, which is incorrect. Paged memory can work without a backing secondary store and is indeed a memory management technique, a more modern one but not completely unlike the cruder technique of bank switching. A better intro should be provided if someone can find a good source.

--Arny (talk) 15:33, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

History - was PDP-1 first

Was the DEC PDP-1 (1959) the first computer to use bank switching? IAC, the article should mention it and the more common CDC 3600 (1963). --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 10:01, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Regarding console usage

The article makes an incorrect statement regarding the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive usage of the technique. While Super Street Fighter 2 did have more than 4MB in size, there weren't "several" cartridges that also did so. Actually, during the console's lifespan, SSF2 was the lone game to exceed the maximum size. And only five aftermarket homebrew games (Pier Solar and the Great Architects, Paprium, FX Unit Yuki: The Henshin Engine, Demons of Asteborg and Astebros) surpassed that value, making them just a handful, not several more games. Frbassdevil (talk) 21:23, 18 November 2023 (UTC)