memex/notes/closos-single-address-space.org

CLOSOS: Single Address Space Architecture

• Concept
• Key Principles
• Source

Concept

In a Lisp Operating System (CLOSOS), all applications and the system kernel share one large, unified 64-bit address space.

Key Principles

• Removal of IPC: Standard Unix-style Inter-Process Communication (pipes, sockets) is replaced by global pointer sharing. Applications communicate by passing pointers to objects directly.
• Unified Memory: Eliminates the overhead of data serialization/deserialization between isolated process boundaries.
• Language-Based Security: Protection is not enforced by hardware MMU boundaries but by the Lisp compiler and runtime (e.g., strong typing, bounds checking, no arbitrary pointer arithmetic).

Source

• Robert Strandh, "CLOSOS: Specification of a Lisp operating system" (2013)