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PHYS(2) System Calls Manual PHYS(2)

phys - allow a process to access physical addresses

phys(segreg, size, physadr)

The argument segreg specifies a process virtual (data-space) address range of 8K bytes starting at virtual address segreg×8K bytes. This address range is mapped into physical address physadr×64 bytes. Only the first size×64 bytes of this mapping is addressable. If size is zero, any previous mapping of this virtual address range is nullified. For example, the call

phys(6, 1, 0177775);

will map virtual addresses 0160000-0160077 into physical addresses 017777500-017777577. In particular, virtual address 0160060 is the PDP-11 console located at physical address 017777560.

This call may only be executed by the super-user.

PDP-11 segmentation hardware

The function value zero is returned if the physical mapping is in effect. The value -1 is returned if not super-user, if segreg is not in the range 0-7, if size is not in the range 0-127, or if the specified segreg is already used for other than a previous call to phys.

This system call is obviously very machine dependent and very dangerous. This system call is not considered a permanent part of the system.

(phys = 52.)
sys phys; segreg; size; physadr

PDP11 UNIX-7