Lit. Buffer overruns 1705

Ah, I think we must not mean the same thing by "buffer". I'm using it to mean space allocated and controlled by a program, usually an application program. A carelessly written program can easily try to stuff more data into one of its buffers than it will hold -- a "buffer overflow" in the sense I understand it. As you may know (I've never been quite clear on how much experience with coding you have), the results can be, um, interesting. (By the way, a while back you commented that people who only know HLLs don't understand about buffer overflows. I'm pretty sure anyone who has written much code in a language that doesn't do ABC is all too familiar with this kind of buffer overflow.)

I'm guessing that you're using "buffer" to mean space allocated and managed by the OS, and I'm vaguely imagining that maybe the use you have in mind is somehow related to hardware at such a low level that maybe the normal kind of bounds checking done by "properly written" programs (including, I would think, OS code) doesn't apply somehow.

Oh well!

-- B. L. Mbuttingill ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.