A paging system is a public address system that enables users to quickly reach other colleagues over a speakerphone. Sending pages is a method to send messages without having to wait for a ringtone, or for the person on the other end to pick up. It is particularly useful for alerts or broadcasting announcements to several colleagues at once. Often used in conjunction with a code system to identify threats like fire, security breaches, misconduct, or bomb threats.
This article needs attention from an expert in computing. (June 2019) |
In computer operating systems, paging is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from secondary storage for use in main memory. In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage in same-size blocks called pages. Paging is an important part of virtual memory implementations in modern operating systems, using secondary storage to let programs exceed the size of available physical memory.
For simplicity, main memory is called "RAM" (an acronym of "random-access memory") and secondary storage is called "disk" (a shorthand for "hard disk drive, drum memory or solid-state drive"), but the concepts do not depend on whether these terms apply literally to a specific computer system.