Virtual Memory Page Replacement: Building Simulation Models

How does an operating system decide which data stays in fast memory and what gets swapped to disk? Understanding virtual memory and page replacement is essential for writing efficient, high-performance software. In this course, you will transition from a basic understanding of computer memory to designing and implementing your own text-based simulation models for core page replacement policies. You will analyze how different algorithms handle memory constraints and optimize cache performance. What you'll learn: - Understand the fundamental concepts of virtual memory, paging, and page faults. - Implement classic page replacement algorithms including FIFO, LRU, and the CLOCK policy. - Build clean, modular simulation models using modern Python features like type hints and dataclasses. - Analyze cache hit and miss ratios under varying cache sizes and reference string inputs. - Evaluate the trade-offs and performance characteristics of each policy in different scenarios. - Identify modern memory management challenges such as thrashing and how operating systems mitigate them. You will start by exploring the core definitions of virtual memory and physical memory. From there, you will step through the logic of each page replacement policy, writing clean simulation code and analyzing performance metrics through structured written exercises. This course is designed for beginner programmers, computer science students, and self-taught developers who want to understand operating system internals. No prior systems programming experience is required; a basic familiarity with programming logic is all you need to begin. Start building your memory management mental model today.