David,

Please read Interpreter>>readImageFromFile and
Interpreter>>writeImageFileIO.  You will see that the image is read and
written en masse.  Bytes are swapped IFF the byte ordering of the machine
reading is different that when the image was written.  The object memory is
adjusted for the new base address.  I do not see any image expansion visible
in the code, and have chased the code path down through
ObjectMemory>>adjustAllOopsBy.

Accordingly, I am relatively confident that I am correct about being able to
use a memory-mapped image file directly as the object heap.  The major
caveats are that:

 1. Changes are (conceptually) reflected immediately.  Don't corrupt your
image without a backup.
 2. You cannot remove the device containing the image during execution.

Certainly, if you can illustrate issues that I've missed, I am rather
interested to see them.

	--- Noel