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Path: utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
From: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809
Subject: Re: Editors and memory
Message-ID: <1808@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-May-87 20:00:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1808
Posted: Wed May 20 20:00:51 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 21-May-87 02:49:25 EDT
References: <1687@ihwpt.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Organization: Consultant, Toronto
Lines: 45
Keywords: Text bigger than memory
Summary: QT and 512K

In article <1687@ihwpt.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihwpt.ATT.COM (mike knudsen) writes:
>PS:  Jim (was it you?), how do you run a QT out of 512K RAM when
>it doesn't even have windows and graphics?  I haven't blown out
>my Coco yet (but I will sooner or later, right?)


     Whaaaaa?  If you're asking whether I find 512K RAM a tight fit
for an OSK system, well, actually it can be.  It all depends on how
you use it.  For instance, if you want speed and you're doing a lot
of compiling, you'll prefer to have the whole C compiler in RAM at
once.  You could also preload 'make'.  It wouldn't be bad to have
your text editor, say MicroEMACS in memory too.  On top of all that,
you might want a good size RAM disk to hold temporaries.  Actually I
don't work that way myself.  I prefer to keep most things on the hard
disk.  But I do sometimes preload part or all of the compiler.

     Yesterday I had a classic big-memory/multi-tasking thing happen.
My brother-in-law called from San Francisco (a diagonal across the
continent!) and I wanted to give him the phone number of a freind from
BIX in a hurry.  I was in the middle of doing a major edit with
Umacs (MicroEMACS as supplied by Microware with OS-9 68K professional).
Despite the large file I was editing I had enough memory to call a
Shell, use Qcom (Frank Hogg's telecom program which comes with the QT's)
and call BIX and check the phone number while my brother-in-law was
on the phone, and all without having to store off the file I was working
on and lose my train of thought.  This trick I could have pulled off
with Level II and the CoCo, but the QT really shines when I do simultaneous
multiple crossloads.  The DMA allows everything to happen at once.
The CoCo might come close if I get that new DMA (semi-DMA?) disk
controller by Sardis.

     About the "super setups" by Frank Hogg and that other company (can't
remember the name offhand), it's a pity that they only supply the one
80 track floppy and the hard disk on these systems.  There are simply
times that you want a 40 track travesty^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H drive. (;-)
I mean how else am I supposed to run copy protected software?  Surely
you don't think that right minded CoCoists would actually break the
copy protection on those disks?

Cheers! -- Jim O.

-- 
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
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