Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ssbell!weeks
From: weeks@ssbell.IMD.Sterling.COM (John Weeks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: Re: TSR's with no assembly language
Message-ID: <676@ssbell.IMD.Sterling.COM>
Date: 22 Mar 90 15:27:10 GMT
References: <2610@unocss.unomaha.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Sterling Software, FSG-IMD, Bellevue, NE.
Lines: 27

In article <2610@unocss.unomaha.edu> ho@hoss.unl.edu writes:
>
>But I *am* intrigued by assertions that you can write TSR's with no
>assembly, by both languages.
>
>It would seem, to my untrained mind, that using any high-level language to
>write a TSR would eat up amazing amounts of memory to hold the run-time
>library.  Even the most basic TSR requires a certain amount of run-time
>kernel, on the order of a few K... doesn't it?

Yep, depending of course, on what functions get linked in.  You can write
a TSR that pops up and says "Hi, there!" that takes 20K.  On the other
hand, with carefull pruning, you can cram a fair amount of functionality
in a reasonable amount of space.  But I was looking at a shareware demo of
an hp28c calculator program recently.  The TSR required something in the range
of 150-200K!  Whats the point?  It strikes me that that is a misapplication
of TSR technology.  Are there really users who require this functionality
in a pop up mode (instead of forking a shell) and yet are running an
application that leaves room for this in memory?

                                  -jw-

-- 

John Weeks                                    Phone:  (402) 291-8300
Sterling Software FSG/IMD        e-mail: uunet!ssbell!weeks
1404 Ft. Crook Rd. South         e-mail: weeks@ssbell.IMD.Sterling.COM