Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!uwm.edu!wuarchive!usc!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (The Bounty Hunter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: 6.0.5 and System Heap questions...
Message-ID: <40701@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 3 May 90 04:18:45 GMT
References: <1990May3.032903.14589@athena.mit.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dotty Eye's PI's
Lines: 36

shahn@hstbme.mit.edu (Samuel Hahn) writes:

>1) System 6.0.5: I have read some bad things about 6.0.5 in comp.sys.mac.*

I know of one serious bug report on 6.0.5. 24 hours later the person who
filed it rescinded it after finding the bug in his program. It wasn't in
6.0.5 at all.

The only thing I've seen that's a problem is that the ADB code changed in
6.0.5 to conform to TechNote 206. This has caused some problems with some
revisions of some ADB devices (trackballs, for instance). 

I've been running 6.0.5 myself and beating the h*ck out of it for a while.
I've seen absolutely no problems that I didn't have with 6.0.4 (and those
were because I've got about a meg of stuff in my system heap and they don't
always like each other in there). With the exception of the compatibility
issues I've mentioned on ADB, everything I've seen about 6.0.5 has either
been very general, third-hand or unsubstantiated. My personal experience has
been positive.

>2) System Heap...this whole thing about the System Heap has got me confused.
>I thought most (if not all) of the memory allocation was dynamic and that the
>heap grew and shrank as needed.

It *is* dynamic if there is space available to grow. It is possible to get
into situations where you can't grow the system heap, and stuff in the
system heap generally isn't graceful in out of memory conditions -- so you
do what you need to do to avoid the condition.

-- 

Chuq Von Rospach   <+>   chuq@apple.com   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

I regret to announce that--though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too
short a time to spend among you--this is the end. I am going. Good-bye.
		-- Bilbo