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From: bill@videovax.tv.tek.com (William K. McFadden)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Mysterious partial loss of 48SX memory
Message-ID: <5935@videovax.tv.tek.com>
Date: 30 Jul 90 04:44:41 GMT
Organization: Tektronix TV Measurement Systems, Beaverton OR
Lines: 27

Something very strange just happened to my 48.  I was using a program that
works with a 7K byte object (a list of names and addresses).  At the time, I
had about 10K bytes free, enough to store another copy of the object.  At one
point, I got an "Insufficient Memory" error.  On checking, I had only 3K of
free memory!  I also noticed the alarm annunciator going on and off in the
display, so I cycled power.  "Low Battery Warning."

I replaced the batteries, but still had only 3K available.  So, I went through
the entire machine, and found I was only using 20K of memory.  I only had a few
alarms and key assignments, so I knew that wasn't it.  I had no libraries
attached, either.

Finally, as a last resort, I ran the diagnostic test shown in the appendix of
the manual.  Everything checked okay.  I stopped the test and discovered I had
the entire 10K again.  Whew!

Speculation:  I believe the low battery condition somehow left a copy of the 7K
object in memory that wasn't properly garbage collected.  Running the
diagnostic (or perhaps the reset which terminated the diagnostic) caused the
memory to be reclaimed.

Comments?
-- 
Bill McFadden    Tektronix, Inc.  P.O. Box 500  MS 58-639  Beaverton, OR  97077
bill@videovax.tv.tek.com,     {hplabs,uw-beaver,decvax}!tektronix!videovax!bill
Phone: (503) 627-6920       "The biggest difference between developing a missle
component and a toy is the 'cost constraint.'" -- John Anderson, Engineer, TI