Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!munnari.oz.au!metro!macuni!sunc!ifarqhar
From: ifarqhar@sunc.mqcc.mq.oz.au (Ian Farquhar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Files larger than available memory.
Message-ID: <561@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz>
Date: 27 Sep 90 04:11:30 GMT
References: <1990Sep23.174736.16118@lavaca.uh.edu> <83986@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <14646@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Sender: news@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz
Organization: Macquarie University, Sydney
Lines: 30

In article <14646@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>But of course, it made quite a bit more sense on CP/M systems.  When you have
>to cram program and data into 64K, things like manual paging to disk, program
>overlays, etc. make alot of sense.  A basic Amiga these days has 1 Meg of RAM,
>which is generally plenty for at least one wordprocessor or text editor and
>a pretty large document.  And even with the application loaded, there's about
>as much room in memory as on floppy disk.  Paging to hard disk would make 
>more sense, but once you have a few megabytes of memory, it's extremely hard
>to run out doing anything but the most memory intensive DTP kind of stuff,
>or perhaps ray tracing, which for speed reasons might have problems with any
>disk paging.

I disagree here.  I have to regularly edit largish files (4M or so)
automatically generated on UNIX workstations and such-like.  I have yet
to find an Amiga editor that can do this effectively, so I am forced to
take to good-olde WordStar running on an MS-DOS machine.  Some people
*do* need a text editor that can edit huge files in reasonable time.
And of course, let's not forget Parkison's law of computer resources
usage :-)

Incidentally, Dr Jim Blinn (of the JPL Voyager Simulation fame) recently
wrote an article in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications about the
effect of virtual memory and paging on graphics systems.  It's
interesting, and well worth looking out.

--
Ian Farquhar                      Phone : 61 2 805-9403
Office of Computing Services      Fax   : 61 2 805-7433
Macquarie University  NSW  2109   Also  : 61 2 805-7205
Australia                         EMail : ifarqhar@suna.mqcc.mq.oz.au