Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!dxb132 From: DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Why not use RAD:? (Re: ASDG VD0: DOES NOT WORK!) Message-ID: <90295.142946DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: 22 Oct 90 18:29:46 GMT References: <46200136@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <9307@helios.TAMU.EDU> <1990Oct22.033330.22005@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Organization: Penn State University Lines: 35 In article <1990Oct22.033330.22005@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) says: >I'm really curious at all this VD0: and VK0: traffic. I've been using >the RAD: that Commodore supplies for eighteen months or so with no >problems whatever, and except for a couple of times when I was running >some really braindead demo code, that trashed it thoroughly, it's never >failed to recover for me. I use a 6.5 meg RAD: every day, sloshing files >around like crazy while multitasking for all I'm worth. >Why are people still searching for a recoverable ram disk? "It's in >there!" If there's something horribly wrong with RAD:, I'm not sure I Are you joking??? RAD has so many problems as a recoverable RAM disk it's not even funny. I'd take the original VD0 (created in the days of Kickstart 1.0) over RAD any day. RAD has its uses - I do use it - but not as a RRD. Here is an incomplete list of problems: 1) It uses the most absurd memory allocation system in the world. Forget AllocM em, let's scan the mem lists and do strange things instead (don't tell me this is required, because I wrote an RRD similiar to RAD) 2) It is VERY easy to lose the contents of the ram disk. Try loading up Shadow of the Beast (or whatever) after using RAD, then reboot. It's gone! VD0 handles this with NO PROBLEMS, assuming that a) you have fast mem and b) the ram disk is using fast mem. If those two conditions are satisfied, it's almost impossibl e to lose the ram disk, no matter what you do! 3) Fixed size. Don't get me wrong - I use RAD only because it IS fixed size - b ut then I don't use RAD as a recoverable RAM disk. I'm quite annoyed that this silly program is going into the 2.0 ROM at the expe nse of dozens of other, truly useful things (like a useable, reasonably powerfu l RomWack!!!!!!!) -- Dan Babcock