Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima
From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: PC X servers / backing store
Message-ID: <168@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 11 Mar 91 20:43:17 GMT
References: <9103032356.AA00215@devnull.Eng.Sun.COM> <952@boing.UUCP> <163@tdatirv.UUCP> <953@boing.UUCP>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 28

In article <953@boing.UUCP> dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes:
>In article <163@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>>Oh, aye, so it does, but read the fine print.  All of the memory has
>>to be allocated when the window is created
>
>You better clean your glasses, this is completely untrue. The Amiga only
>allocates backingstore bitmaps when portions of smart refresh windows
>are covered up. They are returned to the system when exposed.  ...

Oops, sorry about that.  It has been some time since I read the ROM Kernel
Manuals.  Actually, I was remembering the general fact that the manuals find
it necessary to *constantly* remind you about memory allocation, and that
most graphics must be in the limited sub-set of memory called chip memory.
[For you non-Amiga types, chip memory is the memory addressable by the
independent graphics chip that actually draws the Amiga graphics].

However, as someone else pointed out, the fine print on Smart_Refresh is
even *worse*, it simply generates a run-time error when you run out of chip
memory!!  Bleah!

All of this is why no one in thier right mind runs an Amiga with less than
2 MB of memory (preferable more).  This is *lots* of memory for a cheap
graphics terminal, so this solution is unusable in an X environment.

In general I like the Amiga, but I think its memory management *sucks* *eggs*.
-- 
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)