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From: halp@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re:  AE Ramfactor and AppleWorks 2.0
Message-ID: <8706090205.AA23619@tcgould.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: Mon, 8-Jun-87 22:05:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: tcgould.8706090205.AA23619
Posted: Mon Jun  8 22:05:28 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jun-87 05:29:02 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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All things being equal, AppleWorks takes whatever memory is available. The 
AppleWorks 2.0 manual ("Apple II Using AppleWorks", 0300374A), page 40, 
states it as "Essentially, the Desktop is as big as your computer's free 
memory when you start AH AppleWorks. At that time, the program reserves any 
leftover memory for your desktop."  AppleWorks 2.0 does this automatically 
for the Apple memory card, and for similar RAM cards, such as Applied Engineering's RamFactor. This is all fine, if one wants the biggest possible desktop.
However, if one wants some of RAM as desktop, and some as a RAMdisk, it's not 
so fine.

To solve this problem, Applied Engineering developed software that produces 
a RAMdisk of the desired size (if enough RAM is available) in an Applied 
Engineering RamWorks RAM card, and modifies AppleWorks (including 2.0) such 
that it creates a desktop that is limited to a size comparible with the 
RAMdisk. Unfortunately, while this all works for the Applied Engineering 
RamWorks RAM board, it does not work for their RamFactor board.

Instead, the RamFactor board looks like a 'real' hard disk. It can be 
partitioned with separate operating systems in each partition. When 
equipped with its own power supply and battery back-up (RamCharger), the 
RamFactor card resembles a hard disk even more, in that its contents remain 
when the computer is turned off. The firmware on RamFactor operates such 
that only one partition can be active at any one time. Thus, although 
a RamFactor partition can be used to limit the size of AppleWorks desktop, 
the other partitions can not be accessed if the partition that supplies the 
AppleWorks desktop is active.

[If any Applied Engineering Wizards are observing, please feel free to 
correct me]

Bruce P. Halpern   halp@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu     D57J@CORNELLA.BITNET
TEL:607-255-6433           smail:Uris Hall, Cornell U.,Ithaca NY 14853-7601