Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!oliveb!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!howard
From: howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: LightSpeed C gripes
Message-ID: <1072@cpocd2.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 88 01:32:32 GMT
References: <4Vw6hny00WAK5w00JJ@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman)
Organization: Intel Corp. ASIC Systems Organization, Chandler AZ
Lines: 55

In article <4Vw6hny00WAK5w00JJ@andrew.cmu.edu> rs4u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel) writes:
>3) "The system is extremely limited by memory constraints."
>
>	At best, this is wrong. You can run programs of unlimited size on your 
>computer, be it Mac 128K, 512K, Plus, SE, or II. The segmentation is easy and 
>painless. It is true that the Macintosh imposes a global-space limitation of 
>32K, but this is due to the A5-relative referencing of globals. To work around 
>the limit, use pointers instead of large static arrays. This and other methods 
>of getting around the limit have been discussed time and time again in this 
>newsgroup.
>
> The 32K limitation can't be so awful -- many popular (and large!) programs 
>have been written using LightspeedC; for example, Aldus PageMaker, Adobe 
>Illustrator, Quark XPress, and LightspeedC itself.

I can't agree with this at all.  That's like saying that there was nothing
wrong with only having 8 KB of memory on a TRS-80, because people could write
programs that ran in that space.

I have a fairly simple UNIX application that I was hoping to port to the Mac.
Unfortunately, the system architecture is such that the program's database is
kept in (virtual) memory, in a couple of 2 MB arrays (will need to increase size
soon, as that is almost all used).  Under a true VM system like UNIX, the
program has a working set of about 160 KB - most of the database is not needed
at any given instant, so it is automatically paged out to disk.  I can easily
run the program on a machine with only 1 MB RAM, even though the program
virtual image is about 4.5 MB (and growing), and the UNIX kernel (which is
locked in core) eats up over 250 KB.

Am I wrong in stating that this program simply cannot be made to run in 1 MB
on a Mac without major recoding?  I like my Mac, but (because of stuff like
this) don't plan to program on it until AUX is available on a system I can
afford.

This isn't LSC's fault, but defending it as perfectly acceptable seems rather
misguided.

> This is correct. LightspeedC is not a Unix C compiler that happens to be 
>running on the Macintosh; it is a C compiler that's useful for writing 
>Macintosh applications, drivers, and desk accessories in C. The Unix libraries 
>are there, but they're simplistic, and shouldn't be used for writing 
>Unix-style applications to run on the Macintosh.

Thanks for the warning.  That's almost enough to make me never consider it.

>The Macintosh isn't a Unix 
>machine, and no amount of library support is going to make it one.

Fortunately, Apple thinks otherwise, at least with regard to the Mac II.

-- 
	Howard A. Landman
	{oliveb,hplabs}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!howard
	howard%cpocd2.intel.com@RELAY.CS.NET
	One hand clapping sounds a lot like two hands clapping, only quieter.