Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!healy
From: healy@nrl-cmf.UUCP (Liam Healy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga & Mathematica
Summary: Mathematica requires memory
Keywords: only maybe ...
Message-ID: <170@nrl-cmf.UUCP>
Date: 11 Feb 89 20:00:22 GMT
References: <00VO0520TZ1010ep0M.@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <3026@ihlpm.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: healy@cmsun.nrl.navy.mil (Liam Healy)
Organization: NRL Connection Machine Facility, Washington, DC
Lines: 38

In article <3026@ihlpm.ATT.COM> jmdavis@ihlpm.ATT.COM (Davis) writes:
>> 
>> Her reply was:
>> > Kim,

>> > without virtual memory, Mathematica requires approximately 3 meg
>> > of memory and not many Amiga users have this much.

>What!?!?!? How much memory does it take to run in a Mac. The book I
>have seen on Mathematica indicates that it runs on Macintoshes, not
>only Mac II's. I can't believe there are that many more folks out
>there who have 3 MB on good ole Mac I's.
>
>Anyway, Even if it is 3 Megs on a Mac, I am curious if they have investigated
>the operating system on the amiga. Seems like they could save some memory
>by writing an intelligent port.


I have used Mathematica extensively on a Mac II.  Technically it 
will run in 2 MB, but is effectively useless.  I would say the practical
minimum is 4 MB.  8 MB is nice.  I don't know what this implies for
the Amiga, but even if it requires less than on the Mac, it will still
require a lot (compared to the standard configuration).  On the other
hand, a few megabytes is no longer outlandish or even uncommon.

>Finally, the comment about Virtual Memory, well, wouldn't overlays be
>possible here? While some of the beauty of Mathematica is that you can

The possibility occured to me too.  I don't see why not.
I would like to see Mathematica in a multi-tasking environment like
the Amiga.  Maybe with an AREXX port?

>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>			Mike Davis ..!att!ihlpm!jmdavis

Liam Healy
Naval Research Laboratory
healy@cmsun.nrl.navy.mil