Re: NTLK Top o' the Newton day to you

From: Paul Guyot (pguyot@pnm-consulting.com)
Date: Sun Mar 19 2000 - 05:06:13 EST


>on 18-03-2000 8:03, Paul Guyot at pguyot@pnm-consulting.com wrote:
>
>> The drawback is the decrease of available RAM
>
>Just as storage or do you mean heap, in the last case it would depend on ho=
>w
>much (up to 10% would seem acceptable) in the first case it doesn't seem a
>problem to me, only in case that the package would become really huge.
>Just my 0.02 =A2.

Of course storage (for the software) but also global memory available
(then, we can chose what to offer to NS heap - please remind that there is
very probably a NS heap, a system heap and a heap for every task you create
- NewtonOS is fully preemptive but NS is not re-entrant hence NS is not
fully preemptive). That's why you don't have 4 MB exactly installed in the
Memory information.
Current system patch (710031 but also previous ones) use 10 pages if I
remember properly, 2+6 for base ROM, and 1+1 for Extension 1 (where there
is the diagnostic code, and most softwares) (there is no other extension in
the current ROM. Actually this is for Newton Clones).
Hence the total is... 40 kb. If you removed the system update, you will get
4024 KB of free RAM. (of course, if you have a MP2100).
The pther 72 KB (18 pages) are probably used for MMU Tables and may explain
the differences between zones 0000-0080 and 0080-0100. BTW, I do think that
the correct ROM is at 0080 (for those who may use ROMDumper, you will need
to recompile it to dump this zone).

Anyway, if we locate the bug, it may require a system patch and a package
to change the ROM where needed. (a page would certainly be enough, 4kb).
But for that, we should disasm the whole ROM, actually, what I am trying to
do now.

Regards,

Paul

----
P&M Consulting Newton Program
http://www.pnm-consulting.com/newton/

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