Re: [NTLK] "PackageFlag Changer 0.1a2" by T. Murai

From: DJ Vollkasko <DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net>
Date: Sun Jun 11 2006 - 11:43:51 EDT

Does so, too, Tech Ed-dearest! ;=}

Remember the big, fat ebooks made with Newton Press? They eat up less
storage on yer Newt than on yer desktop machine. Some serious
compression at work there to economize the rare Flash storage.

Remember that the Newton in any incarnation had quite okay processing
power (maybe not the last year of NOS 2.0 machines and the eMate at
the time it was offered); the 2x00's CPU hertzage was even two or three
years ago still acceptable in entry-level "modern" PDAs.
    Storage was much more precious at the time, so there was a weigh-off
to increase storage capacity through built-in compression, which won't
give much of a delay in applications that are not constantly active.
E.G. a ebook--a quarter-second more or less to display the next page
will not define if the product is a failure; the capacity to store an
ebook or not courtesy of scarce storage would definitely define a
failure. Same for Notes, Dates, Names--none of them are time-critical,
much unlike speed of HWR.

Now, we've seen that compression saves space. Compression may also save
time--e.g. in transmitting data, whether compression turned on on your
modem, or data wrapped up as .zip-archive--the payment in data
processing (compressing/decompressing) brings viable time gains where
transmission is the bottleneck.

How about the Newton--what about very active applications that change
their status often and display something new in near-time (Mad Max, GPS
Map, VNC maybe,...)?
Could they not profit from switching the application's compression off
to take some load off the CPU? Or how precisely does the Newton work
around the bottleneck? How much load *does* that compression create?

Also note that space is not that precious anymore as it used to be,
what with affordable 20 MB Linear Flash cards from Frank or ATA Support
and the low, low prices for Compact Flash-cards on Ebay. Even brandnew
Secure Digital-Cards are cheap now--I've recently seen 1 GB (!) offered
for EUR 30,--. ATA Support *does* talk SD-cards, doesn't it?

>> And thinking about speed--do we have a benchmarking suite to run on
>> Newtons and clock them? Would be handy to have that around and
compare
>> speeds of original Newts against Einsteinian Dr. Moreau-creatures,
and
>> rank these amongst themselves, if one should be so interested.
>
>Either NewtTest or Nick's TestIt offers a speed test:

Yes, with them the whole Newton or Einsteinian device can be clocked
and benchmarked.

But how could the speed of specific applications be measured, to see
exactly of there are or aren't any speed improvements gained by keeping
decompression off the CPU?

>Yes you can disable the compression for a package on a Newt.

What about non-package items, are they also compressed by default? How
to toggle that?

Inquiring minds wanna know,

sez yer ole pal

Curious 'Kasko.

P.S.: Hey, want to read a free ebook? I got plenty! Hot, brand-new
Creative Commons-licensed titles, non-fiction, novels, world literature
classics, big heap of fantastic literature and SF, reference books and
technical stuff, and a nice batch of Newton software, incl. some stuff
which is currently not available anywhere else in the world--freeware,
abandonware, formerly commercially marketed liberated software... Check
http://www.stillnewt.org/library for the goods!

P.P.S.: Good some nice ebooks you want to share with World-Newtondom?
Or some Newton apps or gimmicks you never got around to put up on the
web? Or your website is dead now, and you really couldn't care less
about changing that, but feel that it still would be a shame to condemn
your labour of love to oblivion? Drop me a line, and we'll get that
stuff online in a breeze or three! ;=}

-- 
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Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
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Received on Sun Jun 11 11:50:39 2006

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