scott wrote:
>> My point here is not "word processors shouldn't allow you to include 
>> graphics". My point is "running a word processor should not require 
>> several hundred MB of RAM" [unless you're actually loading something 
>> large].
> 
> They don't!  If I open a blank Word document, that's 10 MB.

...which begs the question, "what are you using 10 MB for?"

There used to be word processors that would run inside less than 60 KB 
of RAM. Sure, nobody could argue they had the same features. And sure, I 
can see how adding lots more features would require quite a bit more 
RAM. But 10,000 KB? That's not "quite a bit more". That's 170 *times* 
more! What's it *doing* with it??

>> Seriously. It sounds like nothing, but do you have any idea how 
>> *annoying* it is when it takes 10 seconds to switch between windows? 
>> My lowly Amiga with 2 MB of RAM could do all that *instantaneously* 20 
>> years ago... WTF?
> 
> But what happened on your Amiga when you tried to use 2.5 MB of RAM when 
> you only had 2 installed?  Seriously, if you are going to regularly try 
> to use more RAM than you have installed then you must expect page-file 
> swapping - and it's not fast.  You can set the page-file size to zero in 
> Windows, then it will behave more like your Amiga used to.

...the point being that software for the Amiga was designed to not 
*require* more than 2 MB in the first place. (Because if it did, you 
just massively reduced your potential market.) Back then, software only 
used memory if it was absolutely, unavoidably necessary. Which is kind 
of my point...



(To actually answer your question, if you ask AmigaOS for 2.5 MB of RAM 
when only 2 MB of physical RAM exists, you get a message that amounts to 
"no, go away". One of the ways they kept the Amiga cheap was by not 
including the hardware necessary for implementing virtual memory...)

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