>> 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?"

I couldn't really care less.  10 MB is nothing on modern machines.  My 
digital camera generates 10 MB per shot, it's not really making me lose any 
sleep.

> 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!

You have more than 170 times more RAM now though.

> ...the point being that software for the Amiga was designed to not 
> *require* more than 2 MB in the first place.

What if you had an Amiga with only 512K or 1MB RAM?

What Windows software requires more than 1 or 2 GB of RAM anyway?

> (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...

Because you only had 2MB to spare, of course you couldn't include 600K of 
fancy bitmaps in RAM, a thesaurus, dictionary and grammar checker, you made 
a "bare bones" word processor that basically did the bare minimum to produce 
documents.  Now you can do all that cool stuff and of course it uses more 
RAM.  What's your 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...)

So what if you take an AmigaOS program that tries to use eg 1.5 MB of RAM 
and run it on an old Amiga that only has 1MB?  It doesn't work.  What 
happens when you try to run a modern piece of software on an older PC?  It 
works ... but very slowly.

If you prefer the Amiga option, then just switch off virtual memory in 
Windows.

Post a reply to this message

chromatograms? what kind of chromatograms?
I regret not getting to this thread sooner. We do have lab equipment
connected to PC's that use older interfaces.
There is an old Dell Inspiron 7000 (366MHz, 256mb RAM) running WinXP
connected to a Sartorius SC2. We used this old laptop while new Dells don't
come with rs232 ports. 
We also have a couple of Pentium IV machines with equipment connected via
ISA-slot GPIB cards. These also run WinXP, but one has 512mb RAM and
another has 1GB. All of these have far more RAM than they need for what
they do, but they have never had access to the internet, never had any
Windows updates, and aren't as bloated as typical office or personal
computers as a result of that. We even had to call in our registrations for
the Windows software just to avoid the risk of plugging into an ethernet
port to register.


Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> scott wrote:
>>> No. Our normal *lab* environment. ;-) The *office* just runs Word and
>>> Access. (And the guys in the lab insist on using Excel a lot...)
>> 
>> And I expect the guys in the office often want to include fancy graphics
>> into their Word documents, perhaps just company logos on a letter, or
>> photos/diagrams in a report.
> 
> Not really, no.
> 
> Just chromatagrams. I gather that they're quite large... (Well, the data
> is almost always very noisy.)
> 
>> All of which rapidly use up memory and
>> which would slow down hugely on a very slow machine.
>> 
>> Sure, they could use a plain text editor on an ancient machine with 32K
>> of RAM, but it's not going to look very professional.
> 
> My point is not so much that we should go back to using 32K machines,
> but rather that we should go back to the days of programs only using
> more than 32K if they *need* it for something. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

>> One of the ways they kept the Amiga cheap was by not including the 
>> hardware necessary for implementing virtual memory...)
> 
> The CPU didn't even support it, just like pre-386 days.

Correction: The Morotola 68000 series *does* have an optional MMU. And 
that's just it - optional. There was a special board you could get to 
install a replacement CPU with an MMU fitted, and software to go with it 
to add virtual memory to your Amiga.

So there. :-P

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>>> 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?"
> 
> I couldn't really care less.  10 MB is nothing on modern machines.  My 
> digital camera generates 10 MB per shot, it's not really making me lose 
> any sleep.

A digital camera uses 10 MB for a reason - it's capturing a highly 
detailed digital image. That kind of thing requires storeage space. I 
have no problem with that.

>> 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!
> 
> You have more than 170 times more RAM now though.

...so it's OK to waste 170 times more RAM?

And that's just my point. Just because we have all this stuff available 
does *not* mean it should just be wasted on inefficiency. Just think 
what the hell we could do with all this stuff if it wasn't being wasted 
all the time...

> What Windows software requires more than 1 or 2 GB of RAM anyway?

Apophysis. ;-) Not that that matters here...

>> (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...
> 
> Because you only had 2MB to spare, of course you couldn't include 600K 
> of fancy bitmaps in RAM, a thesaurus, dictionary and grammar checker, 
> you made a "bare bones" word processor that basically did the bare 
> minimum to produce documents.  Now you can do all that cool stuff and of 
> course it uses more RAM.  What's your point?

My point is that 20 years ago I had a word processor with a spell 
checker and it didn't require 10 MB.

> So what if you take an AmigaOS program that tries to use eg 1.5 MB of 
> RAM and run it on an old Amiga that only has 1MB?  It doesn't work.  
> What happens when you try to run a modern piece of software on an older 
> PC?  It works ... but very slowly.
> 
> If you prefer the Amiga option, then just switch off virtual memory in 
> Windows.

Apparently you still don't understand what I'm trying to say...

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>>> One of the ways they kept the Amiga cheap was by not including the 
>>> hardware necessary for implementing virtual memory...)
>>
>> The CPU didn't even support it, just like pre-386 days.
> 
> Correction: The Morotola 68000 series *does* have an optional MMU. And 
> that's just it - optional. There was a special board you could get to 
> install a replacement CPU with an MMU fitted,

Right.  A replacement CPU.  I.e., the 68000 didn't support virtual 
memory. The 68010 did. So you replace the 68000 with a 68010, and you 
can do virtual memory.

And the 68020 supports 32-bit addressing.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>
>>>> One of the ways they kept the Amiga cheap was by not including the 
>>>> hardware necessary for implementing virtual memory...)
>>>
>>> The CPU didn't even support it, just like pre-386 days.
>>
>> Correction: The Morotola 68000 series *does* have an optional MMU. And 
>> that's just it - optional. There was a special board you could get to 
>> install a replacement CPU with an MMU fitted,
> 
> Right.  A replacement CPU.  I.e., the 68000 didn't support virtual 
> memory. The 68010 did. So you replace the 68000 with a 68010, and you 
> can do virtual memory.
> 
> And the 68020 supports 32-bit addressing.

I emphasise: The Morotola 68000 *series*. (Of which different Amigas had 
varying versions.)

My point is, the hardware supports it if you pay extra money. It's just 
an extra-cost option rather than standard like these days. (There was 
also a big performance hit, IIRC...)

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> I emphasise: The Morotola 68000 *series*. (Of which different Amigas had 
> varying versions.)

Really? I thought they were all 68000.  OK.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>> I emphasise: The Morotola 68000 *series*. (Of which different Amigas 
>> had varying versions.)
> 
> Really? I thought they were all 68000.  OK.

For example, the Amiga 1200 shipped from the factory with the 68020 
running at 14 MHz. (Actually, the 68EC020, which lacks the MMU.)

IIRC, I later upgraded mine to a 68030 + FPU...

Post a reply to this message

> (There was also a big performance hit, IIRC...)

So, asking a program to use 3MB of RAM on a 2MB Amiga with the VM support is 
different to you trying to use more than 256MB on your Windows machine how?

Post a reply to this message

> Apparently you still don't understand what I'm trying to say...

That you'd prefer 99% of your RAM to be left unused, while sitting at very 
basic and streamlined versions of the OS and all applications (that the 
developers have spend years optimising RAM usage to a bare minimum and so is 
generations behind what is normal today and 5x the price)?

Perhaps I don't understand then...

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