PC still playing Amiga catchup

[ElPolloDiabl]

I don't see why amigaksi can't acknowledge the Catweasel Mk IV, I assume it has it's own clock/timer on board.:bitch:

[the_leander]

So in short, yes you can "boot" an 040 system without the library, but it really isn't worth it.

I stand corrected.

My system had any number of patches that necessitated the need for the MMU's presence. Having to loose most of the performance both in terms of software patches and hobbling the cpu would imho be as bad as it simply not booting - the result would be much the same as I wouldn't be able to use half of the software I owned at the time. Also having to pray that none of the software I could still use called one of those unsupported instructions does not inspire confidence.

[juan_fine]

The Great Windows Disk Access Caper:

as an experiment in leanness I turn off file indexing in Windows XP. It takes longer to search for files, but at the same time there are no random disk accesses. I'm still being taxed up to %20 CPU at idle, but this probably a 3rd party app doing that. I shall have a look for it.

I've always disabled the indexing service on the XP machines I've worked with/on, it really drags it down. I mean, if you're spending that much time finding things, you really have personal problems...

[the_leander]

I don't see why amigaksi can't acknowledge the Catweasel Mk IV, I assume it has it's own clock/timer on board.:bitch:

Because that'd blow his argument up! Don't you follow this thread? He's being "objective" - which apparently means you have to dismiss any information that is contrary to your position and call anyone who points this out biased.

:laughing:

[Karlos]

I stand corrected.

Not entirely, though. The stability of the 040 system, if allowed to boot up to a full workbench without the 040.library would be seriously compromised. Any code compiled for an FPU will fail the moment it calls any operation the 040 had to emulate.

[Karlos]

I think warpdesign was being ironic

No, I realise that. It was for our "amiga joyport is superior" friend.

[ElPolloDiabl]

CD32 vs SNES:

Q: How big was the SNES marketing in the USA?
In Australia the C64 and the A500 were the most popular games machine until Playstation came along. SNES got the highest penetration because of Mario and Street Fighter, from anecdotal evidence.
I realise it was the -soon to be bankrupt Escoms- job to reissue the CD32, so ignore that fact.

I don't have much energy for this argument, just mild curiosity. On the plus side I'm think you could turn all this into a book: a final footnote in the Amiga history.

[stefcep2]

CD32 vs SNES:

Q: How big was the SNES marketing in the USA?
In Australia the C64 and the A500 were the most popular games machine until Playstation came along. SNES got the highest penetration because of Mario and Street Fighter, from anecdotal evidence.

I wouldn't have thought the A500's popularity extended till the PS came out.  I was a student working nights at a major toy retailer in 1990 or so, and we kept 5 A500's and games, but the SNES software outsold it at least 10:1

[stefcep2]

Just when you thought it was safe to kiss this thing goodbye:  RAM: disk.  Discuss.

[stefcep2]

Because that'd blow his argument up! Don't you follow this thread? He's being "objective" - which apparently means you have to dismiss any information that is contrary to your position and call anyone who points this out biased.

:laughing:

or dismiss any information that is contrary to your position by saying that you personally don't use it, and therefore don't need it and so it doesn't matter..finished off with LOL

[ElPolloDiabl]

Just when you thought it was safe to kiss this thing goodbye:  RAM: disk.  Discuss.

I'll take the defense... Hard drives are so fast nowadays you don't need it. Vista can make use of flash drives for RAM.

[Karlos]

Just when you thought it was safe to kiss this thing goodbye:  RAM: disk.  Discuss.

I like the RAM disk. I like RAD even more, in that you can copy a minimal OS install into one and it's very nippy.

The original idea behind the RAM disk was for rapid temporary storage, especially on floppy based Amigas. If you have a fast hard disk, there's less reason to use it. The other use for it is to hold your environment data. However, it isn't really best suited for this, particularly if there are lots of small files (as ENV tends to become). HappyEnv eliminates this problem.

So, the question remains, what does your RAM disk get used for now? Well, there's still T: and CLIPS:

Does anybody with a hard disk make regular use of their RAM disk for temporary extractions and so on these days?

[stefcep2]

1.  Hard drives are fast, but files are so big.  So access from hard drive on a PC will never be as fast as access from a dynamic RAM: drive.
2. Writing and deleting files frequently as would happen if you used your hard drive as a dumping ground for eg unarchiving stuff which you delete afterwards results in disk fragmentation, reducing your PC's performance over time.
3.  Its a pain to have to delete unwanted files, wouldn't you just prefer they weren't there next time ypou booted... oh hang-on no-one here boots up anymore so yeah you have to remember to delete otherwise you'll soon have a lot of crap you don't want filling mots of yor hard drive.( don't tell me, hard drives are so BIG now THAT akso doesn't matter).
4.  what about installing and running software in RAM just to check it out?

[ElPolloDiabl]

Re: RAM/RAD disk

A user could get confused and not back up a file to the hard drive. It's better to let the OS do this. Windows can pick the best files to put in RAM itself.

[Karlos]

1.  Hard drives are fast, but files are so big.  So access from hard drive on a PC will never be as fast as access from a dynamic RAM: drive.

Erm, that's a bit of a silly way to put it. Really big files aren't going to fit comfortably into memory either. Chances are they'll get paged out to hard disk anyway.

2. Writing and deleting files frequently as would happen if you used your hard drive as a dumping ground for eg unarchiving stuff which you delete afterwards results in disk fragmentation, reducing your PC's performance over time.

That really depends on your filesystem. Using your Amiga's RAM disk to save disk fragmentation is all well and good but you're ultimately just fragmenting the memory instead. Which isn't a great idea. With 256MB of ram, I've been unable to run an application needing 32MB without a reboot due to this issue.

3.  Its a pain to have to delete unwanted files, wouldn't you just prefer they weren't there next time ypou booted... oh hang-on no-one here boots up anymore so yeah you have to remember to delete otherwise you'll soon have a lot of crap you don't want filling mots of yor hard drive.( don't tell me, hard drives are so BIG now THAT akso doesn't matter).

Use /tmp for your dumping ground and use tmpwatch. Problem solved.

4.  what about installing and running software in RAM just to check it out?

Sure, that's handy sometimes.

Incidentally, you do realise that RAM disks are available on other operating systems, right?

For example:

$ mkdir /var/ramdisk
$ mount -t tmpfs none /var/ramdisk -o size=16m

Et voila, a 16MiB ram disk. It's actually more like RAD, in that it's fixed size, but like RAM: it's entirely volatile.

[stefcep2]

Erm, that's a bit of a silly way to put it. Really big files aren't going to fit comfortably into memory either. Chances are they'll get paged out to hard disk anyway.



That really depends on your filesystem. Using your Amiga's RAM disk to save disk fragmentation is all well and good but you're ultimately just fragmenting the memory instead. Which isn't a great idea. With 256MB of ram, I've been unable to run an application needing 32MB without a reboot due to this issue.



Use /tmp for your dumping ground and use tmpwatch. Problem solved.



Sure, that's handy sometimes.

Incidentally, you do realise that RAM disks are available on other operating systems, right?

For example:



Et voila, a 16MiB ram disk. It's actually more like RAD, in that it's fixed size, but like RAM: it's entirely volatile.

I was thinking more of windows regarding fragmentation.  I've never experienced the RAM: fragmentation due to reading and writing to the RAM: disk.  i used it to store animation frames, which then color reduced, resized, deleted and replaced with the processed frames, which were finally compressed into an animation automatically with an arexx script.

One of the features of the Amiga's ram: disk is that its dynamic, only as big as it needs to be and handles transparently for the user by the OS. Can this be done in Linux ?