rmeier@su-star.ARPA (R. Meier) (07/30/85)
Seepee Emm, I have been using a Saturn Ramdisk 128K with my Apple ][+ for over a year now, with no problems. The supplied interface software is needlessly complicated, slow and uses almost all of the Cp/m configuration block, but despite this, I have not yet bothered to rewrite it. I find that I only use it about 15% of the time, but that when I use it, it is well worth it. I use it when I know that a given program will have many disk references. I typically use Wordstar, by copying my file to the ramdisk, there editting it, and periodically copying it back to floppy disk. I find that the reduction in WAIT (for disk operation) time is much more comfortable, and avoids the problem of lost characters when a disk operation is performed while typing. I have found that when compiling with small c or using the asm assembler, it is worthwhile to send the hex to the ram disk and then load from the ram disk back onto a floppy. In summary, Saturn Ram Disk 128K No Problem operation > 1 yr Interface Software inconvenient Editting Speedup (x2) (mostly psychological) Assembly/Compiling Speedup (x2) (including copy time) Before, getting the new version of Kermit which does disk buffering, I could almost double my effective file transfer rate, by copying to ram disk. Bob Meier (riacs!meier@pluto) ------