[comp.lang.forth] TCOM, THE LITTLE GIANT

ForthNet@willett.UUCP (ForthNet articles from GEnie) (01/06/90)

 Date: 01-02-90 (19:52)              Number: 2746 (Echo)
   To: ALL                           Refer#: NONE
 From: ZAFAR ESSAK                     Read: (N/A)
 Subj: TCOM, THE LITTLE GIANT        Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE

 I have played with Tom Zimmer's TCOM for a couple of days now and I 
 have some comments and questions.  This compiler is a new variance of 
 Forth environments and almost requires that source be written in that 
 dialect, which is close to F-PC for those already familiar with it. 

 The resulting .COM files are certainly small and quite fast in 
 performance.  However, the small program files are a disguise covering 
 the amount of RAM consumed.  I found a small target .COM of less than 
 7k was actually consuming a whopping 72k of RAM.  I could use some help 
 here.  Tom's documentation is a little thin in this regard and mentions 
 that you can use the /NOINIT switch but must then do your own 
 initialization.  Exactly how and where?  When the application is 
 running?  or when compiling the target?  There is a word "ADJ_MEMORY" 
 in the LIBRARY.SEQ file that expects a paragraph count and then adds an 
 extra 64k for "data space" before calling the SETBLOCK function.  When 
 I tried reducing this default to even 32k and creating a new TCOM the 
 resulting application crashes with memory allocation problems.  Is it 
 possible that there are other places where RAM is being consumed that 
 must be taken into consideration.  Is there a simple way to use the 
 minimum RAM?  Does anyone have any ideas? 
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