[comp.sys.atari.st] Gulam/Developers kit

slavin@acf4.UUCP (05/26/87)

I am having some trouble with the gulam shell and the Atari developers kit.
I run the compiler, assembler, and linker (+relmod) off a 650k resetable
ramdisk that came in COMPUTE'S ST mag.

I seem that one of the programs is not releasing memory after running cleanly.
Before I started running the compiler I used the 'mem' command in gulam and
got about 151K chunk free, and when I was done, I was sometime down to a 
meesly 68K, not enough for exec to execute anything.  Can anybody give me
some suggestions as to clear this problem without rebooting, getting into
gem and starting all over again (at least I don't have to reload the ramdisk).

I would really appreciate some help, because I like the gulam shell, and I
want to continue using it.....

Scott Slavin
New York University
251 Mercer St. NY NY

arpa: slavin@acf4.nyu.edu
bitnet: slavin@nyuacf7

holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway) (05/27/87)

In article <12530002@acf4.UUCP> slavin@acf4.UUCP (Slaveman) writes:

>Before I started running the compiler I used the 'mem' command in gulam and
>got about 151K chunk free, and when I was done, I was somehow down to a 
>measly 68K, not enough for exec to execute anything.

GULAM reports the size of the largest chunk of memory left - you might still
have 151K free, of which 68K is the largest chunk available. This is memory
fragmentation, and is caused when programs use Malloc() to allocate small
blocks rather than doing one Malloc of about a hundred Kilobytes or so,
and allocating smaller structures from that using internal routines.

Also, it looks as if the compiler isn't freeing some of the memory it uses -
otherwise, the fragmentation would fix itself when the program finished. But
there's nothing you can do about it, short of rebooting the machine. It
certainly isn't a problem with Gulam - except that Gulam uses memory even
when another program is running over it, so you lose that memory right there.

- Bruce
-- 
Bruce Holloway - Relapsed Newsaholic         {seismo,sun}!amdahl!drivax!holloway
"Everything should be made as complex as possible - esp. if you're paid hourly."
What Irony - 75                      - "The Personal Diaries of Albert Einstein"

rh@cs.paisley.ac.uk (Robert Hamilton) (06/04/87)

In article <12530002@acf4.UUCP> slavin@acf4.UUCP (Slaveman) writes:
>
>I am having some trouble with the gulam shell and the Atari developers kit.
>I seem that one of the programs is not releasing memory after running cleanly.

I've noticed this with Gulam. It seems that the memory is in fact being
fragmented. Gulam uses the gemdos Malloc which has been known to
cause this problem. rebooting overy so often is theonly 'cure' I've
found. Even so Gulam is so good it's worth putting up with!
Gulam seems to be most fragile (ie likely to crash) when processing
shell scripts in buffers. I've a feeling that the built in ue
 (what version is it ? 3.5 ?) has the some of the bugs which I
have seen in 3.[678] .
Is the Gulam source to be posted? That would be very nice indeed.
It *is* the best shell around for the ST !!
-- 
JANET:  rh@uk.ac.paisley.cs		| Computing Science
EMAIL:	rh@cs.paisley.ac.uk		| Paisley College
UUCP:	...!seismo!mcvax!ukc!paisley!rh	| High St., Paisley
Phone:	+44 41 887 1241 Ext. 219	| Scotland , PA12BE

slavin@acf4.UUCP (Slaveman) (06/09/87)

I found out also that if a program does not finish correctly (ie. bombs)
It does not free the memory it allocated.  But I don't have to reboot 
the machine, I just have to go back to the desktop and re-run gulam again.

Scott Slavin
arpa: slavin@acf4
bitnet: slavin@nyuacf7