fons@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (06/23/89)
First of all let me say that I work part-time for WRI, the makers of
Mathematica. I have been using Mathematica for quite some time on my
home Mac II with 5MB of memory with no problems. In addition, to the
best of my knowledge, Mathematica does not "crash" at all when memory runs
short, but rather puts up a dialog box warning the user that memory is
running out and allows the user to save. The minimum memory advised for
the current version of Mathematica (as opposed to 1.2 which is coming out
shortly) is 2.5MB. It is possible to do meaningful work with only 2.5MB,
but memory will fill quickly. As memory prices are pretty much under control
these days, I would suggest at least 5MB on a Mac II as a reasonable platform.
I don't believe a suggested minimum memory figure has been made for 1.2,
but I doubt it will be different. The code segmentation is optimized to
the extent it can be, thus the real memory limitation (whether you need
8 MB) really turns about the question what sort of data are you going to be
storing during a session. Obviously if you use lots of complicated 3D
graphics and large data sets, 8 MB will be more appropriate. To wrap up
I would say try 5MB, and in all likelyhood it will be fine, you can always
add more memory later or use the virtual memory in V7 of the operating system-
yes Mathematica is "32 bit clean".
Paul Fons
University of Illinois
Coordinated Science Laboratory
1101 W. Springfield Av.
Urbana, Illinois 61801 U.S.A.
email: Fons@uiucvmd.bitnet or...
Fons@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu