128a-3aj@e260-3a.berkeley.edu (Jonathan Dubman) (11/16/88)
Chuq von Rospach writes: (and I agree with most of his posting) >Apple: here's a suggestion. Create a new bit for an application that tells >Multifinder to load it at the top of memory so that things like PrintMonitor >can load high and application can load low and never the twain shall meet, we >hope!" I can't believe it, these Mac Programmers, particularly the OS people, are still in the dark ages! High and low memory? Sounds like the Apple II, for chrissake. "We hope!" You shouldn't have to HOPE about anything. And the last thing we need is more kludgy bits in each application. These OS programmers don't have VISION- they're stuck in a certain primitive mode of thought- a 1982 Apple II mode of thought. >argh! ... [Hint: if you set all the programs you use in sequence to have the >same memory requirement you may not be able to run them together, but >they'll load when PrintMonitor is active... PrintMonitor is loaded in >after where the layout program used to be so memory is fragmented and there's >no room for FullWrite. ?!!! Except for I/O addresses, there should be no fixed locations in the OS. All memory should be allocated through a memory manager which returns something in your memory which could be anywhere in the 32-bit address space of the microprocessor, and you should NOT DEPEND ON ANYTHING MORE. Applications should not be monolithic in memory usage, they should be segmented. THIS IS THE WAY EVERYONE ELSE DOES IT, ignoring implementation details. Unix does it this way. The Amiga does it this way, and NOTHING EVER CONFLICTS WITH ANYTHING ELSE! On my Amiga, I worry about one number: Free memory left. I can load as many things as I have memory for and run them all at once and each one thinks it owns the machine. Pre-emptive multitasking and common-sensible memory management. Segmented self-relocating code. No fixed addresses. Order of loading applications makes zero difference. "Background printing is great!" Of course. That's like saying round wheels are great. There should be NO OTHER KIND of printing. I heard from some people at Microsoft that Excel had to be "significantly rewritten" to use more than 1 megabyte. That's like saying a piano needs to be redesigned to play music more than a minute long. The application should use as much memory as it finds! Maybe this belongs in mac.programmer. But that is precisely the problem. USERS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT ALL THIS! I feel sorry for Apple's current employees who are faced with the tremendous intertia of a large installed base of screwed-up software. But I really empathize with the users who have to worry about this baloney when they really just want to get work done. Apple, what are your plans for the OS? The time to abandon this precambrian MS-DOS style memory manager and OS-scheme is NOW. Jonathan Dubman UC Berkeley Math/CS student