ch2f#@andrew.cmu.edu.UUCP (03/27/87)
Just got my SE and was playing Dark Castle on it (installed it on the hard disk, no problem). The program seemed to work fine. But I really got the machine to do work on, so I later installed SmartAlarms in the system file on the hard disk. Now Dark Castle says "there is a problem with the way memory is allocated. (3524 high bytes used). This could be due to other software that is already installed in memory." Is this a problem on the Mac Plus too, or is is just specific to the SE? Thanks for any hints. -Chuck Huff
jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (03/27/87)
In article <EUONjiy00W0cETQ0AO@andrew.cmu.edu>, ch2f#@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles Huff) writes: > Just got my SE and was playing Dark Castle on it (installed it on the hard > disk, no problem). The program seemed to work fine. But I really got the > machine to do work on, so I later installed SmartAlarms in the system file on > the hard disk. Now Dark Castle says "there is a problem with the way memory > is allocated. (3524 high bytes used). This could be due to other software > that is already installed in memory." Is this a problem on the Mac Plus too, > or is is just specific to the SE? Thanks for any hints. > > -Chuck Huff Dark Castles, like many animation games, uses the alternate screen buffer. There are two ways to install memory-resident tasks on the Mac. Put it in the system heap (discouraged for the pre-Mac Plus; later machines have larger system heaps) or steal it from high memory. Unfortunately, stealing it from high memory prevents one from ever having an alternate screen buffer. Somewhere there's a PD program that pre-allocates the alternate screen buffer (so it will be there later) BEFORE other programs steal the memory. If not, it's easy enough to do -- just write a program that sets the appropriate _Launch parameter before calling your program. -- Joel West {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww (ihnp4!gould9!joel once I fix news) jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu if you must
dwb@well.UUCP (03/29/87)
In article <2911@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: >Somewhere there's a PD program that pre-allocates the alternate screen >buffer (so it will be there later) BEFORE other programs steal the >memory. Unfortunately, the way Dark Castle goes about find out if the alternate screen buffer is available doesn't take that into account. Ie., Dark Castle still won't work, even with it installed. My solution, obnoxious though it may be is to just run it off of a floopy. David -- David W. Berry dwb@well.uucp dwb@Delphi dwb@GEnie 293-0752@408.MaBell
jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (03/30/87)
In article <2841@well.UUCP>, dwb@well.UUCP (David W. Berry) writes: > In article <2911@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: > >Somewhere there's a PD program that pre-allocates the alternate screen > >buffer (so it will be there later) BEFORE other programs steal the > >memory. > Unfortunately, the way Dark Castle goes about find out if the > alternate screen buffer is available doesn't take that into > account. Ie., Dark Castle still won't work, even with it > installed. I talked to the folks at Silicon Beach over the weekend, and, David is right, Dark Castles can't tell if you save the buffer for it. (I was trying to do just that, and couldn't get it to work.) Actually, this brings up a minor complaint of mine. Apple starting encouraging people to allocate space from BufPtr because the system heap is too small. This is a terrible hack; there is no management of this memory, no way to tell why it is allocated or to deallocate it -- or even a bit to say that the alternate buffers are reserved. Now that the system heap is larger on the Mac II, and it will break all the programs that idiotically made assumptions about the value of ApplZone, maybe the system heap can be expanded on the other machines as well. Or maybe we can get some memory management for the BufPtr area (such as a linked list of allocated areas and a trap to move down BufPtr). I mean, this is no better than the hack used to run DA's on the IBM PC! -- Joel West {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww (ihnp4!gould9!joel once I fix news) jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu if you must