awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) (04/24/91)
I've been asked privately about dBASE IV and extended memory, and if I'm going to reply it must be posted to the net because I (not anyone else, just me) have so far failed to spend the necessary time to make email replies work. dBASE IV 1.0 was supposed to take advantage of extended memory, but a matter of weeks before it was to ship we discovered a killer bug in the interaction with a popular DOS extender. We couldn't quickly figure out a way to detect this particular extender and avoid stepping on it, so we disabled extended memory support. I feel responsible about this because I gave a speech the month before that and specifically said that we would support it. dBASE IV 1.1 does support both extended and expanded memory by virtue of a third-party disk cache program called HyperDisk. dBASE is loaded by a driver which first loads the cache program and then loads dBASE. We chose HyperDisk because of the wide range of other products that it cooperates nicely with, and because it offers a significant performance boost. A general cache seems to be superior to adding code to the dBASE product to detect and use secondary memory, but we're still testing alternatives. Anyway, the answer to Mr. Grossman's question is that 1.0 does not take advantage of extended memory. You can upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 by calling (800) 2-ASHTON, and I would highly recommend it, obviously. 1.0 is not the bug-riddled product you read about, but 1.1 fixes hundreds of little things that you may never run into and it also uses less memory thanks to an innovative overlay manager. And it uses expanded/extended memory. /alastair/ -- |Disclaimer: I am speaking for myself, not as a spokesman for Ashton-Tate, |which does not monitor my outbursts here. I reserve all rights to my |opinions in terms of commercial endorsements.
jeffmc@dbase.A-T.COM (Jeff McCrimon) (04/25/91)
In article <1991Apr24.163132.10805@dbase.A-T.COM> awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) writes: [much stuff deleted] >> >Anyway, the answer to Mr. Grossman's question is that 1.0 does not >take advantage of extended memory. You can upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 >by calling (800) 2-ASHTON, and I would highly recommend it, obviously. >1.0 is not the bug-riddled product you read about, but 1.1 fixes >hundreds of little things that you may never run into and it also >uses less memory thanks to an innovative overlay manager. And it >uses expanded/extended memory. > >/alastair/ BTW, this update from dBASE IV 1.0 to version 1.1 is FREE of charge! =Jeffrey= > -- .signature is under development
glenn@welch.jhu.edu (Glenn M. Mason) (04/27/91)
In article <1991Apr25.134219.28156@dbase.A-T.COM> jeffmc@dbase.UUCP (Jeff McCrimon) writes: >In article <1991Apr24.163132.10805@dbase.A-T.COM> awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) writes: >[much stuff deleted] >>> >>Anyway, the answer to Mr. Grossman's question is that 1.0 does not >>take advantage of extended memory. You can upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 >>by calling (800) 2-ASHTON, and I would highly recommend it, obviously. >>1.0 is not the bug-riddled product you read about, but 1.1 fixes >>hundreds of little things that you may never run into and it also >>uses less memory thanks to an innovative overlay manager. And it >>uses expanded/extended memory. >> >>/alastair/ > >BTW, this update from dBASE IV 1.0 to version 1.1 is FREE of charge! I have a suggestion for the marketing division at A-T that may help you "regain the market share" (to steal a phrase from a previous posting) ... Why don't you pay people, say $50 to "move to" (I don't want to use the word "upgrade" here because I'm not sure it applies) version 1.1 and pay people who don't own dBASE, say $500.? I think that is a fair price to pay someone to take on a risk of that magnitude. Think about it ... they will get the product, spend countless hours trying to navigate through the poorly organized documentation, spend countless months trying to develop applications only to discover that the number of bugs uncovered is simply to great to represent using a 4-byte integer, and then, if that is not enough, the poor souls will have to take on the aggravation (and humiliation) of trying to sell their software over the net to someone even dumber than themselves. I think that a $500 gift for these poor unfortunates is a start in the right direction!-) Glenn
brian@enkil.UUCP (04/28/91)
In article <1991Apr25.134219.28156@dbase.A-T.COM>, jeffmc@dbase.A-T.COM (Jeff McCrimon) writes: > > BTW, this update from dBASE IV 1.0 to version 1.1 is FREE of charge! > =Jeffrey= > > So is a dBASE IV 1.0 evaluation copy also upgradable free of charge?? I evaluated dB IV, didn't like what I saw, and haven't opened it for two years. Perhaps (sic) I can be convinced by dB IV 1.1. And no doubt, Fox would win in open, fair competition. Brian -- Brian D. Ampolsk - Wynnewood *nix Associates - (215) 642-2250 1605 Brookhaven Rd. Wynnewood, PA 19096 UUCP: ..!uunet!enkil!brian INTERNET: brian@enkil.UUCP