KEE@PSUARLC.BITNET (09/17/87)
Hello Jeff, I've been using a monochrome VAXstation II for about 1.5 years now on a project where we typically have 7 full screen windows. This probably requires about as much memory as 16 smaller windows so perhaps the solution to the crashes we've had will apply to your problems. I'm assuming when you refer to a MicroVAX you actually mean a VAXstation II or VAXstation II/GPX. The following notes would not apply to "windows" created with DEC's Screen Management Software (SMG) or to a VAXstation I. For the record, I'm running VMS 4.5 and VAX Workstation Software (VWS) 3.1 on a system with 5MB of memory and two 71MB disks. When you do a SHOW MEMORY command, the last message you get is "... XXXX pages are permanently allocated to VMS ...". The windows must come out of these pages of memory - if there is not enough, it will NOT automatically go out and use other memory, even if it is available. I guess the reasoning behind this is that the rest of memory might already be used up by someone's program and so may not always be free. Therefore, what you need to do is to increase the number of these permanently allocated pages. This will leave less memory avalable for a user's program. I believe these pages are also know as "global pages" or "dynamic memory". What you or your system manager need to do is (1) tell the VAX to increase this amount of memory; (2) regenerate the associated system parameters (this is done with a program called AUTOGEN); and (3) reboot the system so that the new values take effect. I've found that the instructions in the manuals for doing this to work fine so let me refer you to them. If you are using VMS 2.x (that is, version 2.1, 2.2, etc.), you need to look at "3.5 Changing Window Memory Size" on page 3-5 of "MicroVMS Workstation User's Guide". Be sure to also see "Window memory size" on page 2-20. If you are instead using VWS 3.x, see "4.2 Changing Window Memory Size" on page 4-3 of "MicroVMS Workstation Software Installation Guide". This is a very comphrehensive description and is worth reading, even if you are using the older VMS 2.x. For your information, we've told the VAX to use more of this type of memory by adding the following two lines to the file SYS$SYSTEM:MODPARAMS.DAT : ADD_PAGEDYN=1614624 ADD_GBLPAGES=1500 Also, for VWS 3.x, you need to set a logical name in the system startup procedure; this line for our system is as follows: $ define/system uis$qvss_pool_size 1090560 These changes have eliminated the regular crashing. However, we continue to crash occasionally because of something (we don't know what) having to do with the windows. The symtoms are that everything locks up; and then the next time we click on a menu icon with the mouse it crashes. DEC has never gotten back to use with a solution to this problem. I hope this gets you started on a solution. Good luck! Kent Eschenberg Applied Research Laboratory Penn State University BITNET Address KEE@PSUARLC