siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (siegman) (12/11/90)
Just tried to launch Excel 1.5 and got system msg "Sorry, I can't start Excel 1.5. Most likely there is not enough memory available." Double-clicked an Excel document just to check, got slightly different msg: "Can't start Excel 1.5. Fragmented memory." This is on an SE/30 with full 8 MBytes, nothing else currently running except Multifinder and Finder (6.1.5, System 6.0.5). Excel has run fine before on exactly the same setup, in fact in parallel with WriteNow, MicroPhone, and some DAs. Looking at the "About the Finder" box shows the Finder and System memory bars are crowded but have a little space at the ends, and there is 7,000 K of memory free and available. Restarting doesn't help. Other applications will launch. What the hell is going on? How do I "de-fragment" memory?
colella@emav51.webo.dg.com (Wayne Colella) (12/11/90)
I've had the exact same problem numerous times - I've got 8Mb of memory and no other applications running, but Excel can't seem to find a contiguous chunk to run in. It only needs 200-400K, I believe. Anyway, rebooting the system will get around the problem (obviously), but I, too, would love to find out a better solution if anyone has one... Wayne Colella colella@emav51.webo.dg.com
barry@playfair.Stanford.EDU (Barrett P. Eynon) (12/12/90)
Geez, guys, get Excel 2.2. It's only been out for over a year, and fixes all these memory problems. -- Barry Eynon barry@playfair.stanford.edu
jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jeff White) (12/13/90)
In article <1208@dg.dg.com> colella@emav51.webo.dg.com (Wayne Colella) writes: >I've had the exact same problem numerous times - I've got 8Mb of memory >and no other applications running, but Excel can't seem to find a >contiguous chunk to run in. It only needs 200-400K, I believe. Anyway, >rebooting the system will get around the problem (obviously), but I, >too, would love to find out a better solution if anyone has one... I believe the problem was that Excel 1.x versions could only use a maximum of 1 Mbyte of memory (regardless of how much ram you have), and moreover, on systems with >1 Meg, Excel had to load into the first Mbyte of ram. I think Microsoft recommended that Excel be the first program run (in a MF environment) so that it could grab that memory. The fix is to upgrade to version 2.2. Jeff White jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu