Re: Can v. 112 of Jumbo U2 Crash OS/2 ?

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Hi Robert. Thanks for getting back to me.

Robert Holmgren wrote:

> ** Reply to message from "J. R. Fox"  on Mon, 22 Jul 2002
> 23:04:51 -0800
>
> Can U2 crash OS/2? I doubt it. Never has here! Carl's never mentioned it.
> I'm running MCP v2 (Warp v4.52) rather than ECS,

That should be the same kernel level (Internal Rev. 14.088_W4); I think the
differences with MCP are more decorative than substantive.

> Look, all that happens when you LOAD U2 is that it gets
> indexed. Nothing is "run".

O.K.

> XyWrite could be crashing the VDM, though, in numerous ways.

Not just the DOS session -- that would be a lot less terrible. Whatever the cause,
it is taking down everything. In OS/2, normally a session could get torpedoed by
some problem or something that is misbehaving, but the damage will be
compartmentalized and won't bring down the os.

> It could be running out of memory, and that in turn is causing
> an exception in the kernel.

It's a curiosity that the same Xy + Startup + U2 file does *not* produce this result
here under W4 / FP9 or WSEB (the server edition, which I think is equivalent to
FP-15). I mean, if I'm pushing the limits and running out of memory, wouldn't that
be a constant ? I am starting to suspect that the joker in this pack may be the
eval. version of SDD Pro. (SDD is the GRADD-based set that supports most of the
video cards & chipsets on the market.) Every other boot partition is using the
native Matrox 2.36 video drivers, which have a very long and a very good track
record on successive hardware generations of this desktop system. There are enough
variables, though, and I have done relatively little word processing so far under
ECS, because that partition is in such an early stage of construction. So it's hard
to be sure, without a lot more testing.

> When you successfully load XyWrite including U2,
> what does VA/NV $M+6 say? If it reports over 20[Kb], you are dangerously
> close to OOM (out of mem) in the programming part of memory.

I'll run these checks you suggested and report back. Right now, I'm working in the
old W4 "Production" partition, which is quite stable and has no significant
problems.

> if you have a lot of programming Save/Gets attached
> to specific keys, that will gobble up memory like candy.

I do have some, and have had 'em there for a loooong time.

> (It's a very stupid and wasteful way to organize things too -- all code is loaded
> verbatim, whereas with U2 all you load is a 15-20 byte pointer to each frame.)

I know, I know. Chalk it up to inertia.

> Don't load HLP (and/or DLG) unless you really need it.

Those I might be able to dispense with. But I'd like to have access to them again
when there _is_ a need.

> Send me your STARTUP.INT as an attachment.

Attached. I'm sure you'll find many unsavory practices therein. If we're going to
overhaul Startup, I'm sure this will give rise to other questions.

> Humongous KBD files with a lot of keystroking around are also a no-no --

I wouldn't call the one I use humongous, but maybe not svelte either.  It's under
25k, including a generous amount of comments, and a convenient reprise of the Kbd
layout diagram closer to the ALT table. Don't the instructions for a number of the
goodies you guys have crafted provide Kbd programming strings ?

> put the keystrokes in a U2 frame, it's much more economical for memory!

A project for my To Do List, though I'm not sure I know how (is most of the stuff in
U2 a Type 5 frame these days ?), and have some concern as to how time consuming this
task would be.

Jordan

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