Re: OM Variable

[SysOp]

Michel, PCLEXAM (as far as our contract stipulates) will not be available now
or in the future, unless we renegotiate our contract with IBM. At this point it
does not seem to be an issue for a new contract, however that could change. I
would suggest a letter to our Marketing Department in Baltimore if you would
like to forward any suggestions. For current owners of the PCLEXAM files (from
Signature), these can be used as long as you possess XyWrite 4 for DOS.

Concerning your inquiry regarding the UNLOAD command...with XyWrite 4 we
changed the way in which memory is utilized. We now use *dynamic* memory, where
memory is provided when a function or feature is requested. The program also
makes use of *expanded* memory, up to 16 meg with 4.014 (8 meg with prior
revisions). The UNLOAD command from III Plus was provided as a feature for
users to control memory within the 640K region of what is called conventional
memory. With the enhancements made in XyWrite 4, the UNLOAD command was no
longer documented because it is not needed, except for programmers here
in-house for diagnostic reasons. We otherwise would have removed the function
totally. If you try unloading any features, its makes no difference because the
program allocates memory at the time a feature is requested, thereby the term
*dynamic* memory. If you attempt to unload the *program* or *file* of a
specific feature (under the MEM menu), you will not see the results you might
expect. For instance, if you choose to unload a feature which is using 10K of
memory, while noting the available memory beforehand, when you issue the MEM
command again to see if memory available has increased, it will not necessarily
be the value you expect. This is because we load an extensive amount of
overlays just to produce this memory screen. So, if you have a system which has
4-16 meg of memory, memory management should not be an issue. We will load
overlays, features and data in expanded memory if available. If you do not have
a memory manager loaded, then we swap to disk. I would strongly urge any user
to have a memory manger in effect. That way we work totally in memory.

Regards, SysOp