Re: Xy4 and U2 on a 286

[Carl Distefano cld@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from Peregrine@xxxxxxxx Thu, 29 Jun 2000 17:53:50 EDT

-> Running Xy4 in MS-DOS 5 on a 286, 4MB RAM, ...
-> Since updating to the latest XYWWWEB.U2 version 99, there is a
-> marked slowdown in calling up the U2 index. Has the new one
-> grown so much,

What version did you upgrade *from*? Was it older than v085? If
so, you might notice a difference (on a 286) because, starting with
v085, the procedure for calling the Index fundamentally changed.
That's when we broke the Index and Help screens out of XYWWWEB.U2
into a separate file (XYWWWEB.INF). The complex SEarch operations
that INDEX and HELP perform on that file (currently 452K in size)
will inevitably take longer on a machine that's a good 10 years
behind the times. C'est la vie! Rest assured there were sound
reasons for the change-over, chiefly to reduce memory usage, which,
in turn, made for snappier performance on most systems.

-> is it possible to carve out or excise the sections I don't
-> need, such as the OS/2-specific programming?

Why bother? The *entire U2*, loaded into memory, occupies a mere
7K! Deleting individual frames would reduce that already small
number by a pittance. It'd be a colossal waste of time.

-> ...would I be playing with fire to try such a thing?

Not fire, exactly. But there would be pitfalls. The U2 has evolved
into a highly structured facility -- routines calling other routines
calling still others, back and forth. From the user's perspective,
it would be far from obvious which parts are essential and which
aren't. You could spend many tedious hours trying to dope that out.
And for what? You have better things to do.

--------------
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/