[GEM Development] Re: StoneyGEM Announced

Scott McDonald smpcs at hotkey.net.au
Wed Mar 15 11:47:29 PST 2006


Maxwell,

Thank you for the comments about SGM Database. At this stage I am
completing the documentation and removing some bugs. It will be put up
on the StoneyGEM website as soon as it is ready.

With Turbo/Borland Pascal the problems with running on fast machines
is related to a timer loop getting to zero used in the standard CRT
unit. When the CRT was designed the programmers didn't anticipate what
would happen if CPU speeds exceeded what was then unimaginably fast
speeds of 233Mhz and beyond.

* StoneyGEM applications do not use the CRT unit and so this timing
issue is not a problem.

Supporting FreePascal with the SGM Application Framework is a nice
idea, but FreePascal is a 32 bit compiler and requires a "DOS
Extender" for any applications is creates. My previous experience with
DOS extenders is that they can open up a range of compatibility issues
which results in applications that can be difficult to get running on
some hardware.

Since one of my goals is to have GEM apps that can run on any old
hardware, FreePascal may not be the way to go - but I would not rule
out a port to it - and if anyone has any experience running software
under GEM that uses a DOS Extender I would be interested in hearing
your stories.

EMS vs XMS. Thanks for the suggestion. As mentioned on the website EMS
work has not  started yet, so I will look into XMS when I get to that
stage. I know a lot of DOS apps supported both EMS and/or XMS, maybe
that would be possible.

The maximum record number of 16,384 in StoneyGEM Database is limited
by the file format and the internal structure. But as suggested in the
specification the practical limit is determined by the free memory.
You would certainly expect to run out of conventional memory before
reaching the maximum number. That is one of the reason for wanting to
support EMS or XMS to increase the capacity of the applications.

Scott McDonald

StoneyGEM
PO Box 139 Newtown 2042
Australia
Fax: 612-9564-2347
Scott McDonald PC Services
ABN: 20 586 027 242
Email: smpcs at bigpond.com
Website: http://smpcs.server101.com/stoneygem/


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