I just recently downloaded the web release of Allegro Common Lisp for
windows. Now, I know the web release has limitations, presumably so that
they can sell the commercial package, but my question is: should ACL take
3 full minutes to come up? I'm running windows 3.11, i've got all kinds
of room on my HD, and i've got 8MB ram. The thing sits there, sounding
like its formatting my hard drive, forever. It doesn't appear to do anything
but access the HD, and then it *slowly* builds its windows.
what's up with that?
-j
In article <·················@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
·····@MAINE.MAINE.EDU "<·····@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
" writes:
> I just recently downloaded the web release of Allegro Common Lisp for
> windows. Now, I know the web release has limitations, presumably so that
> they can sell the commercial package, but my question is: should ACL take
> 3 full minutes to come up? I'm running windows 3.11, i've got all kinds
> of room on my HD, and i've got 8MB ram. The thing sits there, sounding
> like its formatting my hard drive, forever. It doesn't appear to do anything
> but access the HD, and then it *slowly* builds its windows.
>
> what's up with that?
I think you need more than 8 MB of RAM. I'd bet that your machine
is thrashing. Try 16 MB. I know that works, coz I've used the web
version of ACL for Windows on such a machine.
However, with 8 BM, I _know_ it performs badly, coz I've also tried
it. I gave up, and used 16 MB of RAM instead. I strongely recommend
that you do the same thing.
Alternately, you could adjust the GC parameters, in the allegro.ini
file. That _might_ help, but I wouldn't bet on it helping enough.
--
<URL:http://www.enrapture.com/cybes/> "You can never browse enough."
In article <·················@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
·····@MAINE.MAINE.EDU "<·····@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
" writes:
> I just recently downloaded the web release of Allegro Common Lisp for
> windows. Now, I know the web release has limitations, presumably so that
> they can sell the commercial package, but my question is: should ACL take
> 3 full minutes to come up? I'm running windows 3.11, i've got all kinds
> of room on my HD, and i've got 8MB ram. The thing sits there, sounding
> like its formatting my hard drive, forever. It doesn't appear to do anything
> but access the HD, and then it *slowly* builds its windows.
>
> what's up with that?
For me, ACL/Win 3.0 takes about 13 seconds to load up on 486 DX 66/2
with 32M. My sysmeter says after loading that it allocated about
10M of virtual memory, so I'm not surprised you are thrashing terribly
with only 8M of physical ram. The ACL/Win Web image is a complete
development environment (including GUI builder, CLOS tools, debugging
tools, Common Graphics, Text Editor, etc). An 8M machine is simply
too small for such a rich developing environment. 8M machines are
history, almost all new machines sold have 16M minimum. Most serious
devlopers have 32M minimum.
<·····@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> wrote:
>I just recently downloaded the web release of Allegro Common Lisp for
>windows. Now, I know the web release has limitations, presumably so that
>they can sell the commercial package, but my question is: should ACL take
>3 full minutes to come up? I'm running windows 3.11, i've got all kinds
>of room on my HD, and i've got 8MB ram. The thing sits there, sounding
>like its formatting my hard drive, forever. It doesn't appear to do anything
>but access the HD, and then it *slowly* builds its windows.
>
>what's up with that?
>-j
Yup, I have used the same setup and 8Mb of RAM on a 100Mhz 486
and I experience a 3min start up. I suspect that 8Mb of RAM
isn't reasonable for any large program, especially a common
lisp development environment.
It would be interesting to hear from someone with more RAM.
--
Best regards,
Peter
OK- i'll concede that the 16M era is upon us. (I remember when a 16K machine
was pretty cool, but hey :)
i now have another question- the full development environ may take about 10M,
but what is the minimal application built on Allegro likely to utilize? I'm
involved in a project that may well involve getting commercial licenses for
the final product, and we'd *like* to deliver an application that will run
efficiently on an 8M target system. If anyone has any experience in this area,
and can make some statement as to the average footprint of an
application built on Allegro, i would sincerely like to hear about it.
thanks in advance..
-j
Price Waterhouse are distributing an expert system application (internally
to their auditors) on 8 MB laptops. So is Signal Insurance Co in Germany
to their sales reps (they've deployed 400), also on 486SX 8MB laptops.
The PW application is accessible through the Franz Web site
(http://www.franz.com) which lists other applications
or directly at http://www.pw.com:80/tc/212a.htm
Jim Veitch
Allegro for Windows will run in 8MB of physical RAM, barely. Actually it
wants about 5 MB for starters and takes more as you load stuff; the
problem is that Windows can easily use 3-4 MB for you. The important
thing is to go through your Windows environment and make sure as much of
the junk that chews up your RAM is removed. The number one chewer is
typically the disk cache, which (at least in Windows 3.1) grabs
2MB by default; crank that *way* down or remove it altogether.
8 MB is too small for serious development, but can be OK for delivery given
good use of the tree-shaker.
--
Internet: ····@tove.cs.umd.edu
Voice: 301-552-4860
In article <·················@vapor.Franz.COM>, ···@Franz.COM (Jim Veitch)
wrote:
> Price Waterhouse are distributing an expert system application (internally
> to their auditors) on 8 MB laptops. So is Signal Insurance Co in Germany
> to their sales reps (they've deployed 400), also on 486SX 8MB laptops.
>
We distribute a tutoring system on top of an expert system developed with
MCL and ACLW.
The ACLW version takes a while to start up on PC's with only 8MB, but
works. We have all the knowledge base in main memory, probably it would
work better on low memory machines using a poor mans database.
The MCL version needs a bit more memory, so I assume that acl'S tree
shaker is really helpful.
Karsten
Hi!
PDp>Yup, I have used the same setup and 8Mb of RAM on a 100Mhz 486
PDp>and I experience a 3min start up. I suspect that 8Mb of RAM
PDp>isn't reasonable for any large program, especially a common
PDp>lisp development environment.
Yep, you are right. ACL needs _lots_ of Ram to start up fast. 8 MB really isn't
enough. That's a bit of an annoyance for me, too - my notebook only has 8 Mb
installed and more memory would cost muchos dollars. So I have to stay with
other programming environments on my notebook.
PDp>It would be interesting to hear from someone with more RAM.
32Mb and Pentium/133 - that's fine for ACL ;-)
(but a 16Mb 486/33 was big enough when I checked back at home)
bye, Georg