Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ucsd!ames!mailrus!utah-gr!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wes From: wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: ASSEMBLY MOVE/CLEAR/SET/COMPARE ROUTINES (was Clearing memory chain) Summary: Why clear ALL of memory? Message-ID: <159@obie.UUCP> Date: 20 Aug 88 18:08:26 GMT References: <8808160343.AA10248@cory.Berkeley.EDU> <1119@atari.UUCP> Organization: the Well of Souls Lines: 19 % The clearing code in the 11/20 ROMs (pre-Mega ROMs) is stupid and % slow, which is why it takes appreciable time to clear 1 Meg. The % Mega ROMs fixed this, but clearing 3.5 Meg still takes a long time, % and future machines may possibly have up to 10 Meg -- clearing % 9.5 Meg will not be pleasant: % % It would take 38,273,024 clocks (~2.4 sec) to clear % 9.5MB at 16MHz, but fortunately any machine with that % much memory will probably run faster than 16MHz. Why clear all of the memory in the machine? The executable file has the size of the bss segment in it, why not just clear the bss? You could also clear each Malloced block as it is allocated, if you really want to preserve the idea that Malloced blocks should be cleared. -- {hpda, uwmcsd1}!sp7040!obie!wes "Happiness lies in being priviledged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing." -- Robert A. Heinlein --