Running long memory intensive programs!

David T. Lindsley dlindsle at afit.af.mil
Fri Jun 14 02:06:02 AEST 1991


>From a design standpoint, you'd be better off with C++, I think.

The only Fortran I know of that can use extended memory is Watcom's.
However, it does so by using the Phar Lap (memory management?)
software.  We have had this here at AFIT for about six months; as far
as I know, we haven't even been able to get Watcom's demo programs
(supplied with the compiler) to work.  (The people trying to get it
to work are electrical & computer engineers, FYI.)

You need a compiler that will compile 386 code.  As far as I know,
what these things basically do is raise an exception or some signal
which puts the CPU into (386) protected mode.  Now you've got your
4GB segments, and the program can run.  When it's done, the CPU goes
back into whatever mode it was in.

I also (personally) tried getting an MS Fortran program to use extended
memory from Windows 3.  The program manipulated several matrices, which
should (ideally) have been about 3..4Mb.  No luck there either.  However,
I'm no Windows expert -- maybe I wasn't setting something correctly.
(Anybody out there had better luck?)

Anyway, like I said, you need a compiler that "speaks 386".  I like
Borland's compilers, but I'm not sure if they've got a 386 line.  I
know Zortech does, though.  Have you considered getting Unix for your
386?

-- 
Dave Lindsley	#24601#			OPINIONS.  MINE.  (Nobody tells me
dlindsle at blackbird.afit.af.mil		  anything anyway, so I can't possibly 
    ?? lamroN eb yhW ??			  be anybody's mouthpiece...)



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