RiscPC memory

If the RiscPC has the Vram removed – does the memory – allowed from main memory – get above the 2Mb limit set by the Vram?

If the RiscPC has the Vram removed – does the memory – allowed from main memory – get above the 2Mb limit set by the Vram?

Same question asked by a person with a similar name has detailed answers

Yes it should, but it’s absolutely no use.

This memory – not working so well!!

Probably asked this before :-(

Was there a standard amount of memory used by programs to handle file names.

A old prog here has problems when run from several directories in.

A old prog here has problems when run from several directories in.

In the old days filenames were limited to 10 characters. So a fair few programs made assumptions about how much space to reserve for pathnames and such. I’ve had to add some code to Ovation to work around the same sort of issues. To be fair though, back in those days memory was freakishly expensive so 1MiB was common and reserving memory for unnecessary things was a luxury few could afford.

In the old days filenames were limited to 10 characters.

Very old days. Definitely not RISC OS days.

Very old days. Definitely not RISC OS days.

I presume you meant:
Very old days. Pre RISC OS 4

Definitely not RISC OS days.

;-) Every version of RISC OS ever released by Acorn was limited to ten character filenames, 77 objects per directory, and maximum partition size of 512MB for the built in ADFS.
All the new fangled stuff? Would have been for Phoebe (there are the beginnings of it in the softload of RISC OS 3.8) and was later developed for RISC OS 4 and for RISC OS 5.
But very very definitely RISC OS days. Indeed Arthur pretty much used the BBC ADFS filing system, and RISC OS 2 introduced the ‘E’ format disc with a new map structure and automatic compaction. RISC OS 3 gave us ‘F’ format discs (1.6MB) and the ability to lay out a non-floppy structure (otherwise known as ADFS on a harddisc). And, well, that’s about as far as Acorn took it. The 512MB limit wasn’t ever addressed in ADFS. I myself used a Simtec IDE podule to get around the partition limitation as it was getting silly with 2-4GB drives being common in the latter RiscPC era, however the 10 character names and 77 objects limitations often remained (was it FileSwitch or FileCore imposing this?), which is why complicated software of the era often referred you to building the project by assembling all the source files in a X-Files archive. Indeed X-Files was pretty much the go-to filesystem of choice for working around the inherent limitations in the machine’s standard filing systems.

512MB size limitations? Weren’t they removed in RISC OS 3.6 (Black)? Acorn were certainly shipping RiscPCs with bigger disks by that point (they moved from a 425MB to an 850MB Conner from memory).

RISC OS 2 also offered RISC OS on a Hard Disc surely – in fact Arthur must have done as A440s shipped with an ST506 by default.

I may be wrong about the partition size, though I recall having issues formatting my 540MB harddisc on my RiscPC (RO3.7) so I just formatted it 512MB and ignored the rest.

Yes, RISC OS has always had harddiscs, as has the Beeb, FileStore, etc. The difference being that “old map” drives were treated more or less like big floppies (same structure, just more sectors, a bigger map, and fragmentation problems). It wasn’t until F came along that there were specific differences for harddiscs, stuck as the placement of the root directory, etc…

Definitely not RISC OS days.

;-) Every version of RISC OS ever released by Acorn was limited to ten character filenames, 77 objects per directory, and maximum partition size of 512MB for the built in ADFS.

You are referring to FileCore limitations, not RISC OS. Think about network FS implementations like LanManFS, LanMan98, NFS, ImageNFS. Think about FAT implementations like DOSFS and Win95FS. Think about archive implementations like SparkFS. Think about image filing systems like TBAFS and X-Files. Think about real FSes like Memphis or raFS. None of those had a 10 character/77 objects per dir limit.

No RISC OS programmer could ever rely on the fact that a filename could not be longer than 10 characters. The PRMs made that very clear.

No RISC OS programmer could ever rely on the fact that a filename could not be longer than 10 characters. The PRMs made that very clear.

Unfortunately the majority of programs have only supported 10 character file names in the past, and many still only support 10 Characters:-(

Unfortunately the majority of programs have only supported 10 character file names in the past, and many still only support 10 Characters:-(

I only remember the Impression family to “feature” this limitation, and CC rightly received a lot of criticism for that.

You are referring to FileCore limitations, not RISC OS.

We could get into a real meta discussion as to what constitutes “RISC OS”. ;-) While there are filing systems that supported longer filenames (DOS 8.3, CDFS, and I think Econet had 12 character filenames?), FileCore’s limitation is pretty fundamental given that the built-in standard filing systems only supported ten characters and everything coming in from non-FileCore filing systems would be a compromise (*Co. Truncate On).

No RISC OS programmer could ever rely on the fact that a filename could not be longer than 10 characters. The PRMs made that very clear.

Quite true, but there are traces of this implicit limitation in various places. It was widely “assumed”. One of the fixes I needed to make to Ovation was writing the leaf name to the file information window, which has interesting effects if you write a 40 character filename to space for 10 characters.