Can you use directly the SRAM card on the NC100 for files as working memory?

Started by Baracus, 08:03, 11 October 23

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Baracus

As my NC100 died some time ago, I can't remember if it was able to use the SRAM as actual working memory or only as storage.

Basically if the main memory is 64 Kb and I am writing a file that is larger than that, can I write a 80 KB file as it would be living on the actual SRAM memory at that point, or the device just see the SRAM as storage extension?
Another example would be for elements in the diary or database for your contacts; where the file itself would exceed the size of the internal memory... Can the NC100 do that?

As I am playing with the NTS 325, I noticed that this device cannot handle SRAM as extension of memory; because my files are still bound to be tied to the max working memory (I tried to copy a 100K file via serial and it couldn't do that, even if my SRAM card is 1 MB). As the NC100 is the same architecture of the NTS325, minus the CPU that is different, I was curious to see if that was a limitation of the CPU on the NTS machine or if that was something that even the NC100 would have issues with.

I really miss my NC100 :(

Prodatron

From the hardware point of view the SRAM is used like CPU ram. So you can map it into the visible Z80 address area and use it like normal RAM. RAM is divided into 4x 16K blocks, each block may come from the internal 64K or from the SRAM, which can be up to 1MB.
But I don't know how the NC software is handeling this. Would be interesting, if e.g. the word processor is supporting any amount of RAM. Most Z80 word processors only supported <64K with the exception of those, who used the disc as virtual memory (like ProWord).

GRAPHICAL Z80 MULTITASKING OPERATING SYSTEM

Baracus

Thanks, so it is a matter of figure out if the software is basically doing banking, as the Spectrum used to, when handling 128K or more for example?
Maybe I can try to play with the NC100 emulator (I think there was one somewhere); but if anyone with an actual device have the answer, that would be more efficient :D

GUNHED

Quote from: Prodatron on 09:12, 11 October 23From the hardware point of view the SRAM is used like CPU ram. So you can map it into the visible Z80 address area and use it like normal RAM. RAM is divided into 4x 16K blocks, each block may come from the internal 64K or from the SRAM, which can be up to 1MB.
But I don't know how the NC software is handeling this. Would be interesting, if e.g. the word processor is supporting any amount of RAM. Most Z80 word processors only supported <64K with the exception of those, who used the disc as virtual memory (like ProWord).
Yes, the (great!) NC100 text editor is pretty much close to Protext (from CPC). It can not handle too big texts though (64 KB barrier).
On the CPC (in contrast to the NC) we have text editors / word processors to work with bigger texts however.
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2024.10.27)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod