Re: A89: Ram vs. Archive


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Re: A89: Ram vs. Archive




>I don't see any reason why TI came up with such thing
>as Archive memory.  It's basically just RAM.  If it
>was something different than RAM then when you reset
>your calculator, only RAM should have reset and
>everything on archive memory should still be there.
>before i had 89, i thought archive memory was just
>like harddrive on computer.  instead of say archive
>memory, they could have just said "over 500k of RAM".

I may be wrong on some of this, someone please correct me =)

The archive memory is actually leftover space on the Flash ROM chip that is
open to user data storage.  Essentially, it's there because the chips only
come in certain memory amounts - powers of two, or, in some cases, the sum
of two or three powers of two - and this space can be used, so you're not
really paying for too much extra.

I also think that the archive memory is cheaper than RAM, and they cannot
say it is RAM because it is NOT -- that would be a company lieing to the
consumer(s).  The archive mem has limitations when being written to that
don't exist on the RAM memory.

It could, potentially, work like a computer's hard drive, and it DOES with
the DoorOS Final Betas.  When a program is to be run, it is moved from the
"hard drive" - the archive - to the RAM and executed.  When it is done, it
is copied back to the archive.  This is DIFFERENT from previous versions of
doors, where the program was NOT copied back to the archive.  I don't think
that Xavier is sure which way he's gonna leave it in the end as the new
method creates some complications.

The archive does NOT have to be cleared on a reset, but TI is more concerned
about GUARANTEEING the calc will always be able to recover from a
software-related crash, even if it is theoretically impossible for there to
be any complications created by archived programs.  The company is, for
obvious reasons, going to be more concerned about its own liability than the
adding to the product's functionality.  FYI, you can overcome this by
downloading Archive Utility (newest version is a 3.0 beta, only on the
French sites - but 2.0 should be fine), and ROM v2.00 should not clear the
archive on reset.

    -Scott