Free RAM : Who is right, here??

[vovka1965]

I have a TX.
The pop info tab (from the bar on the bottom of the screen) says that I have 84.4 MB RAM available on the device.

However, RLOCK, Resco Explorer and Hi-Launcher all say that I have 86476K RAM available.. Am I being stupid here?? Which one is correct?

[philpalm]

Not much of a difference but in Ram on my TJ-37 it says 13,230,000 bytes on file z and 12.6 MB on the info tab. The main thing you have to worry is not to get less than 5.0MB on the info tab otherwise you will run into problems. RAM space is necessary to run new programs and do other functions. The only stupid thing that you can do is try to work the TX with less than 5.0MB space.

[vovka1965]

Thanks, PHILPALM

So, maybe it is not a big deal. However, I am just curious: where do these utilities get their info? Not from the same place, obviously...

[PinCushionQueen]

Yeah... My pop-up and RE never match exactly they are always a 1 or 2 KBs off from each other. Have no idea why. Maybe you should post this over on Resco forum, I bet Jan could tell you more. :)

[vovka1965]

Yeah... My pop-up and RE never match exactly they are always a 1 or 2 KBs off from each other. Have no idea why. Maybe you should post this over on Resco forum, I bet Jan could tell you more. :)
Well, I am off by a couple of Mb's which is quite a bit! Also, it used not to be this way, I don't think..

[Pully]

86476K divided by 1024 = 84.4

[cyberdude]

Well, I am off by a couple of Mb's which is quite a bit! Also, it used not to be this way, I don't think..
You are not off by a couple of MBs 84.4 * 1024 (# of bytes in a kb) = 86425.6kb

Which puts you off by 51kb (86476-86425)

[vovka1965]

86476K divided by 1024 = 84.4
So, I am being stupid.. I guess it is the same thing?

What you are saying is that 1 KB = 1024 bytes (not 1000!), so it is just a units issue..
Still, I am surprised that no one would fix the Palm notation for those of us who don't live in a binary world..

[cyberdude]

So, I am being stupid.. I guess it is the same thing?

What you are saying is that 1 KB = 1024 bytes (not 1000!), so it is just a units issue..
Still, I am surprised that no one would fix the Palm notation for those of us who don't live in a binary world..
Ka Sara, Sara ....

[juggernaut#2]

vovka1965, as long as you use computers, you live in a binary world :)

A KB has always been 1.024 bytes, and a MB has always been 1.024 kB, and so on -- if not to storage device manufacturers. They have been inflating the actual size of a simple megabyte since ages, because to users who don´t live in a binary world it just makes ´em disks bigger if you count a meg = 1.000 kilobytes. This practice is still excercised by card producers, because no 4GB card I know really allows 4.096 MB to store on (it´s actually only ~3,73 GB), so why do you give ´em even more excuses :)

With modern hard disks this accounts for a real "loss" in size: A 160GB-disk will have a actual storing capacity of a mere 149,01 GB; a 500GB-disk will only have 465,66 GB. This is because the wrong usage of the units involved accumulates, since they use the factor 1.000 (instead of 1.024) three times: form byte to KB, form KB to MB, form MB to GB. I bet with TB it´s gonna be the same. So if you were a manufacturer, would you rather sell "500GB" or "465GB" ?

Showing the size of a file is also a question of how to deal with cluster sizes and therefore wasted space. This depends on philosophy: Either you tell the user the actual size of a file (i.e., 2.663 bytes = 2,6 kB) or you tell him the space that this file is actually using on the disk involved (cluster size = 512 bytes makes for the same file a used space of 3.072 bytes = 3 kB). At ancient times when I was using diskettes for storing files, this could make the difference between "this file still fits" and "oh, damn, it doesn´t" (i.e. when creating boot disks).

You could put this problem into a simple (?) question: How many 1-byte-files do I get onto a 64-MMC-Card formatted without any command line switches? (*)

But this is not really a palm-specific topic, is it :)



(*) WinXP will format such a card with 1.024byte clusters, so (minus some clusters for the FAT itself and maybe some directories etc) you´ll have ~62.440 free clusters which enables you to store ~62.440 files (~ 61 KB altogether).

[Church Punk]

Ka Sara, Sara ....

:confused: :confused: :confused: ( ... ) :confused:

[ral613]

:confused: :confused: :confused: ( ... ) :confused:

I think they meant "Que sera sera."

Also, to solve the OPs confusion, IEC invented the Mebibyte in 1998 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte). Too bad it never gets used.

[cyberdude]

I think they meant "Que sera sera."
Thanks for the correction. My English spelling is usually impeccable, but my spelling in other languages is atrocious. It just reminded me of that song from when I was much, much younger :)

[Zephrem]

vovka1965, as long as you use computers, you live in a binary world :)

A KB has always been 1.024 bytes, and a MB has always been 1.024 kB, and so on -- if not to storage device manufacturers. They have been inflating the actual size of a simple megabyte since ages, because to users who don´t live in a binary world it just makes ´em disks bigger if you count a meg = 1.000 kilobytes. This practice is still excercised by card producers, because no 4GB card I know really allows 4.096 MB to store on (it´s actually only ~3,73 GB), so why do you give ´em even more excuses :)
...


I agree with you, that 1KB has always been 1024 bytes (I'm long enough in this business) - but nevertheless, quite a while ago, there was some kind of a re-definition. The actual SI-units define the prefixes K, M ... as 1000 and 1000000 ... So according to SI-Units, the harddisk-manufactorers are absolutely correct. The prefixes for 1024 and its powers are Ki, Mi and Gi (see wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte) for details).

So what - for me, 1KB is still 1024 bytes...

Zephrem

[cms]

I think they meant "Que sera sera."

Also, to solve the OPs confusion, IEC invented the Mebibyte in 1998 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte). Too bad it never gets used.


If only palms had a yottabyte of ram, I would be one happy customer :D

[cyberdude]

I agree with you, that 1KB has always been 1024 bytes (I'm long enough in this business) - but nevertheless, quite a while ago, there was some kind of a re-definition. The actual SI-units define the prefixes K, M ... as 1000 and 1000000 ... So according to SI-Units, the harddisk-manufactorers are absolutely correct. The prefixes for 1024 and its powers are Ki, Mi and Gi (see wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte) for details).

So what - for me, 1KB is still 1024 bytes...

Zephrem
K, M etc are metric and have always been defined as you describe. The part to look at is Byte as in kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte. (not kilometer, for instance - computers look at the binary value not the deecimal value - using base 2)

This makes it 1,000 bytes, 1,000,000 bytes, 1,000,000,000 bytes. Hence the extra (so now does it really matter how bits in a byte - nah?).

[_Em]

When dealing with computer internals, the metrics use powers of 2, which gives you 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, etc. Since hard disk manufacturers don't deal with the actual data but with storage capacity (it can be formatted base 2, 10, or anything else), they use SI-units for measurement. RAM manufacturers don't do this -- probably because RAM is pre-formatted base-2.

[Church Punk]

Thanks for the correction. My English spelling is usually impeccable, but my spelling in other languages is atrocious. It just reminded me of that song from when I was much, much younger :)

My English spelling is under development, but my Spanish is quite ok as mother language :)

[juggernaut#2]

... quite a while ago, there was some kind of a re-definition. The actual SI-units define the prefixes K, M ... as 1000 and 1000000 ... you never stop learning... I didn´t know that. on your wikipedia link it says that they changed it in 1998. well, ok, I learned my part well before that date, did I ... :confused:

So what - for me, 1KB is still 1024 bytes...
Exactly :)