From: address@nospicedham.not.available   
      
   Rick,   
      
   > You don't know how much is there, so it seems like a bad idea   
      
   Thats what I was/am thinking too.   
      
   > I've never observed any value in having all memory allocated to your app   
   > at startup.   
      
   Thats my problem too.  Any pros for it seem to be offsetted by a larger   
   ammount of cons.   Even having to check if the memory is actually there   
   already balances the "extra" effort of having to allocate a block yourself.   
      
   > DOS was (generally speaking) a single-threaded OS   
      
   But that does not mean that you could not run several programs next to each   
   other.   
      
   > what difference would it make that the rest of memory is already   
   > allocated?   
      
   You would be unable to allocate memory,  You would not be able to run a "DOS   
   internal" (int 2Eh) command anymore.  You would not be able to dynamically   
   load drivers.  If-and-when the program would be loaded by a program switcher   
   it would disallow any other to be loaded.   
      
   But yes, for most cases it would not matter an iota. But that doesn't mean I   
   like it.  Defensive programming and all that.   
      
   > I never had any trouble.   
      
   Neither had I, as I never went that road.   Doesn't mean I did not consider   
   it when thinking about what my template code should look like though.   
      
   > I didn't do it down to the byte, but would just generally work to the   
   > nearest KB or so,   
      
   Ackk...  I started my programming on a machine that had just 28 KByte free.   
   That and the erstwhile size of storage media for PCs did make me appriciate   
   the value of small programs.   And I'm afraid that I never fully lost that   
   appreciation.  Ofcourse, also having programmed on small microcontrollers   
   rekindled it.   
      
   Regards,   
   Rudy Wieser   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)