GENWiki

                              STAC ELECTRONICS
                         TECHNICAL SUPPORT BULLETIN

NUMBER:     005
SUBJECT:    STACKER-MISC

DATE:       May 24, 1991
TIME:       2:57 PM

SOURCE:         Engineering, User's Manual
SUPERCEDES/
SUPERCEDED BY:  
RELEASE STATUS: Public

TITLE:
    The STACKER device driver's memory requirements.

OVERVIEW:
    The STACKER device driver is a resident program.  It loads from the
    CONFIG.SYS file at boot-time, mounts the compressed STACKER volumes, then
    shrinks down and remains in RAM until powered off.

    Starting sizes in bytes, without STACKER cache (/M=0)

                                Coprocessor             Software
                                  Version               Version

    1st volume  (with 4KB clusters):21,504                30,720
                (with 8KB clusters):25,600                38,912
                    add'l volumes:   3,072 each            3,072 each

    When STACKER loads at boot time, the size of the driver (both initial and
    resident) is displayed.

ISSUES/COMMENTS:
    1) The amount of memory used by STACKER may prevent the launching of
    programs which ran properly before STACKER was installed.  "Insufficient
    memory" messages may result.

    2) When loading both the driver and the STACKER cache into high memory,
    there may not be a sufficiently large contiguous block of memory.  This
    may result in an error message from the memory manager and failure to
    load the driver high.

    3) In the coprocessor version, 9 Kbytes are allocated for internal
    buffers by default.

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:
    1) If the STACKER cache has been specified, try lowering the /M=xx switch
    in the "DEVICE=C:\STACKER\STACKER.COM..." line for a smaller cache (see
    User's Manual, "STACKER Utilites/Commands").  If errors persist even with
    the driver as small as possible, use a memory manager to load the STACKER
    driver (and cache, if present) into high memory.

    2) Lower the size of the STACKER cache, as in (1), until the driver fits
    into high memory.  Most memory managers include a utility for optimizing
    the organization of device drivers; optimizing high memory may allow the
    STACKER driver and cache to fit better.

    3) To free up the 9 Kbytes of internal buffers, insert an /M=0 switch to
    the STACKER device driver line in CONFIG.SYS, as in (1).