Simon Williams wrote:
Okay, here's a thought... 8-bit Apple IIs are expandable to 1.125 MB
At one point the limit was 8 megabytes. I believe it was later extended. I don't recall the limit, but 32 megabytes keeps coming to the fore of my mind.
but
aside from Appleworks, most 8-bit software is quite happy running in 64K or 128K. Would it be possible to hack Prodos to swap 128K at a time without quitting the current program?
No hacking necessary. The REAL power is "paging" so that at 256 bytes at a time your data grows well beyond 64K.
I imagine this would require the OS to take a "snapshot" of the currently running 128K and move it up, and then move a different 128K bank into main memory.... maybe this is similar to how Proterm is able to switch between terminal and editor. Now this is well beyond my abilities, since I'm sure a confusing web of GOTOs in Applesoft won't quite do the trick... but it seems like the kind of thing that might add to the utility of the Apple II without having to bother with a 32-bit processor or create some Frankensteinian concoction of orphaned motherboards ;-) Of course, it also occurs to me that if this were feasible it would likely have been done by now.
If I understand you correctly, you aren't talking about multitasking, but taskswitching.
Roy
Comments?
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