Disk swapping can be minimized by copying to your Workbench disk the information normally needed from other disks or by copying some information to the Ram Disk.
The following sections explain how to use AmigaDOS to minimize disk swapping and maximize your available work space with the following:
You can enter the AmigaDOS commands shown using the Execute Command... menu item found in the Workbench menu or in a Shell window. Type in the command and press Return to enter it. If you are entering several commands, using the Shell is more convenient.
The RESIDENT command allows you to load AmigaDOS commands into the Amiga's memory where they become immediately available when invoked. Resident commands are available without inserting the Workbench disk each time the command is used. AmigaDOS users with floppy-based systems are advised to make frequently-used commands resident for quick access and reduced disk swapping.
Since resident commands use RAM space, make resident only those commands you use most often. The more RAM in your system, the more commands you can make resident. Use the LIST command to show an approximation of the memory each command uses. For example, entering LIST C:COPY produces output similar to this:
Directory "Sys:C"
on Monday 15-Jun-92
copy 5496 --p-rwed 03-Jun-92 17:22:02
The size of the file appears to the right of the file name. It shows that the COPY command uses approximately 5.5KB of RAM if made resident.
To conserve as much memory as possible for your applications, make resident only the AmigaDOS commands and programs that you use frequently and are not built into Workbench. These include ASSIGN, ED, STATUS, Format, and DiskCopy. If you have sufficient memory and you use AmigaDOS regularly, you can also make resident commands that have Workbench equivalents, such as COPY, DELETE; DIR, LIST, MAKEDIR, and RENAME.
Do not make resident commands that are not used often, such as the startup command ADDBUFFERS. The following commands cannot be made resident: ADDDATATYPE, BINDDRIVERS, IPREFS, LOADRESOURCE, LOADWB, and SETPATCH.
To make a command resident, include the full path to the command. For most AmigaDOS commands, which are stored in the C directory, the path is C:, as in the following:
RESIDENT C:ASSIGN
RESIDENT C:COPY
RESIDENT C:DELETE
RESIDENT C:DIR
RESIDENT C:ED
RESIDENT C:LIST
RESIDENT C:MAKEDIR
RESIDENT C:RENAME
RESIDENT C:STATUS
RESIDENT SYS:Utilities/MultiView
RESIDENT SYS:System/DiskCopy
RESIDENT SYS:System/Format
Making these commands resident uses approximately 89 KB of RAM. To have the commands available at all times, place the statements in S:User-startup as follows:
Enter the command RESIDENT with no arguments to list the Internal and resident commands.
Preloading resources into free memory makes them available without inserting the floppy disk each time they are needed. Using the AmigaDOS LOADRESOURCE command, you can preload the following into RAM:
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Specify the path name to the device; you cannot LOCK devices into memory. |
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Specify a path name that is relative to LOCALE:Catalogs/<language>. |
Catalogs are the files that contain the system texts and messages translated to a different language.
To preload a library, use the following syntax:
LOADRESOURCE LIBS:libname.library
where libname.library is the name of the library you want to load into memory.
To preload a font, use the following syntax:
LOADRESOURCE FONTS:fontname/size
where fontname is the name and size is the point size of the font you want to load into memory.
To preload a catalog, use the followingsyntax:
LOADRESOURCE
LOCALE:Catalogs/Language/Sys/catname.catalog
where Language is a language name and catname.catalog is a catalog name, such as monitors.catalog.
Copying printer drivers, fonts, and Preferences editors to your Workbench disk makes them readily available. However, a Volume Workbench is full requester can result if you try to copy too much to your Workbench disk. It is possible to delete files from the Workbench disk to make room for other files.
Deleting any system software results in some limitation of your Amiga's capabilities and can potentially cause an error if an application attempts to use a file that was deleted. If you experience an unexpected requester or error, repeat the same operation using the original Workbench disk. If no error occurs, the application uses something that was deleted and it should be restored.
Document all changes that you make to your system disks. Adding a comment in the disk's User-startup file can remind you that you are working with a non-standard Workbench disk.
