In a message to Anthony about 8 meg disk cache, Paul said:

PM> I agree that making a cache pagable doesn't make much sense.
PM> While Paul and I
PM> were trying out a large cache on my machine (it only had 8 
PM> meg), I defined a cache size of 6.5 meg. OS/2 still booted. 
PM> I expected that it would thrash itself to death paging code 
PM> into the remaining 1.5 meg. But it booted about the same 
PM> speed it usually does (maybe a little slower), without much 
PM> (if any) increase in disk activity.

That's an interesting result, to say the least.

PM> If I increased the cache passed that size, OS/2 complaining 
PM> that it didn't have enough memory to define the cache. Does 
PM> this mean OS/2 really only required 1.5 meg to boot to the 
PM> work place shell (I doubt that)? Beats me. Got any ideas?

It suggests to me that there's no clear cut boundaries to the REAL
cache size, when the memory isnt there to support it upon
initialization.  The values you chose up to 6.5 Mb were satisfied,
yet when increased past a certain point, it says not enough
memory...  all the time acting like business as usuall.  And we all
know what booting OS/2 is like with 4Mb (well, I do at least ;) -
unbearable with HPFS, WPS, and nominal cache....  certainly sounds
like there's some number fiddling going on.  So I wonder, at what
requested cache size on an 8Mb machine for instance, does the actual
cache size start being reduced...??

'tnt, Anthony.

 * KWQ/2 1.2 * Close your eyes and press escape three times.