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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:AMIGA NOTES
Notice:Join us in the *NEW* conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:HYDRA::MOORE
Created:Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5378
Total number of notes:38326

642.0. "FACC" by SZOFNA::CBODINE (C.B.) Mon Aug 10 1987 19:52

    Has anyone used ASDG's FACC (Floppy accelerator). If so could you
    give a mini review of the product.
    
    1) How does it work?
    2) How much memory does it require to be effective?
    3) Is it fairly easy to install and how much additional boot time
    is required?
    4) Any more info????
    
    Thanks,
    Chris

    
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642.1JON::SANTIAGOSliding down the razor blade of lifeTue Aug 11 1987 11:2237
    I've had it for a few weeks now, and I like it quite a bit. 
    
    1) It's a simple LRU cache, flushed whenever a disk is removed
       from the drive. Facc II is supposed to be smarter and will
       prefer caching root/directory blocks to data blocks (ie
       it will hang on to these a bit longer before overwriting).
       It is pretty fast, supposedly faster than AddBuffers but I
       haven't benchmarked it. 
    2) I have 1meg, and Facc really takes up quite a bit of it
       (haven't actually counted but it looks like 256K. This is
       a guesstimate, I don't have my machine here). Whatever it
       is, you can always lower the amount of cache buffers.
    3) Just say "run facc" in s:startup-sequence to install,
       will take ~4 more seconds to boot your machine. Then again,
       if you put it near the beginning of your startup, it will
       cache frequently used commands like echo & run so it might
       even out.
    4) Yes. Facc has one major pain - when invoked, it opens up a
       window that must remain alive (although you can shrink it).
       Also, you can't pass parameters on the startup line so if
       you want a custom cache you either have to do it manually
       every time you boot or use something called AutoFacc which
       supposedly hacks it up for you (I haven't seen this, just
       heard about it). Facc was meant to be invoked from Wbench.
       Don't ask me why - Perry must've been on drugs. I've never
       met anyone who uses Wbench.
       
    Anyway, Facc II fixes both these bugs. Should be out RSN. If
    you don't want to wait, go ahead and buy Facc and then mail
    for your update - it's free (well, you gotta pay postage).
    
    Incidentally Facc II is daemonized (whatever the VMS word
    is for that) with a fully documented message port - which
    means anybody can write code to interface with it and modify
    its parameters dynamically.
    
    .Ed
642.2thanksSZOFNA::CBODINEC.B.Tue Aug 11 1987 18:053
    thanks,
    
    Ed.