Re: MMA for OS2/Windows front end, Help
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg2190] Re: MMA for OS2/Windows front end, Help
- From: roussel at physics.mcgill.ca (Harold Roussel)
- Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 02:24:30 -0400
- Organization: McGill University Computing Centre
edg at wam.umd.edu (Ezra Greenberg) wrote: >I upgraded a while back to MMA for OS2 and have not been able to get the >windows front end to work in a satisfactory manner. On my machine, the TCP >link is oh so very slow. The PM front end, is, well, useless as far as I can >tell. I have many complicated notebooks, and I have yet to figure out a way >to work with the various parts in a reasonable way. >Are there any other options? Is anybody else out there having problems with >Mathlink to the windows front end? For some reason, and I'll probably complain to Wolfram about that, the windows front-end keeps polling the keyboard like mad. The result of this is that, when the mathlink communication is established, the front-end sends data to the os/2 kernel which only gets a fraction of the cpu time to do its work. That's the reason why it is so slow. Now, for the solution (or at least interim fix), you must first get a utility that boost the priority of your os/2 programs like "nice" (try hobbes.nmsu.edu in dir /os2/unix, filename nice10.zip). Once you have it, go in your wnmath22 directory. There should be a file called math.cmd. In this file you will find the line (with a different drive possibly), start /PGM "h:\math\mathpm.exe " %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 replace it with start h:\apps\bin\nice.exe /c h:\math\mathpm.exe %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 Replacing the paths as appropriate. Beware though that the mathematica kernel will run at time-critical priority! This means that if your calculation is going to take a long time, your system might be unusable. The best thing to do would be to start MMA in normal priority, with delta 32 (the front-end runs in normal priority, delta 1). That would probably give it enough CPU time over the front-end to complete calculations in a reasonable amount of time, yet the desktop could remain responsive. I seem to remember that there is another "nice" program that can adjust the deltas. You should probably look on hobbes. In my case I never need the windows front-end so I'm just using a plain text like interface. If I need a scroll-back buffer I can always use emacs, or use ckermit and telnet into my own machine in loopback mode. The best solution would be a native front-end, or at least a better windows version. I have to send an email to Wolfram... >Ezra D. Greenberg >Department of Economics >University of Maryland >edg at wam.umd.edu // // Harold Roussel email: roussel at physics.mcgill.ca // Ph.D. student phone: (514) 398-6506 // High Energy Physics // McGill University, Montrial, Quibec // // Using OS/2 Warp...and still waiting for NT 3.51. // // "...sous cette peau de mital je dipose devant toi tout ce qui me // reste; muscles, os, sang, et le coeur qui le met en mouvement." // Lancelot au Roi Arthur, dans Excalibur.