🚀 go-pugleaf

"pomprocker" <brandtdaniels@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi when i do "print mem" on my 26-3027 coco2 it says 8487. why do i
> only have 8k?

The CoCo reserves some RAM for its own use and the biggest chunk gets put 
aside for the high resolution graphics screen. Typically, the CoCo will 
reserve enough RAM for 4 pages, it uses 1,536 bytes per page so that will be 
times 4 = 6,144 bytes, you can say that the CoCo does an automatic PCLEAR 4 
on power up or cold reset; this, plus some RAM set aside for the STRING$ 
operations, variables and other internal computer housekeeping duties will 
eat away from what's available for your Basic program.

From Basic, without doing any fancy commands, the least amount you can set 
the CoCo to reserve as far as graphics go is 1,536 bytes, a single page and 
this is done by issuing a PCLEAR 1 command (as noted in another post here). 
There is a way to clear out that last graphic page - you will loose the 
ability to do any hi-res graphics though - and the commands needed to do 
this will depend on if you are using a disk system or just the CoCo - no 
drives. The disk system will take away 2,048 bytes (full 2 k worth) out of 
the RAM for its own use.


-=[ Rogelio ]=-