Super Storage and Statistics

Abstract

It is possible to obtain memory packs for the ZX8l which extend it far beyond the 16K which was originally thought to be its limit. Extra memory, however, i s not the best answer to lack of space in many cases. There is a hidden cost over the above the very reasonable cost of the memory and it is reckoned in time not money. At the rate that the ZX8l reads data from tape, it takes about seven minutes to fill the 16K RAM pack completely. To fill a l28K memory at the same rate would take almost an hour, and the up-dated program and its files would take another hour to record on tape. This puts the idea of making safety copies of every program out of the question. The very large memories only become viable when a disc system is available to fill the space at a rate of several kilo-bytes a second. For many uses the cost of the extra memory and the disc system is not worth spending because other solutions to the space problem are available.