Zoomer PDA Technical Information

Palm Technical Notes

Source: Palm Computing

No Memory Leak on Zoomer

There have been suggestions that there is a memory leak in the Z-7000 which causes excess memory to be consumed. There is no memory leak.

It is true that the Zoomer keeps track of state information for each application launched in separate state files for each application. This is a feature. These state files for each application are created/updated when a launched application is pushed out of the cache (out of active memory). They allow you to move between applications and return to the exact spot in each whenever the application is re-entered or launched. Over time the state files for *some* of the applications do grow as the amount of state information needing to be saved grows.

These conditions don't constitute a memory leak. We have tested several times for a true "leak" and haven't been able to find one, and we've also tested for growth of the state files for a number of applications and found that most do not change size significantly once created.

It is true that you can delete all state files by doing a soft reset, and you can manually delete individual state files in the file manager (B:[INTERNAL]\GEOWORKS\PRIVDATA\STATE). This is a handy way to recover some bytes as memory gets low.

A soft reset on the Zoomer will delete all of the state files permanently, but not affect any of your application data files. You will, however, also lose the settings of the World Clock.

If you have doubts about the size of your state files or the amount of free space you have on your Zoomer, check the size of the individual state files from the file manager (B:[INTERNAL]\GEOWORKS\PRIVDATA\STATE) from time to time (jot down in Notebook). When you check your free space, note the number of bytes rather than the percent of free space. We don't think you'll find anything being "eaten".

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brian@grot.com 6/28/95

Copyright © 1995, Brian Smithson
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