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Memory
When talking about memory in a computer, things can get a little confusing.
The Pathfinder is a type of special computer, so memory figures are not
always clear.
Now, everything I tell you about memory is variable. That's because
the Pathfinder is pretty smart and juggles memory around to make things
happen as efficiently as possible.
So, grab yourself a cup of coffee, take a deep breath, and follow me
through the "Pathfinder memory Map!"
User Areas
The Pathfinder has 6 separate user areas. Each one has 500K
of memory allocated to it. You use this memory to add vocabulary (words,
phrases or sentences), assign keys, make macros,
and add auditory prompts.
Activities
In a single user area, you can have up to 4,000 Activities, with each
Activity having up to 16 rows of 8 icons/messages. Pretty huge, eh? Remember
you can copy Activities from one area to another. This will eat into your
500K for the area, but don't worry too much unless you have 3,000 or more
Activities in there.
Notebooks
A single Notebook can contain up to 30K of text. RULE OF THUMB: 1K =
160 words .
You can then have up to 4,000 Notebooks, which is again pretty significant.
Notebooks are not part of the 500K user area memory - Notebooks are stored
in the same place as Icons and Recorded speech.
Icons
You can import new icons into the Pathfinder. They take up memory in
a part of the machine used for Notebooks and Recorded speech. You should
be able to import thousands of icons, but remember you are competing with
other things.
Recorded Speech
We say that you can get around 15 minutes of recorded speech into the
Pathfinder. You can have more, but then you lose space for Notebooks and
Icons. The Pathfinder tries its best to juggle these around.
Flash Card
All the software for the Pathfinder is stored on something called a
Flash Memory Card. Think of it as a tiny floppy disk, about one inch square,
that has much more memory than a floppy. As I write this, the Pathfinder
has a 20Mb card, most
of which is used for vocabulary, icons, Activities, Notebooks and recorded
speech.
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