Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 09:59:39 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Leon <Leon AT caresystems DOT com DOT au>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: emcAsc
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On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Leon wrote:

> was just wondering how the fact that Emacs was coded in lisp interpreter
> affects the speed of launching emacs and its ram needs? (as compared to vim
> for example) in particular with regards to old systems like 486 sx with
> about 4 meg ram?

All the editing primitives are written in C, and many time-critical
functions that need to be sped-up are also moved into C.  So you
shouldn't see any significant slow-down.

FWIW, the Emacs author and long-time maintainer, Richard Stallman,
uses a 486 box to run Emacs.

4MB *is* a bit too few, so expect Emacs to page from time to time.

Note that the normal way of using Emacs is to launch it once and then
use it throughout the entire session without exiting the editor.  If
you need to do something that absolutely requires the command line,
shell out to DOS with "M-x suspend-emacs RET" (I usually bind this to
the "C-x C-z" keysequence), and when you are done, return to Emacs
with "exit".