\_ there is nothing else on the system using more than 1% of RAM.  So
\_ the only thing I can guess is that there is a per process limit on
\_ memory.  Do I have this right and if so, how do I increase the
\_ limit?

Check limit / ulimit depending on your shell of choice.  You can
override these settings from various rc.d / .rc files if you play
nice.

David