Does the psql executable have any ability to do a "fetch many", using a  
server-side named cursor, when returning results? It seems like it tries  
to retrieve the query entirely to local memory before printing to  
standard out.
    

I think it grabs the whole result set to calculate the display column  
widths. I think there is an option to tweak this but don't remember which,  
have a look at the psql commands (\?), formatting section.
  

-- 
John E. Beaver
Bioinformatics Developer
Harvard Medical School