🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 09 May 1997 10:17:45 -0600, Paul Minson
<Paul_...@ccm.rr.intel.com> wrote:

>David, that slightly larger footprint in conventional memory can force
>some hardware drivers to load low, because they no longer all fit into
>upper memory.  That, in turn, reduces the conventional memory available
>below the minimum needed for some software.

Hi Paul,

I think you've got your memory types confused.   How does less
_conventional_ memory cause a driver to load low from an _upper_
memory block?   The DOS kernel is loading into High Memory, not UMB
space.  High Memory is a  64k area right above the 1MB boundary, which
BTW should not be accessible to DOS but because of a bug in the 80286
CPU which has now become a 'feature' (the A20 line) DOS can actually
access it, which is what the DOS=HIGH statement does.   It has no
relation or bearing on upper memory, which is between 640K and 1MB.
Conventional memory does not use any upper memory blocks for DOS
unless you load DOS drivers there via emm386.  Remember conventional
memory is based on the real mode operation of an Intel CPU, which is
based on the 8088 chip, 640K of base memory and 384K of memory devoted
to hardware.  Actually real mode operation can't even access that
memory space, it's mapped in from extended memory by EMM386.    If
your drivers are loading low it's because of less UMB space,  not less
conventional memory space.

Now the WIN95 versions of smartdrive, mscdex and other utilities that
DO load into UMB are larger than DOS 6.x versions and yes that can
cause other drivers to load low, which in turn causes less
conventional memory because the DOS 7 resident kernel is a little
bigger, so yes I would agree with your original statement,  but for a
different reason.  But frankly, it has not been that a problem for me.
I load Smartdrive, cdrom, soundblaster, and network card drivers and
still have plenty of memory to run all my old DOS apps (and I got a
lot of em I still rely on).  

>problem on both our computers.  Short of buying new hardware with
>smaller drivers, we cannot use the DOS software in question under
>Win95.  It was cheaper (and not much more difficult than installing new
>hardware) to decipher how Win95 manages its several copies of CONFIG.SYS
>and AUTOEXEC.BAT and set up a nice system where I have all needed
>configurations of DOS 6.22 and Win95 DOS mode available from just one
>lonely icon in Win95.  Very little hassle, no mess, no boot disks.
>AND NECESSARY.

See, I don't use several copies of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, I use
just one set and it is the same ones that I used in DOS 6.22.   I
click on one lonely icon (like you do), and I get my old 6.22
multi-config menu, except that it's DOS7.  It in are all the options I
need to get as much conventional  or expanded/extended memory to run
all the apps that I still have and used to run under 6.22, including
memory monsters like Falcon3.   No hassle, no mess, no boot disks.
For me, two DOS's NOT NECESSARY.    

Now we're getting WAY off topic, we should expect to get flamed soon.

One life- One DOS, No complications (Sounds like a bumper sticker)


-----
Dave Webster
d...@bridge.net