[net.micro.pc] Conundrum

cjdb@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Charles Blair) (08/15/86)

I ran Peter Norton's si.com on a PC/AT with 512 Kbytes of main memory.
Result: 26 Logical Drives A: - Z:, DOS reports 116 Kbytes of memory,
116 Kbytes used by DOS and resident programs, 396 Kbytes available.
Search for active memory finds 512 Kbytes of main memory.  All this is
correct.

But ...

I load DesqView, and run si.com (1) directly under Desqview (2) at the
DOS prompt, with DOS running under DesqView (so still under DesqView,
but once removed). The results are as follows.

(1) 20 logical drives A: - T: <we've lost 6 logical drives>, DOS
reports 274 Kbytes of memory, 245 Kbytes used by DOS et al., 29 <!>
Kbytes available for application programs. But the search for active
memory finds 512 Kbytes of main memory.

(2) Still the same 20 logical drives. DOS reports 370 Kbytes of memory,
245 Kbytes used by DOS et al. <just as in (1), but still considerably
smaller than when DesqView wasn't loaded>, with 125 Kbytes available
for applications. The search for main memory finds the same: 512
Kbytes.

In all cases the DOS version is correctly reported as being 3.1. The
DOS I'm running is assigned 128K under DesqView (that's the default
value assigned to it when the program is installed), and I've assigned
10K to si.com.

I've tried this on two XT's with the same bizarre results. However,
someone else has no problems with DesqView on his PC at home. Also, I
tried verifying that indeed as little memory was left as DV said was
left, and succeeded. When 29K was reported as being left, I couldn't
load the Norton Editor (about 33K). Can anyone explain what's going on?
Thanks.

-- 
Charles Blair   			    ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!cjdb
The University of Chicago		    lib.cb%chip@UChicago.Bitnet