[net.micro.pc] Intel Above Board for AT/ DESQVIEW !

sock@gumby.UUCP (Isabella Ng) (07/11/86)

How does DESQVIEQ interact with the EMS, does it allocate memory equally
to all programs run under QuarterDecks DESKQVIEW, if I run 9 programs
simultaneously does it divide the memory equally !

Pleas Mail me if you have any views, Thanks in Advance !

						Isabella

johnl@ima.UUCP (07/16/86)

In article <338@gumby.UUCP> sock@gumby.UUCP (Isabella Ng) writes:
>How does DESQVIEQ interact with the EMS, does it allocate memory equally
>to all programs run under QuarterDecks DESKQVIEW, if I run 9 programs
>simultaneously does it divide the memory equally !

Each program that uses EMS asks for some expanded memory, usually when
it starts up.  There is no practical way to give expanded memory back
short of exiting a program, so most programs seem to have heuistics like
allocate 1/4 of the available expanded memory when it starts, and grab
the other quarters as needed.  Practically speaking, this means that the
first program you load will get the largest fraction of your expanded memory.
Programs that don't know about EMS won't ask for any and so won't get any
assigned.

>[ what about EMS vs. EEMS]

The RAMPage EEMS system lets Desqview map expanded pages in and out of the
regular 640K address space.*  Desqview makes good use of this, and I have run
multiple programs simultaneously, even though together they added up to well
over a megabyte.  If you don't have EEMS, it swaps programs in and out which
works OK except that swapped out programs don't get swapped back in until
you explicitly ask to restart them.  If you have an Above Board, that's EMS
rather than EEMS so the best you can do is to set up a RAM disk on the EMS
and tell DesqView to swap there.

* - It can only do the page swapping in addresses assigned to the RAMPage
card, so to get the best use of EEMS and DesqView, you should pull the
chips off the motherboard, except for the first row, and plug them into
your RamPage card to maximize the amount of remappable memory.
-- 
John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.EDU
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of a 12-year-old hacker
who has broken into my account and not those of any person or organization.

jrv@siemens.UUCP (07/17/86)

Levine@YALE.EDU write:
>Each program that uses EMS asks for some expanded memory, usually when
>it starts up.  There is no practical way to give expanded memory back
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>short of exiting a program, ...

From the point of view of a user this is true. From the programmers point
of view this is not entirely true. If the expanded memory is no longer needed
there is a function in the EMS to close the EMM handle and deallocate the
pages of memory. Also, there is no reason that a single application
could no call the memory handler and get several EMM handles as the need
arises. Releasing them individually when no longer needed. The specification
*suggests* that each application may one request at the beginning of the
program, though this is not a requirement. There is no way to release a
portion or increase the size of memory allocated once the EMM handle has
been gotten.


Jim Vallino
Siemens Research and Technology Lab.
Princeton, NJ
{allegra,ihnp4,seismo,philabs}!princeton!siemens!jrv