cwebster@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Chris Webster) (02/03/90)
I'm interested in running a BBS on my AT under Desqview, but there's
some questions that I need some help on.
1) Will my hardware be fast enough? I have an AT running at 12.5 Mhz with a
VERY slow harddrive (60-70+ ms access times.) The BBS software I plan on using
is Citadel-86 (BTW, it's an incredibly awesome Public Domain BBS program; it
was on Simtel the last time I checked) and, since it doesn't use a lot of
memory (which is good for running under Desqview) it requires a lot of brief
disk accesses. I'm mainly concerned with the apparent speed to the dial up
user. I have a 2400 baud modem, but I think I may upgrade to an U.S. Robotics
dual standard (since BBS sysops get excellent discounts). Can I have things
going in the foreground, and not affect the performance of the BBS to the user?
(My foreground tasks would mainly be Wordperfect and some other typical PC tasks
I would like to have Fractint running in a virtual mode when nobody is using
the console of the BBS.)
2) I'm going to need more memory as I only have one meg right now. If the 384k
of that memory was compatible with EMS 4.0, I'd be all set, but alas, it's not.
I thought that I would purchase a EMS 4.0 board to accomplish this. I seem to
have come across a rather good price on an Bocaram AT Plus board; $299 for two
megabytes installed. (Is this a good price?) What speeds should the chips be
running at? I really don't want to be getting a good price because they
installed slower ram chips on the board.
3) Configuration: Can the Bocaram board run with a DTK bios? The DTK bios
I have pops-up through a hot key in order to be configured. Last time I
checked, the menus didn't have an option for an memory board add on.
Finally, can I keep the motherboards' memory enabled, and still get decent
sized windows? I really don't need the full 600k or so that DV would give me
in a window, but I do need something closer to what my biggest window is now,
450k or so. I want to use the extended memory I have now for Microsoft's
Smartdrv.sys (after all, I do have a tortise hard drive) and the EMS memory
for programs. Can this be done.
Thanks for any assistance.phil@pepsi.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (02/15/90)
In article <1953@rodan.acs.syr.edu> cwebster@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Chris Webster) writes: | Finally, can I keep the motherboards' memory enabled, and still get decent |sized windows? I really don't need the full 600k or so that DV would give me |in a window, but I do need something closer to what my biggest window is now, |450k or so. I want to use the extended memory I have now for Microsoft's |Smartdrv.sys (after all, I do have a tortise hard drive) and the EMS memory |for programs. Can this be done. As documented in the DV manual, if you want to do multi-tasking, then all windows but the first will be limited to the size of EMS that is mapped in. If you don't disable the motherboard's 640K, then that will be about 64K. They strongly suggest you disable as much motherboard memory as possible. Can you use the RAM from the motherboard on your add in card? You'd do better putting your cache in EMS anyway. -- Phil Ngai, phil@amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil When guns are outlawed, only governments will have guns.
david@metapyr.UUCP (David Relson) (02/16/90)
I can't answer all of your questions, only #2 - about the BocaRam AT Plus. I have had one for about 6 months and it works fine. Since it runs on the expansion bus (which is typically at 8 Mhz), it doesn't need especially fast chips. My board has 2 Mb of 100ns 1Mx1 chips and works fine with a 80386-16. Concerning disk access times and apparent speed, I suggest that you allocate some memory to a disk cache. Then the first time some info is needed, it will be slow, but every other time will be very fast.