tos@psc90.UUCP (Dr. Thomas Schlesinger) (12/15/87)
I'm looking for advice, preferably from someone who has had hands-on experience with the IBM PS2/30. I've been using that machine for about six months. Have no need for any more graphics than the MCGA with which it comes, but I do like to use several applications which are memory-resident and don't like each other very much at times... i.e. either won't load (not enough memory), or when they do, end up with locked keyboard. The question is: to what extent can a memory expansion board improve on this, in view of fact that MS-DOS has the 640 K limit. What mem.exp. board should I buy, if any? I'm considering us of Desqview operating environment, which supposedly helps with such problems -- but won't it just take up more memory of its own? An IBM support person here in NH told me some time ago that some boards are on the way to market (not IBM-made!) which will provide some 386-style, true multi-tasking capability even to the PS2/30, which as an 8088 machine lacks that... that after all is my problem. What do you know about that? Some of the first reviews of the 2/30 mentioned that its memory could be expanded to 8mb (IBM provides a 2mb board -- for example, what would that do for my problem?). I am confused by this whole issue... on the one hand, supposedly there is no multi-tasking unless one has 386, etc -- and on the other hand, somebody is buying all those expansion boards which must do something for them... but what? That's what puzzles me. Would much appreciate any help and explanations to a technical illiterate. Tom Schlesinger Plymouth State College, NH decvax!unh!psc90!tos
karthur@codas.att.com (Kurt_R_Arthur) (12/17/87)
In article <96@psc90.UUCP> tos@psc90.UUCP (Dr. Thomas Schlesinger) writes: > > ...bunch of questions about the IBM PS/2 model 30. > The first thing to remember is the IBM PS/2 model 30 has the exact same bus as the older PC, which means any board for the PC will work in the model 30 (with the possible exeption of older (or cheaper) boards unable to keep up with the PS/2's faster timing and (slightly) modified BIOS). Electrically and physically, though, the busses are the same. For memory expansion, you're in luck, the market has become more focused now theEMS version 4.0 has been released. This permits both data and code to be in memory about 640K, which will permit an environment like DesqView to work well. The things to look for in this area are: Hardware support for memory paging, fast chip speed, maximum memory per board, and software bundled (spooler and RAM disk are pretty much always included, but sometime diagnostics aren't). Another thing to look for (which won't be important in this case, but maybe in others) is the ability to set the memory as any combination of backfill (under 640K), extended (above 640 but not paged in), or expanded (above 640, paged in). With the rumors of DOS 3.4 supporting EMS natively, I recommend staying with a name brand to assure your hardware is recognized. Desqview will assist your TSR troubles because although they will still crash when loaded together, DesqView will load them in separate tasks (keeping them apart logically). If you do go with a multitasking enviroment, buy a fast hard disk (if you don't have one already), because most swap to the disk (and at a minimum require lots of storage for themselves). Accelerator boards are available, and many of these come with their own (much faster) memory, which might make at least part of the memory board problem go away. My (personal) opinion is that accelerators are NOT the way to go, due to many problems that can arise due to these "brain transplants" (plus there's no way to guarantee they'd run OS/2, if that's your direction). Good luck! Kurt Arthur Software Services of Florida, Inc. -- Kurt Arthur karthur@codas.att.com
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu (12/18/87)
The extra memory can make task-switching run fast, even if you
don't get real concurrent processing.
Mike Berger
Center for Advanced Study
University of Illinois
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!berger