BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU (09/14/90)
Greetings All: I have an AT clone and would love to be able to do other tasks on my machine while downloading large files. Is this possible short of buying a 386SX? Are there any software programs that will allow you to download in the background? Thanks in advance, Kinney Baughman
smithju@motcid.UUCP (Justin A. Smith) (09/19/90)
BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU writes: >Is this possible short of buying a 386SX? yes >Are there any software programs that will allow you to download in the >background? yes >Thanks in advance, No problem >Kinney Baughman OK, I suppose you would like to know how :-) I have tried Desqview, it does work on a 286, but you must stop it from swapping out the comms package. This is not a very good solution as theres not much memory left in the base 640K for other applications with desqview and a comms package running. However another way that i use is to use PCMIX, its a PD packagethat allows up to 3 DOS programs to multi task. Its really easy to setup, and i can download with my 2400 baud modem and not see a reduction in CPS, whils i use DOS in another window. I only use 2 windows, and get 279K for telix and 180K for DOS. this is enough to run most utility type programs, e.g. dos commands, shez pkzip etc. PC-MIX also has a neat screen with bar graphs of each tasks CPU and IO useage. I only found one slight problem, that is you can copy files from a directory being used by another task. i.e. you cant copy a .zip file out of your download directory in order to view it. as long as you leave your comms package directories alone you should not have any problem. This is a great little package, and well worth a look. P.S. its on my BBS. Justin Smith -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Justin Smith SYSOP- Orange Crush BBS (708) 359-5379 24 Hours USRobotics HST14400/MNP5/V.32/V.42bis Email UUNET smithju@motcid.uu.net INTERNET motcid!smithju@chg.mcd.mot.com