mitchemt@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (04/08/89)
I have just purchased MS Windows 286 and I have a few questions. First,
I have an AT Clone with 1152k. 1 meg on the motherboard and a BocaramAT 128k
Tophat memory expansion. Now for the questions.
1) Is there a good little editor for MS Windows that awould be useful for
a programmer?
2) Is there any way to let windows use this extra ram above 640k?
Windows is a nice program but I notice that I run out of ram far before
I have all the programs I need running. I need to run my BBS in a window
plus maybe an editor and a few other things. It doesn't seem right that
a program that is SUPPOSEDLY optimized for the 286 can't access this extra
memory. Windows comes with drivers for certain expansion boards but all my
ram is on the motherboard and tophat. Any help is VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
Thanks,
Terry Mitchem
jxh@cup.portal.com (Jim - Hickstein) (04/09/89)
> It doesn't seem right that > a program that is SUPPOSEDLY optimized for the 286 can't access this extra > memory. Who said anything about "optimized"? In my experience, Windows/386 (the same arguments apply) consists of just barely enough 386 code to get WIN86.COM to run in one virtual-86 machine while allowing other non-windows apps to run in other virtual machines. WIN86.COM itself has nothing that I can detect specific to the 386 that would make it run faster or better, like 32-bit instructions just to name one. Optimized? Hardly. In fairness, though, the 80286 doesn't have this virtual-8086 feature of the 386, and can only use physical addresses greater than 20 bits in protected mode. Now, I can imagine running WIN86.COM in protected mode, managing segment descriptors by trapping the right exception and emulating the real- mode behavior that WIN86.COM expects, but that, frankly, is a lot more work. Plus, it will run a bit slower (arguably much slower; depends on whose benchmarks you believe) in protected mode versus real mode for a given set of instructions. Generally, if you can think of a good way to do something and an easy way, I'll give you one guess which way Microsoft is going to do it. Anyway, you may be able to get someone else's expanded memory emulator to switch to protected mode and copy to and from that extra RAM, so Windows need not be bothered about the actual mechanism. Expect this to have a performance penalty, but probably less than swapping those segments to disk... Sorry I can't offer a concrete suggestion about whose product does this, but I'm sure it's out there, somewhere. Somebody else please take over here. -Jim Hickstein jxh@cup.portal.com ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!jxh
smikes@hound.UUCP (S.MIKES) (04/12/89)
In article <134000002@silver>, mitchemt@silver.bacs.indiana.edu writes: > ... > 1) Is there a good little editor for MS Windows that awould be useful for > a programmer? > 2) Is there any way to let windows use this extra ram above 640k? Terry, Yes, windows can use any editor you want as long as you make a PIF file for it; also you can use Windows Write, AMI or any of the Windows editors as long as you save your output file in straight ASCII format. As for how to make Windows use more than 640k, this is explained in your documentation that came with your package, RTFM! Steve