richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) (03/21/91)
I've tried a beta version of the new DOS (MSDOS 500.409e I think...) because I'd heard, that it could load device drivers and TSRs high even on 286-based ATs. My machine is a two year old AT with 384Kb of plain extended RAM (no shadow, chip&techologies, NEAT or whatever). I tried so (using "loadhigh <program>"), and it didn't complain (i.e. no "Machine too old for this trick" error message or the like), but it didn't load anything high: a look at the memory using MAPMEM revealed, that it had been put into low DOS memory (both device drivers and TSRs). I've permuted the device driver lines in my config.sys quite heavily and don't think there's any combination I haven't tried. Currently, it reads device = c:\dos\dos500\himem.sys dos = high [other devices, shell, break, etc ... nothing using extended RAM] My question is: does anybody know, if this "you can load drivers and TSRs high also on 286 ATs"-tale belongs in alt.folklore.urban or, if not, what I should do to make it behave? Thanks in advance - Richard [ObPCstuff: I haven't tried it extensively. Compared to 3.30, which I usually use, there are *many* new commands (like undelete and unformat), some enhancements of the old ones (eg FC, which is now more DIFF-like) and a online help. I think the command.com is ~45Kb] -- /Richard Flamsholt richard@iesd.auc.dk
valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) (03/21/91)
richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) writes: > I've tried a beta version of the new DOS (MSDOS 500.409e I think...) >because I'd heard, that it could load device drivers and TSRs high >even on 286-based ATs. My machine is a two year old AT with 384Kb of >plain extended RAM (no shadow, chip&techologies, NEAT or whatever). ... > My question is: does anybody know, if this "you can load drivers and >TSRs high also on 286 ATs"-tale belongs in alt.folklore.urban or, if >not, what I should do to make it behave? I don't know anything about DRDOS or MSDOS 500 or whatever, but I do know that yes, you can loadhi on a 286, provided you can configure the high memory as expanded. If not, you are SOL. If so, try something like HRAM, available at all FTP sites. Upon re-reading your post, I think you may be in that spot (extended only, no expanded) I seriously don't think it can be done with straight extended (Maybe the HMA via an XMS driver? Nah. Too weird). Also, those emulators that allow you to emulate expanded in extended don't work for loading high. More's the pity...
mstr@vipunen.hut.fi (Markus Strand) (03/21/91)
In article <RICHARD.91Mar20164814@alpha.iesd.auc.dk> richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) writes: > > I've permuted the device driver lines in my config.sys quite heavily >and don't think there's any combination I haven't tried. Currently, it >reads > device = c:\dos\dos500\himem.sys > dos = high > [other devices, shell, break, etc ... nothing using extended RAM] You should load the other devices with devicehigh=.... in order to load them above the 640 limit. > My question is: does anybody know, if this "you can load drivers and >TSRs high also on 286 ATs"-tale belongs in alt.folklore.urban or, if >not, what I should do to make it behave? Yes, you can load devices high on ATs. //Markus
gerardis@cs.mcgill.ca (Tony GERARDIS) (03/21/91)
In article <RICHARD.91Mar20164814@alpha.iesd.auc.dk> richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) writes: > > I've tried a beta version of the new DOS (MSDOS 500.409e I think...) >because I'd heard, that it could load device drivers and TSRs high > > I tried so (using "loadhigh <program>"), and it didn't complain >(i.e. no "Machine too old for this trick" error message or the like), >but it didn't load anything high: a look at the memory using MAPMEM >revealed, that it had been put into low DOS memory (both device >drivers and TSRs). >[stuff deleted.....] >-- >/Richard Flamsholt >richard@iesd.auc.dk I have installed 'MSDOS 5.0 release candidate 3" and seem to have the same problem. I tried to load my mouse driver into high memory, and also didn't get an error but it was still loaded into low memory! - Fine I get more mem but thats only because the resident part of DOS is shoved into high mem. I would also like to know if anyone has any idea will microsoft be releasing different versions of smartdrv and ramdrive so that they will contain switches in order to load the driver into himem (The resident part of the driver, not the actual memory it sets aside for the cacheing etc.. purpose). In general however This version of MSDOS is a major upgrade to any previous one. So far I've been 'Punishing' it and it seems to be quite stable. There is no switching back now!!!! BTW: I'm running off a 386-20DX with 4MB, V-RAM VGA, and 105MB HD. -------------------------------------------------------------------- gerardis@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca | The sun is the same in a relative way, | but you're older | And shorter of breath and one day | closer to DEATH. -Floyd
hollen@megatek.UUCP (Dion Hollenbeck) (03/21/91)
In article <RICHARD.91Mar20164814@alpha.iesd.auc.dk> richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) writes: > > I've tried a beta version of the new DOS (MSDOS 500.409e I think...) > because I'd heard, that it could load device drivers and TSRs high > even on 286-based ATs. My machine is a two year old AT with 384Kb of > plain extended RAM (no shadow, chip&techologies, NEAT or whatever). > I tried so (using "loadhigh <program>"), and it didn't complain > but it didn't load anything high > My question is: does anybody know, if this "you can load drivers and > TSRs high also on 286 ATs"-tale belongs in alt.folklore.urban or, if > not, what I should do to make it behave? > The key here is that you don't have a NEAT chipset and you also probably don't have something like an INTEL AboveBoard. You need the HARDWARE capability to support XMS or you cannot load device drivers high. I went through this for several months and finally ended up getting a 386 with REAL MMU capabilities. Software with the ability to load device drivers into upper memory will not work unless the underlying HARDWARE support is present. -- ----- Dion Hollenbeck (619) 455-5590 x2814 Megatek Corporation, 9645 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA 92121 uunet!megatek!hollen or hollen@megatek.uucp
d37645h@saha.hut.fi (Marko Kohtala) (03/23/91)
In article <RICHARD.91Mar20164814@alpha.iesd.auc.dk> richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) writes: > I've tried a beta version of the new DOS (MSDOS 500.409e I think...) >because I'd heard, that it could load device drivers and TSRs high >even on 286-based ATs. My machine is a two year old AT with 384Kb of >plain extended RAM (no shadow, chip&techologies, NEAT or whatever). > > I tried so (using "loadhigh <program>"), and it didn't complain >(i.e. no "Machine too old for this trick" error message or the >like), but it didn't load anything high: a look at the memory using >MAPMEM revealed, that it had been put into low DOS memory (both >device drivers and TSRs). I have been able to load device drivers and TSRs 'high'. The problem here seems to be that loading 'high' means loading programs into the memory area from 640K to 1M (into UMBs, Upper Memory Blocks) instead of the memory above 1M. For this you need 1) RAM in that memory area and 2) UMB driver. HIMEM is supposed by the XMS standard version 2.0 to provide the UMB services, but the current version lacks them. For 386 machines there comes this EMM386.EXE which can be installed in config.sys using DEVICE= line to add the two UMB functions to previously installed HIMEM.SYS. Read the text files that come with the DOS 5 beta. For my 286 I found an exellent shareware utility package called The Last Byte (TLB-V118.* includes the newest demo version). This package was written for DOS versions older than 5.0 for the loadhigh functions, but included the two drivers I needed: a driver to find and enable all the RAM I had hidden (it was not activated during starup) in the 640K-1M area and a driver to add the UMB functions to the XMS driver. But, as you have only plain extended memory ie. no RAM in 640K-1M nor any chipsets the TLB needs, I believe you are unable to load anything high. The most you can get, is loading the DOS resident to HMA (the 64K above 1M accessible in segment 0FFFFh). Sorry. --- * Via me - not on behalf of any organisation Marko Kohtala - INTERNET:d37645h@saha.hut.fi, mkohtala@otax.tky.hut.fi
bytehead@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Price) (03/24/91)
richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) writes: > I tried so (using "loadhigh <program>"), and it didn't complain > (i.e. no "Machine too old for this trick" error message or the like), > but it didn't load anything high: a look at the memory using MAPMEM > revealed, that it had been put into low DOS memory (both device > drivers and TSRs). > > I've permuted the device driver lines in my config.sys quite heavily > and don't think there's any combination I haven't tried. Currently, it > reads > device = c:\dos\dos500\himem.sys > dos = high > [other devices, shell, break, etc ... nothing using extended RAM] Weeeeeell, it's like this. You are using himem.sys which is giving you a high memory area of 64K. Your next line tells DOS to load itself (i.e. buffers, MSDOS.SYS, etc) into that 64K area. In my case, I think I have 7K left, but your mileage may vary. If your TSR is smaller than the free space left, then it should load high, otherwise it will load low. If you had memory in the upper 384K area, then with UMB you could load your drivers/tsrs, etc. Since you only have this 64K area to work with, I doubt that you could fit much into it. > > My question is: does anybody know, if this "you can load drivers and > TSRs high also on 286 ATs"-tale belongs in alt.folklore.urban or, if > not, what I should do to make it behave? > > Thanks in advance - Richard > > [ObPCstuff: I haven't tried it extensively. Compared to 3.30, which > I usually use, there are *many* new commands (like undelete and > unformat), some enhancements of the old ones (eg FC, which is now more > DIFF-like) and a online help. I think the command.com is ~45Kb] You have to realize that the reason COMMAND.COM grew was due to the online help text..... > > -- > /Richard Flamsholt > richard@iesd.auc.dk
orenalex@bimacs.BITNET (oren alex) (03/25/91)
In article <RICHARD.91Mar20164814@alpha.iesd.auc.dk> richard@iesd.auc.dk (Richard Flamsholt S0rensen) writes: > > I've tried a beta version of the new DOS (MSDOS 500.409e I think...) >because I'd heard, that it could load device drivers and TSRs high >even on 286-based ATs. My machine is a two year old AT with 384Kb of >plain extended RAM (no shadow, chip&techologies, NEAT or whatever). > > I tried so (using "loadhigh <program>"), and it didn't complain >(i.e. no "Machine too old for this trick" error message or the like), >but it didn't load anything high: a look at the memory using MAPMEM >revealed, that it had been put into low DOS memory (both device >drivers and TSRs). > > I've permuted the device driver lines in my config.sys quite heavily >and don't think there's any combination I haven't tried. Currently, it >reads > device = c:\dos\dos500\himem.sys > dos = high > [other devices, shell, break, etc ... nothing using extended RAM] > > My question is: does anybody know, if this "you can load drivers and >TSRs high also on 286 ATs"-tale belongs in alt.folklore.urban or, if >not, what I should do to make it behave? > OK, by "loading high" dos 5 means two different things 1) the "dos=high" in config.sys tells dos to load in the HMA (High Mem Area) which is the first 64K-16 bytes after 1M. works on 2/3/4-86 if you have an XMS device driver. use device=himem.sys or better yet - QEMM. 2) using the "loadhigh" command (can be abbreviated as "lh") assumes that the address range between 640K and 1M contains system RAM and so - programs can be loaded there into "Upper Mem Blocks". This is true if you have mapped some extended RAM into that area trivial on 3/4-86 which have internal support for this but cannot be done on a 286 (at least without external support). if you have the hardware - use dos={high/low},UMB in your config.sys, you must use an EMS driver so add device=emm386.exe or better yet - QEMM. viola: you may use loadhigh... and devicehigh=... Hope it helps, Alex.