[comp.os.msdos.programmer] Writing DOS Memory to Disk

stephd@usissc.Dayton.NCR.COM (Doug.Stephan) (09/14/90)

We have written a PC based mail agent (MAILplusPC) which allows the user
to use any word processor of choice.  Unfortunately, WordPerfect 5.1 uses
384K, plus the 200K for MAILplusPC and 50K for DOS leaves room for nothing
else.  Many users have LAN, menu, and/or voice management software running,
meaning they get "Out of Memory" errors when attempting to invoke WP from
MAILplusPC.

South Mountain Software has available a product called "Hold Everything"
which works like a "spawn" on the PC except that it writes the memory
space to disk (or extended memory), freeing up all but about 10K of the
memory used by MAILplusPC.  Before buying, has anyone out there tried
"Hold Everything", and if so, please reply about its reliablity and speed.

Also, if anyone knows of any similar products, please let me know.  To
be considered, the product must support Turbo-C 2.0.

Thanks in advance,
Doug
-- 
Doug Stephan        USG ISS Field Systems Development and Support
(513)847-4385       FSDS ISS-1     Doug.Stephan@Dayton

everett@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (Everett Kaser) (09/17/90)

Something you should beware of with "memory swap-to-disk" programs is tsr's
and programs that deal with interrupts.  If the interrupt vector table isn't
modified to handle these interrupts, then when you swap code out to disk and
overlay it with something else, your system crashes.  If you do modify the
interrupt vector table, you may screw the pooch also, because some other
component (software or hardware) of the system may be depending upon that
interrupt service.  These memory swappers are kind of neat, but they're a real
dangerous kludge on top of a single tasking OS.

Everett Kaser                   Hewlett-Packard Company
...hplabs!hp-pcd!everett        work: (503) 750-3569   Corvallis, Oregon
everett%hpcvra@hplabs.hp.com    home: (503) 928-5259   Albany, Oregon