chung@Ainur.ee.surrey.ac.uk (L N Chung) (08/13/90)
Hi, DR advertised that DR-DOS ver 5 can give you >620K. But does it apply to any machine configurations? I would like to know whether it will help in the following two cases: 1) We need to run programs that require more than 600K of base memory. The machine is an *OLD* IBM AT (6MHz type) with a Everex EMS memory board and a EGA card (I think it only has the min. amount of video memory installed). Currently we have to boot on a MSDOS ver 2.11 disk when using these programs. 2) A PC clone with C&T chipset, Herc. mono, and 2 MB memory. It has a BICC ethernet card, and running PC-NFS. The trouble is only 470K of base memory is left for application. We would like to push some of the network drivers out of the base memory area. Has anybody got experience with DR-DOS? Are there any other better alternatives? Thanks in advance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- L.N. Chung Dept of Elec. Eng, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 5XH. UK. (chung@uk.ac.surrey.ee) PHONE: +44 483 509104 FAX: +44 483 34139
frotz@drivax.UUCP (Frotz) (08/15/90)
chung@Ainur.ee.surrey.ac.uk (L N Chung) writes: ]DR advertised that DR-DOS ver 5 can give you >620K. But does it apply to any ]machine configurations? I would like to know whether it will help in the ]following two cases: Sigh... Someday I'll convince enough people in our European Development Offices to read news...;-) They would be better able to respond to this... Anyways, parts of this response are from: "Mark Aitchison, U of Canty; Physics" <uunet!canterbury.ac.nz!PHYS169> Responses are taken from private email (mine) without permission. ]1) We need to run programs that require more than 600K of base memory. The ] machine is an *OLD* IBM AT (6MHz type) with a Everex EMS memory board and ] a EGA card (I think it only has the min. amount of video memory installed). ] Currently we have to boot on a MSDOS ver 2.11 disk when using these programs. How much memory do you have on this box? (Including EMS...) DR DOS gets much of its memory by using as much as possible in the "high" memory (above 640K and below 1M). You must have some place to put the OS (e.g. high memory) to be able to get that kind of available memory. On my 386, 4M memory, VGA, this is the MEMMAP that I get: ] Allocated Memory Map - by TurboPower Software - Version 2.9 ] ] PSP blks bytes owner command line hooked vectors ] ----- ---- ----- -------- ------------------- ------------------------------ ] 0007 1 253952 config N/A ] 0008 5 66080 N/A <mouse driver> ] 0462 2 7904 command C:\ /P /E:3000 22 2E ] 0671 2 1600 MARK all ] 06D7 2 7824 HISTORY 21 ED FA ] 08C2 2 619472 free ] ] block bytes (Expanded Memory) ] ----- ------ ] 1 1048576 ] free 1949696 ] total 3145728 My DCONFIG.SYS is: ] SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /P /E:3000 ] BREAK=OFF ] BUFFERS=30 ] FILES=80 ] FCBS=8,8 ] FASTOPEN=0 ] LASTDRIVE=Z ] HISTORY=OFF ] COUNTRY=001,,C:\BIN\DRDOS\COUNTRY.SYS ] HIDOS=ON ] DEVICE=C:\BIN\DRDOS\EMM386.SYS /F=AUTO /K=AUTO /B=FFFF ] HIDEVICE=C:\BIN\DRDOS\ANSI.SYS ] HIDEVICE=C:\BIN\DRDOS\CACHE.EXE /S=1024 /X ] HIDEVICE=C:\BIN\DRV\MMOUSE.SYS /A8 Here is a map of my memory (via DR DOS' mem command) ASCIIfied... +- Address -+- Owner --+- Size -----------+- Type ----------------------------+ | 0:0000 | -------- | A0000h, 655360 | ------------- RAM --------------- | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ | 0:0000 | -------- | 400h, 1024 | Interrupt vectors | | 40:0000 | -------- | 100h, 256 | ROM BIOS data area | | 50:0000 | DR DOS | 200h, 512 | DOS data area | | 70:0000 | DR BIOS | 18D0h, 6352 | Device drivers | | 70:052F | PRN | | Built-in device driver | | 70:0541 | LPT1 | | Built-in device driver | | 70:0553 | LPT2 | | Built-in device driver | | 70:0565 | LPT3 | | Built-in device driver | | 70:0577 | AUX | | Built-in device driver | | 70:0589 | COM1 | | Built-in device driver | | 70:059B | COM2 | | Built-in device driver | | 70:05AD | COM3 | | Built-in device driver | | 70:05BF | COM4 | | Built-in device driver | | 70:0659 | CLOCK$ | | Built-in device driver | | 70:0695 | CON | | Built-in device driver | | 70:06A7 | A:-F: | | Built-in device driver | | 1FD:0000 | DR DOS | 11B0h, 4528 | System | | 1FD:0048 | NUL | | Built-in device driver | | 318:0000 | DR DOS | 1490h, 5264 | System | | 34B:0000 | EMMXXXX0 | | Loadable device driver | | 461:0000 | COMMAND | 1330h, 4912 | Program | | 594:0000 | COMMAND | BD0h, 3024 | Environment | | 651:0000 | -------- | F0h, 240 | FREE | | 660:0000 | MARK | 100h, 256 | Environment | | 670:0000 | MARK | 560h, 1376 | Program | | 6C6:0000 | HISTORY | 100h, 256 | Environment | | 6D6:0000 | HISTORY | 1DB0h, 7600 | Program | | 8B1:0000 | MEM | 100h, 256 | Environment | | 8C1:0000 | MEM | 13B10h, 80656 | Program | | 1C72:0000 | -------- | 838D0h, 538832 | FREE | | 9FFF:0000 | EXCLUDED | 3E010h, 253968 | Upper system memory | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ | C000:0000 | -------- | 8000h, 32768 | ------------- ROM --------------- | | C800:0000 | EMS | 10000h, 65536 | ---------- EMS memory ----------- | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ | C800:0000 | EMM386 | 5000h, 20480 | EMM386 device driver code | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ | DE00:0000 | -------- | 12000h, 73728 | ---------- Upper RAM ------------ | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ | DE00:0000 | DR DOS | 1000h, 4096 | System | | DE01:0000 | CON | | Loadable device driver | | DF00:0000 | DR DOS | 4F50h, 20304 | System | | DF01:0000 | CACHE$ | | Loadable device driver | | E3F5:0000 | DR DOS | 30C0h, 12480 | System | | E3F6:0000 | PC$MOUSE | | Loadable device driver | | E701:0000 | DR DOS | 5DD0h, 24016 | System | | E702:0000 | DR DOS | 3C00h, 15360 | 30 Disk buffers | | ECDE:0000 | -------- | 3220h, 12832 | FREE | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ | F000:0000 | -------- | 10000h, 65536 | ------------- ROM --------------- | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ | FFFF:0000 | DR DOS | 96E0h, 38624 | DR DOS kernel code | +-----------+----------+------------------+-----------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | |<------------------- Conventional memory ---------------------> | | 0h 10000h 20000h 30000h 40000h 50000h 60000h 70000h | | 0K 64K 128K 192K 256K 320K 384K 448K | | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- | | **************************************************************** | | ****************................&&&&########...*********&&&&&&&& | | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+ | | 512K 576K 640K 704K 768K 832K 896K 960K 1MB | | 80000h 90000h A0000h B0000h C0000h D0000h E0000h F0000h 100000h | | >-------------->|<-------------- Upper memory ---------------->| | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Key: *=RAM &=ROM %=Shadow ROM #=EMS 655,360 bytes, ( 640K), conventional memory 619,472 bytes, ( 604K), largest available block 3,145,728 bytes, (3072K), extended memory 3,145,728 bytes, (3072K), extended memory used 0 bytes, ( 0K), extended memory available Rest assured that I have complained to our DR DOS development group about stopping short on mem (Read: no trapped interrupts and no ems page reporting). ]2) A PC clone with C&T chipset, Herc. mono, and 2 MB memory. It has a BICC ] ethernet card, and running PC-NFS. The trouble is only 470K of base memory is ] left for application. We would like to push some of the network drivers ] out of the base memory area. Here is what Mark had to say after only a couple of days of use with 5.0. ) From: "Mark Aitchison, U of Canty; Physics" <uunet!canterbury.ac.nz!PHYS169> ) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 90 12:49 +1200 ) Subject: Re: DR-DOS (Long biased opinion;-) ) (2) It works with DEC's DECnet-DOS. I've only tried version 2.1 so far (I'll ) try 1.2 and PCSA later). Works okay by using the old way (everything in ) conventional memory), or everything in high memory, but there are problems when ) using a mixture (the NDU utility reports network drivers not installed if SCH, ) DLLWD21, DNP are loaded high, while LAT & NDU aren't; SETHOST still works under ) these conditions, TFA fails; still, who's going to put just part of the network ) layers into high memory?). I've only tried WD cards so far; I'll try 3COM next ) week. ) (3) It works with NCSA ftp. I haven't tried Sun's PC-NFS yet (next week, ) probably). ) (4) It works with DM's dmdrvr.bin, and with all the DOS partitions I can find. ) (5) When using DECnet's TFA (Transparent File Access, which intercepts int 21h ) calls to let you treat VMS directories as your own), it works *better* than MS ) DOS (strange; MS wrote most of DECnet DOS for DEC, I thought!) For example, DIR ) and COPY work as expected (MS-DOS must use the old FCB-based calles for this). ) (6) When using DECnet's NDU (Network Disk Utility, I think, that lets you ) access a big file (disk image) on the VAX as an MS DOS disk), DR DOS with ) caching improves the speed subjectively quite noticeably; other caching ) systems I've tried wouldn't work with the network drives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ]Has anybody got experience with DR-DOS? A fair amount. I have been running it on my 2 386 boxes and have installed it on a number of others 286s and a couple of 8086s. ]Are there any other better alternatives? I'm too biased to answer this to your satisfaction (besides, haven't I already answered it?... :-) Appologies to the net for the verbosity... -- John "Frotz" Fa'atuai frotz%drivax@uunet.uu.net (email@domain) Digital Research, Inc. {uunet|amdahl}!drivax!frotz (bang!email) c/o MIS Dept. (408) 647-6570 (vmail) 80 Garden Court, C13 (408) 649-3896 (phone) Monterey, CA 93940 (408) 646-6248 (fax) ========== "He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know." -- Lao Tzu