🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan7.081002.1841@wega.rz.uni-ulm.de>, S_BUCK@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de (Buck Martin) writes:
> I need some information about Mess-DOS 5.0's EMM386-driver and the
> DOS=HIGH feature.
> 
> I'd also like to know, if there is any (shareware) expanded-memory-
> manager for the 386 that doesn't switch the CPU to virtual mode (if
> this is possible at all). If such an emulator exists, where can I get
> it from?

Uh, unless you have a motherboard chipset that supports hardware EMS,
no way.  Virtual mode is the only way you can enable the paging feature
needed to emulate EMS on a 386.

 
> Does anybody know, how to force DOS into low memory though there is a
> DOS=HIGH statement (it must be possible; I've seen 2 multi-configura-
> tion-programs doing this)?

Uh, DOS=HIGH means just that!  It tells DOS to load HIGH.  If you don't
want DOS to load HIGH, don't use DOS=HIGH!  The HMA is still available
to other software as long as HIMEM.SYS is loaded and DOS is not loaded
high.

As far as I know, EMM386 only uses the memory you tell it to use.  However,
it allocates this memory from the XMS pool (which HIMEM.SYS manages).  OLD
programs that try and access extended memory directly without using XMS
services won't see any if HIMEM is loaded.  New software uses HIMEM
to manage extended memory as "XMS" memory and all is happy.

-john r pierce
hacker at large