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Tandy 1000 TL Running out of RAM

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Zombie

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Apr 22, 2011
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I'm trying to play some games on my Tandy 1000, and it has the full 768 K RAM Compliment with a VGA Card. About 507K is free after all the network stack is loaded. I'm hurting for RAM, is there anyway I can get that extra 128 K of RAM from the TGA controller?
 
Zombie said:
I'm trying to play some games on my Tandy 1000, and it has the full 768 K RAM Compliment with a VGA Card. About 507K is free after all the network stack is loaded. I'm hurting for RAM, is there anyway I can get that extra 128 K of RAM from the TGA controller?
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Why are you loading networking?

I have a tandy 1000 tl with the additional 128kb vram to 768. And a vga card.
Chkdsk reports 603520 available of 655360

if you have the setuptl program run it with setuptl/a to get access to all the functions and then you should be able to set the vram used to like 16kb rather than 128kb since you are not using the TGA graphics anyways.
 
I tried that, I lowered the VRAM to 64 K, and himem.sys would tell me it could not install an A20 Handler. fdxms286.sys would lock up the machine. As for networking, many of my programs are running on an NFS Powered share.
 
Do what I do when running networking with an XT--edit the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to prompt if networking is desired at boot time. Even with an EMS board installed, networking can still eat a bunch of memory.

Thank heavens that booting an XT to MSDOS is pretty fast.
 
My Networking stack isn't loaded at boot time, it just so happens that the MS Dos Applications are stored on network shares. I'm going to have to see who has a LoTech EMS Board.
 
Zombie said:
I tried that, I lowered the VRAM to 64 K, and himem.sys would tell me it could not install an A20 Handler. fdxms286.sys would lock up the machine. As for networking, many of my programs are running on an NFS Powered share.
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The 1000TL does not support HIMEM.SYS or Extended RAM. Remember, it's just an XT-class system with a 286 CPU, not a true AT-class system. The extra RAM above 640K is only designed for use as video RAM. I recommend using IBM's PC DOS 7.0 or 2000, as it provides the most free conventional RAM of any version of DOS since 3.3.
 
I went to reply earlier but our internet dropped.

Just wanted to add that unless your software specifically has EMS support, you may not want an EMS board. For upper memory you'll want the Lotech 1MB card which can be used to fill in all those little gaps - then something like use!umbs can be used to load programs in to it. If you use an EMS board like this, you'll only get the size of the page frame (usually 64KB) and then the rest can't be used (unless the programming specifically can make use of EMS - in which case EMS would be awesome)

I know it doesn't suit your needs now, but if things change in the future, NWLite + mouse driver leaves me with 580KB free.
 
Are you saying the Lotech 1MB card will give me 1 MB of XMS instead?

Also, I am still willing to use IPX/SPX if I can find a working DOS Client that will work with Mars NWE. Mars NWE Works, but the DOS Client could not connect to it accross the Wireless network.
 
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Upper Memory (UMB) = stuff between 640KB and 1024KB
Expanded Memory (EMS) = Up to 16MB, but the computer maps in a cute little 64KB page at a time in to the 0-1024KB range (can only be used by software with EMS support)
High Memory Area (HMA) = between 1024KB and 1088KB for 286 and higher computers with XMS (not an option)
Extended Memory (XMS) = computer uses superpowers to access memory beyond 1024KB (not an option)

The 1MB card can provide memory in any address between 0 and 1024KB - you just tell it where you want blocks. On your Tandy there might be enough address space left for you to get all your network stuff in to upper memory - or at least some of it - say 64KB 96KB or 128KB worth.

Hopefully that helps a little and doesn't just create more confusion - it's an awkward mess that comes from the 8088 setup only being able to access 0-1024KB worth of address space, and most DOS drivers/software just expecting to be loaded in normal memory.
 
Getting ahold of one of these might be an issue. I am simply looking to extract as much as I can front this Tandy, it has a 286, but no A20.
 
If you have a hard drive and want to use Tandy graphics or better, you'll only have 64KB free for upper memory.
In this case you may as well use an EMS card, as it can provide either 64KB UMB or provide access to EMS.
 
Usually those who build them tend to keep them - so that may not be an option if you're not keen to build one yourself.

But if you're going the EMS route, you can actually get EMS cards from the time period just off ebay or someone here (just make sure it's tested and you can find the jumper settings for it!). My TL/2 has a Micro-Mainframe 2MB EMS board which I believe Tandy sold as an option for the machine.
 
See you have what I am trying to get working. Whatis the USB Device in the floppy drive bay?
 
Zombie said:
See you have what I am trying to get working. Whatis the USB Device in the floppy drive bay?
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It's a Gotek/HxC floppy drive emulator, multiple floppy images go on a USB stick and the machine sees them as if they were real floppies.
 
Interesting. One more thing, does the TL/2 have any advantages or disadvantages over the original TL? My TL has the full 768 K RAM Compliment, 256 K VGA, 10 Mhz 80287, WD8003E Network card, and LoTech XT-IDE Card. The only thing I don't have that I want, is an LTEMM card.
 
Zombie said:
Interesting. One more thing, does the TL/2 have any advantages or disadvantages over the original TL? My TL has the full 768 K RAM Compliment, 256 K VGA, 10 Mhz 80287, WD8003E Network card, and LoTech XT-IDE Card. The only thing I don't have that I want, is an LTEMM card.
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The TL/2 adds an onboard "SmartDrive" IDE-XT hard drive interface, and an updated BIOS with DeskMate 3.03 in ROM.

Note that only the TL/3 runs at 10 MHz. The TL and TL/2 run at 8 MHz.
 
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