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Use of ems on a 8088 xt

tikbalang said:
i don't know if this is relevant to this thread but there is ems magic from phatcode.net.
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Relevant to the thread perhaps, which is now talking about EMS memory, but probably not relevant to the OPs question. But thanks for the pointer; ya never know...

m
 
Thanks mikeS,

I think with the juko drivers can make it possible.

With caldera, if I discover the address of the free "ems" perhaps can use it........

Thanks to everybody, perhaps I express me wrong, but my goal is the same,

try to load dos in "high or umb" memory of my pcb 640kb base + 128kb of ems,

that´s says in the bios bootup.

Regards.
 
genocho said:
Thanks to everybody, perhaps I express me wrong, but my goal is the same,

try to load dos in "high or umb" memory of my pcb 640kb base + 128kb of ems,

that´s says in the bios bootup.
Click to expand...

Then go back and read my original post, as my response is correct. (Meaning, you have no HMA or UMBs on an XT and you cannot do it, and the best you can do is simply use your EMS as best as possible by using applications and TSRs that utilize EMS.)
 
Granted, loading DOS high is probably not possible, but isn't the EMS page frame essentially a UMB? Seems to me it'd be possible in theory to run stuff from there as though it *were* in fact a UMB, but I'm sure there's a good reason why not (and someone here will happily explain it to me).

Also, what about the area directly above 640K when it's not used for graphics; is it possible to use that with an appropriate 'driver' on an XT, or do you also need >=AT?

BTW, in the manuals that I have been able to find so far, the 640K-1M region is indeed only available for EMS or a RAMdisk.

m
 
MikeS said:
Granted, loading DOS high is probably not possible, but isn't the EMS page frame essentially a UMB? Seems to me it'd be possible in theory to run stuff from there as though it *were* in fact a UMB, but I'm sure there's a good reason why not (and someone here will happily explain it to me).
Click to expand...

Yes, you could probably write directly to it and get a 64K UMB. This would effectively disable EMS though, and if he's got 128KB of it I think it can be more useful as actual EMS.

Also, what about the area directly above 640K when it's not used for graphics; is it possible to use that with an appropriate 'driver' on an XT, or do you also need >=AT?
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PC DOS 2000 can do this, even with XTs, but the drawback is that you disable graphics by doing so. So for example, on CGA, you can use 12K of the 16K for DOS buffers. But you're then limited to a single 80x25 text page, and programs that use graphics (or multiple text pages) will crash and/or corrupt DOS. Plus, video ram is much slower than system RAM.

To the original poster: Is there a reason you MUST get more free conventional RAM, or are you just trying to do it to see if you can? If there is a reason you MUST have more RAM, then I'd like to see your config.sys and autoexec.bat that is chewing up your 640K...
 
The reason for I want to load msdos and mouse in high or umb of my conventional ram of my xt is for make run a program that needs 590kb of free conventional ram with mouse driver installed

With my 286 I use the dos=high,umb trick, but in my xt appears to be imposible...........

Regards
 
genocho said:
The reason for I want to load msdos and mouse in high or umb of my conventional ram of my xt is for make run a program that needs 590kb of free conventional ram with mouse driver installed

With my 286 I use the dos=high,umb trick, but in my xt appears to be impossible.
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What program are you trying to run?

I ask not only out of curiosity, but also because programs that require that much free RAM are from the DOS 5.0 and later era and will only work on a machine that can give them that memory (ie. 286s and later). For example, Falcon 3.0 is the first program to officially require DOS 5.0 or later because it required 590K free RAM which was only possible with DOS 5.0 (or DR-DOS 5.0). In other words, if it requires that much free RAM, it also most likely requires a 286 as well.

Which program are you trying to run?
 
My goal is appart to run that program, load dos in high and mouse, for not have problem in games or windows with low ram advices.

The program is dreamweb, I think exists 2 versions of that, one requires 570kb of ram, and other (mine) requires 590........
I have problems too with chaos engine and suburban commando.

Regards.
 
genocho said:
The program is dreamweb, I think exists 2 versions of that, one requires 570kb of ram, and other (mine) requires 590........
I have problems too with chaos engine and suburban commando.
Click to expand...

That's because all three of those games require an 80386 CPU.

You could have saved a lot of time by mentioning this up front. There is no way any 8088/8086 XT will run those games.
 
Trixter you´re right, but I´m still want to know if can load dos in this 128kb......

I try with caldera, the himem.sys appears to run, but, I can´t find the correct address of it.

Regards.
 
Any idea of the config.sys sintax to use himem.sys with caldera ???

I try this and don´t run:

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /USE=XXXX-XXXX
DOS=HIGH,UMB

I use checkit to find the segment of my free memory in "high" area, write it in the config.sys, but when boots it gives an error of hardware or memory not recongnized......

I´m still try to understad the meaning of this "upper" memory if nothing can do wit it.........

Regards.
 
There's a very interesting book that the original poster should read if he can get a copy of it: "Dos Beyond 640K" by James S. Forney. The book goes into great detail about HMA and EMS (including EMS versions 3.2 and 4.0) and how it is used.

He even claims you can run Desqview on an 8088 with EMS 4.0 memory and multitask DOS applications, having other apps running in the background while the app in the foreground is still running. (Of course, it's not so much multitasking as it is task switching with each task given a certain slice of clock time to run and the apps in the background running in the EMS 4.0 memory. Apparently it cannot be done with only 3.2 EMS memory. I've never tried it so I don't know how well it works.)

There are three editions of the book. I've got the second and third editions. The second edition is from 1992 and does not mention Win 3.1 which was released in May of 1992. The third edition from 1994 includes Win 3.1 and seems to have less useful info for those of us trying to understand things such as using the HMA and squeezing the last bit out of EMS.
 
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BTW, I have the juko driver. I have used it on a juko 12mhz. V20 motherboard with 1 mb. of RAM installed on the MB. When it is loaded into the autoexec. bat file, it creates a "D" drive with 384K. This is not EMS RAM but can only be used as a disk cache, RAMdrive or print spooler.

If anyone wants the juko driver, PM me.
 
the xt guy said:
He even claims you can run Desqview on an 8088 with EMS 4.0 memory and multitask DOS applications, having other apps running in the background while the app in the foreground is still running. (Of course, it's not so much multitasking as it is task switching with each task given a certain slice of clock time to run and the apps in the background running in the EMS 4.0 memory. Apparently it cannot be done with only 3.2 EMS memory. I've never tried it so I don't know how well it works.)
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I've done it, and it works, but you definitely need a full LIM EMS 4.0 board.
 
Here are a few links that may help:

RDOSUMB - only for MS-DOS 5 and higher though: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/rumb11fa.zip

HIRAM: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/hiram.zip
(source at http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/hiram19a_asm.zip)

URAM: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/uram.arj (and source at http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/uram_src.arj)

Uwe Sieber's UMBPCI is a great program, but it won't work for you because it requires a PCI chipset. That is the problem with most of these programs, they work or not depending on your chipset, so try several.

Other stuff: MI.COM http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/mi_e.zip which is a better replacement for mem.exe - gives you better detail on what kind of memory you have and where it's situated.

TLB (mentioned above) is The Last Byte, a memory manager which may be a good choice for you. Search the web for "tlb-v252.zip" for the memory manager itself, and "tlb-a252.zip" for a collection of related utilities. It includes a chipset.exe utility that will determine if it will work for you, and the correct settings. This is commercial software, and you will require a serial number to use it. Licensing instructions are included in the zip files - but according to the docs you can use it as a demo without restrictions.

(edit) a few more UMB drivers:

UMM http://193.125.152.107/pub/msdos/sys/memory/umm03.zip

UMB_DRVR http://193.125.152.107/pub/msdos/sys/memory/umbdr522.zip

USE!UMBS http://193.125.152.107/pub/msdos/sys/memory/use-umbs.zip
 
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I am glad someone finally mentioned QRAM/DESQView. Very nice combination on an XT machine, since often times, you can get a small disk cache in there to help out the old ST-225 (generally) and yes, even do some preemptive multitasking, but LIM 4.0 is required to execute applications in EMS, as that's the point at with the old LIM and AST EEMS standards merged. You would definately need the specialty drivers for this though.

For clarity, QRAM is a cut down version of QEMM intended to use EMS or 8088, 8086 and 80286s machines, in a manner similar to how QEMM manages extended and expanded memory.
 
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