Mail Archives: opendos/2000/10/29/20:03:29.1
Hi Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: <fernande AT internet1 DOT net>
To: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2000 10:52 PM
Subject: Re:
> CD-ROM. I bought it becasue I got tired of the DR-DOS EMM366 flaking
> out when trying to use certain software, or functions of that software.
> I also didn't like that Lineo wasn't doing anything with it even thought
> they knew they had bug, such as the Fdisk/Format thing that people are
> going round and round about. I guess I wanted a version of DOS that
> wasn't Microsoft, but was still built in a professional way.
>
> I have also thought about setting up DRDOS again, but with QEMM8
DRDOS works great with QEMM 7.52, it should work with v8. I have an update
for 8 but lost 8. a diskette got corrupted and I was unable to recover it.
If you could send me a copy of 8, I can compare it to 7.52. Since I hate EMS
memory, I don't use QEMM unless I need it. QEMM takes some doing in order to
use it with a multi-boot system. I am using DRDOS LOADER for multi-boot. I
can get around it though but when I add something new like a driver, I have
to go through the same long procedure to optimize it agaim. The main reason
I used it was for DesqView, but now that DRDOS Task manager work, I don't
need DV any more. I actually get more memory with DRDOS EMM386 without EMS
than I do with QEMM. But if I want EMS then using QEMM with Stealth, I get
just about the same as I do without EMS. I acually gain back the 32k that
EMS uses with QEMM Stealth.
What kind of bugs are you encountering and what software does not work for
you? Some software cannot use EMS installed, some cannot have DPMI
installed, etc. I do not seem to have any problems with it, however,
programs that will work on my system okay do not work right on my brother's
computer. We both have DRDOS 7.03 installed. He has flaky problems with some
programs that I do not have problems with. I know that for one thing, his
BIOS sucks big time. So it may not even be a problem with the EMM386 itself,
but with something low level in the system.
You can buy a good new MB cheaper than upgrading an old BIOS. I only paid
about $60 including shipping for this used MB with 48MB RAM installed. A
BIOS update for it will cost $80 +shp. The idiots at the OEM that made this
board claims that these BIOS chips are no longer available. I even told
those idiots to send me a BIOS update file and I could buy a flash rom and
program it. So I checked with a couple of BIOS update places and they quote
about the same price.
Another DOS with it's EMM386 may work fine. So QEMM may fix your problem.
Another thing you can do is use QEMM and have it check for additional
exclusions. Then after QEMM determines the exclusions it finds, use these in
your DRDOS EMM386 line. Even QEMM is not perfect because you sometimes do
have to check for these additional exclusions. Normally, you don't even
bother to run that portion. You are only suppose to use it if the system
does not boot correctly after installing QEMM, but I have found it to be
useful at times and just try them one at a time or use them all and
eliminate them one at a time until I can find the culprit(s). This is
probably the problem my brother has.
I haven't tried it on this MB, but my old 386DX40 had some, but never did
find where they caused a problem, in fact QEMM did not want to use the whole
video ROM area and I told it to use it with Stealth, and the system worked
fine. I could put the EMS frame at C000-C8FF, right on top of the video
BIOS! But you cannot do that with all video cards, I just happened to be
lucky. I actually have what is called a split ROM. A portion in the middle
of the ROM area is not used (4 or 8k.)
If you do use QEMM you may want to experiment with it to get the most
memory. In version 7 their Qtips for DRDOS was not correct. They claimed
that by letting QEMM use the HMA you would get more conventional memory that
letting DOS use it. Novell DOS 7 through DRDOS 7.01 made better use of it, I
would get more conventional memory by letting DOS load into HMA. DRDOS 7.02
would not load some parts of it into HMA. The 7.02 update to 7.03 also gave
more memory. I never did check it out with the final release of 7.03. QEMM 8
may be better, but I would play with it some. Also I learned a few tricks
about it. QRMM 8 may have fixed this problem. When loading NWCACHE high,
QEMM wanted to use 128KB of upper memory to load it. NWCAHE will actually
load high in two segaments of about 1/2 the total needed eacg. I found that
I could allow it to load with a little less than 64k. So when it gets to the
point where you can play with the settings, you can reduce this to around
65000 bytes or a little less. This will allow it to load later in the
loading process of drivers and such. This would allow better use of the
B000-B7FF range of memory. Most of that 128K of NWCACHE will be moved into
extended memory via DPMS. If you use WINDOZE 3.x, WINDOZE take over the
B000-B7FF range. Since I never used it with WINDOZE 3.x, it might still be a
good thing to know.
I suspect that conflicts in the UMB area is where your problem lies, but I
would like to know what programs do not work properly. There may be
something about it in the
Novell TIDs.(Technical Information Documents.) I have all of them. I don't
know if they have been posted on drdos.org yet or not, but should be a link
to them. I have been collecting them since Novell started putting them out.
I think the only ones I am missing are those for DRDOS 6.0. I have all of
the for DRDOS 7.0 and PNW. Let me know exactly how you are running the
program, i.e. EMS? DPMI? Task Manager? if DOS is loaded high, etc.
My brother likes those DOOM/Heretic type games. Some of them work fine and
some do not. I checked them all out on my computer and they all worked for
me! I installed and set up DRDOS for him. We even have similar systems! I
have and AMD 5x86 133 with Award BIOS, he has a Cyrix 5x86-133 VIP with AMI
BIOS! Go figure!
I kinda blame it on his VESA video card. I don't have a VESA slot. I have an
ISA S3 video card. Funny thing though, some of his DOS games will work under
WINDOZE 3.1 but not in DOS! Go figure!
486's were flaky anyway! When compiling a kernel for Linux, it needs to know
if it is a 486 in order to work around 486 bugs. If it is a 386 or pentium,
it does not have to change the code for bugs! Go figure! I know there are
issues with those 486 VIP MBs. Sometimes it is recommended just to get rid
of the VESA video card and use a PCI video card.
Pat
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