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Mail Archives: opendos/2000/10/30/10:45:27

Message-Id: <200010301545.KAA08578@xellos.bignet.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
From: "Mark at Cross+Road's" <mark1 AT mich DOT com>
CC: <pmoran22 AT yahoo DOT com>, <fernande AT internet1 DOT net>
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 22:45:06 -0600
X-Mailer: Net-Tamer 1.12.0
Subject: emm386 errors
Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

Hi Pat,
    I've already made mention of some areas of flakyness for Drdos 386
errors but to review here's a couple others!  The newest version of pkunzip
1999 for dos will not work for me without an error!  The 1993 version works
fine without any errors!  I wouldn't know if that is related to the bias or
not?  Also, I cannot load fcb's high without causing the error when entering
w31-11 at all!  The problem has once been identified with the "dpmi:" and
for sure if I use the dpmi=off beforehand I can run the pkunzip without any
problems at all.  I've also recieved errors in Nettamer and a handful of
other dos programs!  I do believe that the problem is with the dpmi and now
just wonder what if I always just booted with the dpmi off what would happen
How much memory I wonder would I lose?  What does the dpmi do anyways?
         Mark


On 2000-10-29 opendos AT delorie DOT com said:
   >Hi Mark
   >----- Original Message -----
   >Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2000 10:52 PM
   >> 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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