Mail Archives: opendos/2001/11/20/21:08:30
It's very hard to get much memory on a 286, because it cannot
remap from extended memory to conventional memory, like a
386+ can. All it can do is provide a 64K (64K-16, IIRC) block just
above the 1M boundary, for use by the DOS (using DOS=HIGH
in the CONFIG.SYS file).
However, there are some 286 chipsets which provide a remapping
facility, so if you have one of these, and it's one that the DR-DOS
HIMEM.SYS knows how to manipulate (the M$-DOS version does
not know how to, for any 286 chipset, AFAIK). It's possible that
PC-DOS 2000 may have similar capabilities for certain chipsets,
don't know (tell us;-).
Your other friend is DPMS.EXE, supplied with DR-DOS. This
allows DPMS-aware TSR's to run from extended memory and
AFAIK, also works with 286's. The two main DPMS-aware TSR's
that may be relevant are NWCACHE and NWCDEX, IIRC (most
other TSR's unfortunately, are not DPMS-aware). Just load
DPMS.EXE after HIMEM.SYS in CONFIG.SYS ...
Joe.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Uncle Slacky [SMTP:uncle_slacky AT ntlworld DOT com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 9:34 AM
> To: opendos
> Subject: Best config for a 286?
>
> Using some spare memory modules I have increased the memory of my old
> 16MHz 286 laptop to 5Mb. What is the best way to go about making the
> best use of this (i.e. freeing up as much lower mem as possible). I've
> installed DRDOS 7.03 but HIMEM didn't like the memory setup I have. I
> solved this by using HIMEM from MS-DOS 6.22. I've also created a 2Mb
> virtual disk (in order to run Arachne etc.) Is there anything else I can
> do to free up memory?
>
> BTW I have got hold of PCDOS2000 - would this offer any benefits over
> DRDOS? I understand it uses less lower memory than MSDOS 6.22, but I
> haven;'t run a comparison against DRDOS.
>
> Uncle Slacky...
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