Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 17:59:54 -0500 (EST)
From: "Chris Mr. Tangerine Man Tate" <FIXER AT FAXCSL DOT DCRT DOT NIH DOT GOV>
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: cannot exec go32

The question was:
>> 
>> What are the possible reasons why stub.exe says "Cannot exec go32" ?

And the answer was:
>
>(1) availability.  Run "go32" and make sure it finds it.
>
>(2) memory.  Run "go32" and see how much memory it says you have left.

This isn't strictly true.  I've *frequently* had a situation where I
would do the following:

	Type 'make' to build my project
	Make starts up, and I see the 'gcc' command line for a source file
	The machine sits for a bit
	Make issues a 'cannot exec go32' error and quits
	Type 'make' again
	Everything compiles correctly

It's strange.  I *think* it has to do with access to non-DOS memory getting
hosed somehow, because repeated invocation of 'make' after, say deleting
.o files works, but the instant I start my editor (Brief) and exit out
again, I get the above behavior.

Most of the time, that is.  The problem seems to develop as I keep working.
More precisely, it will suddenly start exhibiting the above behavior, and
won't stop until I reboot, at which point the machine starts acting sanely
again for a while (until I do whatever it is that triggers the problem,
that is - I haven't pinned it down).

My memory environment is ... baroque, to say the least.  I use 4DOS 5.0,
loaded high, with its environment and aliases also high, as well as QEMM 7
(though without any 'Stealth' functions turned on).  In addition, I have
a bus-mastering SCSI drive D:, which requires some jiggery-pokery to coexist
peacefully with QEMM.  I also have QEMM's QDPMI driver loaded, because for
my *work* compilation I have to use Microsquishy C++ 7.0 (shudder).

This all means that my machine is pretty delicately balanced; it'd be
fairly easy for some subtle problem in any of a number of pieces of 
hardware or software to cause strange behavior like the above.  Don't you
just love debugging PC memory problems?  :-)

-- Chris Tate
   fixer AT faxcsl DOT dcrt DOT nih DOT gov