Message-ID: <01FD6EC775C6D4119CDF0090273F74A455A833@emwatent02.meters.com.au>
From: "da Silva, Joe" <Joe DOT daSilva AT emailmetering DOT com>
To: "'opendos AT delorie DOT com'" <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: RE: Best config for a 286?
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 13:09:52 +1100
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Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

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...