Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d21/attmem.arc/ATTMEM

Text File | 1988-09-30 | 18KB | 347 lines

     The Following be a true Account of the harrowing and perilous
Inftallation of an AST 2 Megabyte Memory Board made for, and sold
by, AT&T for the AT&T 6300 or 6300 Plus, for planned ufe with
DESQview for multitafking Operations (mostly doing other Things
while modeming).  For preparation ye need little save a small
Screwdriver and a quantity of Ale, but the affiftance of a Maiden
be propitious, perhaps requisite, to the Success of the Venture.
If she be handling the RAM, though, make certain she be Grounded.
And do ye the Same.

     ***************************************************

     New text is bracketed between "***** version 1.x" posts.

     The AST board for AT&T is probably identical with the
Rampage! board for IBM-PC.  If you buy it fully populated with RAM
to 2 Meg, you will pay something more than $750 - probably, in
most places, a lot more.  It comes with instructions for
installation which are easy to follow, and instructions for use
which are misleading and confusing.  DESQview (DV hereinafter) has
a series of paragraphs in Appendix F of its manual, relating to
the use of expanded memory, which are passing strange, but I must
admit that, in the end, everything they (DV) said proved to be
true.  Something, by the way, that AT&T's technical support staff,
at the 800 number, don't know.
     I will assume a 640K ram AT&T 6300 (not plus) with 8086 cpu,
one hard disk, and one floppy.  The board will not run with a V20
or V30 (I swapped mine out).  You will need 18 64k bit chips (4164
by 15 ns) to replace the 2 banks of 256K bit chips in the
motherboard, if you want to get maximum performance from DV.
     Turn the power off now.
     You need to remove the cover (top) and the bottom (to get at
the motherboard).  The top comes off by loosening the 2 screws at
the back and making it "nod" forward, then jiggling a bit.  Once
you have it off, you can see how the tabs and slots fit, to get it
back on.  The bottom comes off by loosening 2 screws at the back,
and sliding forward.  You've probably found it easiest to take the
bottom off with the computer on its side, so just leave it like
that, and look at the 2 dip switches on the motherboard toward the
rear, middle.  The rearmost (dipsw-1) should not be touched.  The
dipswitch nearer to the front (dipsw-0) is set to the following
pattern:
     1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8
    off  ON   off  off: these (5-8) are set to your PROMS, 8087,
etc.
     THIS WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT TIME TO POWER OFF THE MACHINE, if
you haven't yet done so.
     You're going to remove all the 256K bit ram chips (the last 2
banks, and on my machine the only removable chips, since the first
2 banks of 64's (128K) are soldered in).  Therefore, you're going
to change the dipswitch settings to reflect the new status.  Set:
     1    2    3    4
    ON   off  ON   ON
     Note that ON is toward you and the front of the machine, off
is toward the back.  Don't change 5 through 8.
     GROUND yourself (or your maiden, or both) and, with a SMALL
screwdriver, CAREFULLY pry up each of the 256k chips in the last 2
banks.  If you're ham-handed like me, you may want to buy (cheap)
a chip remover from the Shack, or other Vendor.  If you plan on
doing this more than once, do buy one.  CAREFULLY (and much more
easily), replace these chips with the 64k's you have purchased.
You now have a motherboard populated with 256Kb of ram.
     WHY did I do that??, you say.  Because you want DV to be
able to run several big programs concurrently, rather than one
big one, and 8 others no larger than 86k (96k minus 10k overhead)
each.  If everything is set properly, the AST board will donate
384k to your system memory, leaving 1664 "aboveboard", which can
be distributed as you wish to ramdisk, print buffer (both
utilities included), program memory, data, etc.  For your
purposes, think of EXTENDED memory (EMS) as that which can be used
by programs written specifically to access it (Lotus, some Microsoft,
utilities such as print buffer, ramdisk, disk cache, etc).  Think
of EXPANDED memory (EEMS) as transparent system memory above 640k.
Expanded memory can be used by DV above 640k.  Extended memory
can't.  (It can however be used to build 500K spreadsheets, if
that's your pleasure.)
     Expanded memory is paged in 16k segments, and all of your AST
memory can be set to (paged) expanded memory by setting the
dipswitches on the board.  Then part of this expanded memory can
be allocated to an emulation of extended memory for the utilities
that come with the board: ramdisk, superdrive, and print spooler.
     If you keep the computer on its side, you will be able to get
to both the motherboard and the AST board once you drop it in.
But put the computer upright now to plug in the AST board.  Choose
one of the "long" slots that have two female inserts, and remove
the screw and guard, insert the board, and replace the guard &
screw.
     To the far right on the board is a jumper box (DIP shunt JP1)
which is configured for use with the 6300 PLUS.  Take it out with
your small screwdriver and reinstall it upside down, so it looks
like this:

     === ===
     ==> <==                JP1
     === ===
     ==> <==
     === ===
     ==> <==

     The AST board has 2 dipswitches, referred to in the
documentation as SW1 and SW2.  SW1 is to the RIGHT (back) as you
look at the board from the right-front.  SW2 is to the LEFT of
SW1. Set SW1 (near the rear, or right) as follows:
     1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8
    off  off  off  off  off  off  off   ON

     Actually either 6 or 7 (not both) can be ON, as well, without
affecting the assignments.  Note that ON for these switches is UP.

     Set SW2 (to the LEFT of SW1) as follows:
     1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8
    ON   ON   ON   off  ON   off  off  off

     (Your small screwdriver is ideal for nudging these switches
around.)
     Now drain a large flagon of Ale and do a cold boot.  You
should see a ram check on system memory that goes to 640k,
although you KNOW you removed those 256k ram chips.....  Then a
memory check on the AST board that goes to 1664k, then whatever
your autoexec.bat does.  If that doesn't happen, set the machine
on its side so you can get to both the motherboard and the AST
board, and recheck everything.  If you didn't ground yourself (and
your maiden) before twiddling the rams, kick yourself.  The
machine runs fine (including hard disk) on its side, though I
wouldn't recommend it forever.  Check this document against the
instructions with the AST board, and the AT&T technical manual, if
you have one.  If everything looks right, and you don't get those
numbers, you've likely got a bad board or bad chips (on the AST or
on the motherboard 64k's).
     If everything checks out as above, you've got a go!  Drain
another flagon while you copy everything from the AT&T-AST utility
disk to your hard disk (actually, you'll copy it from the COPY
that you made as soon as you got it home, right?)..... and decide
on your autoexec.bat and config.sys files.  Here's the usable
parts of mine:

CONFIG.SYS:
     FILES = 32
     BUFFERS = 24
     DEVICE = ANSI.SYS
     DEVICE = AEMM.SYS
     DEVICE = AEX.SYS 768
     DEVICE = RAMDISK.DEV /M=512 /dir=128 /EXTM

AUTOEXEC.BAT:
     path c:\;c:\sys;c:\pd
     prompt $d $t   $ 256k+2048kb; rdisk E:512; spl:256 $_$P$g$G
     SUPERSPL LPT1: /M=256 /EXTM
     xd

XD.BAT
     c:
     cd\dv
     break off
     type c:\nokeys
     xdv
     type c:\mykeys

     In CONFIG.SYS, the AEMM command allows the board to function,
and accepts multiple parameters.  Unless you know exactly what you
want, leave this virgin. The AEX command allocates 768 kb of
expanded memory to extended memory where it can be used by
buffers, spoolers, etc.  Here, 512 kb is allocated to a ramdisk,
which automatically assigns itself the next available drive letter
(in my case, E:); and a 256 kb print spooler is created by the
autoexec.bat command.  Change those numbers as you prefer, but the
AEX allocation must be at least the sum of all the extended memory
allocated (i.e. 768 = 512 + 256; ramdisk plus spooler, plus
anything else allocated with a /EXTM command).  The ramdisk loader
will not identify its drive letter in DOS 2.x, but it will be D:
unless you have more than one hard drive.  If you have a
complicated system with multiple physical and logical drives, you
may have to DIR the alphabet below your current drives to find it,
but once you've identified it, it won't change.  I've set my
prompt to remind me what size ramdisk, and where it is, and what
else is loaded.

***** version 1.2 start *****

     XDV.COM is desqview's loader for expanded memory capability,
so the BAT file for executing it is called XD.  Since I have no
other file by that name on disk (in the path), that batch file
will be executed even if I'm in the \DV directory.  In the first
version of this document, I used FAKEY to provide automatic
keyboard input to DV (and elsewhere).  Now I'm finding that DV's
LEARN MACRO capability can replace FAKEY, and I don't have to
worry about stray keyboard data.
     If you do a LEARN at the opening menu of DV, and name it "!"
(just the exclamation point), it will automatically execute on
startup. Don't forget to (S)AVE the script - best as a separate
shift-alt command, but DV will remind you if you try to quit
without saving.  Within each window you can provide macros, and
these can be called from the "!" script...hmm. See *** v. 1.3 below.

***** version 1.2 end *****

     The AST book's sample config.sys files are confusing and
unhelpful because they use VDISK style commands for the RAMDISK
statement.  Unless you're familiar with VDISK, stick to the slash
("/") commands and you'll be ok.
     Do a SETUP on DV and tell it to use D:, or whatever your
ramdisk is, for swap.  If you haven't already done so, now would
be an excellent time to tell DV what programs to use, and how to
use them.  The documentation is pretty good, but look at sample
setups for several programs that DV recognizes.  And make sure
that you set High Speed Communications to YES if you plan to use a
comm program, and make sure you set that to NOT allow a swap to
disk.  After experimenting with Sidekick inside and outside of DV
windows, I would prefer it out, and probably should use MARK and
RELEASE on it, and the other resident programs.  I haven't yet
figured out how to put a custom prompt into the dos shell of each
window, but you can get that in the DOS window (D1) by putting
"prompt $p $g" in the slot for 'command to start program'.
"Prompt $d $t $DV dos shell 240k $_$p$g" works, too!
     I'm NOT a techie-type, so if I can do it, so can you.  All it
took in my case was an all-nighter, making all the possible
mistakes.  With this, if you're unimaginative enough to follow it
exactly, the job should be done in an hour..... it is fun to fool
around a little, though.  I do suggest that even if you know you're
going to change parameters, you get it running in this configuration
first, just to check out all the variables.  If you ARE a techie
type, and
            1) find something wrong in this document
            2) have a better idea
            3) have suggestions about how to set up DV, use
scripts or macros, set cpu tick allocations, etc, etc,
                                        please write me at the
address below, or leave a message at OSWEGO FIDO 503-636-1212,
which I try to check every week.

               Jim Whiting                      25 Oct 86
               10300 NE Hancock St.
               Portland OR 97220


***** version 1.3 start *****

     Here's a little more fluff, describing how goes the startup
from XD.BAT, above.  I've had some problems during the experimenting,
so I've taken out all resident programs except ramdisk and superspl.
I'll probably put them back in eventually, one at a time.  Procomm 2.42
blew up about 10 or 15 installations ago, leading to paring everything
back, but it's been fine since then.

! SCRIPT:
     o
     p                                  PROCOMM
     alt
     z
     alt
     o
     d1                                 DOS: set to > 210k,
     alt                                just in case.
     z
     alt
     o
     qf c:\dv  d:\pro                   QFILER (see **** v 1.5
                                                below)
     alt
     s
     2                                  shift to DOS

QF.BAT
        DESQview will call a batch file to the program that you
want, which can include parameters - eg, for QFILER v 2.3B :
        QFPAT %1 %2 /s                  (The patched version of
                                        QF 2.3B, necessary to allow
                                        multitasking)
You've specified the parameters in the command line tail to the
batch file.  QFPAT.com uses BIOS read/write, and so won't blow up
file access or modeming taking place in another window.

     QFILER is invoked from the DV menu with a space of 240k, no
home directory specified (otherwise it'll always access that,
rather than the logged directory), and the /s option is on the
command line.  If you don't use the patched version, it must be
handled as writing directly to screen (so that
LIST can manage the screen) and operating only in the
foreground....   I recommend using patched QFILER,2.3b, and setting
OFF the "writes directly to screen" and "operates only in the fore-
ground" options.  Setting "close on exit to DOS" ON seems to help
in keeping things uncluttered.
     The DOS (D1) window is invoked with 210k, since I haven't got
an "insufficient memory" message at that level (yet).  Be careful
what you do within the DOS window (D1).  DV won't let you load
itself within a window, but load another communications program,
and watch what happens!!.  Eating your own tail is not too
difficult to arrange, and that will entail (snort!) rebooting.  I
wonder if time travel is anything like this....
     PROCOMM seems to be well, now, but it is necessary to invoke
it with the /m option (use BIOS writes) on the command line if you
plan to do anything else during modeming.  This does slow it down
a bit, but is much preferable to watching it write through
your screen while in another window.
     Word processing probably should be done in a separate window
(not in D1).  I'm using NewWord (no, I'm not kidding!), and it
gets lost when invoked from D1 (via a batch file in root), and
needs a ^KL to home base.  Didn't lose the file, though.

     SCRIPTS can be edited after converting them to Ascii with
the CONVSCR.exe utility.  The documentation for this is lousy, so
experiment with "scripts" that don't actually do anything --
In DOS window (D1), assign a few keys in normal, shifted, alt, and
control status to macro key, say, f10.  Include keys like pgup, end,
del, etc.  Then CONVSCR to text.  The script will be, for dos window
D1, D1-SCRIP.DVS.  The ! script on startup will be DESQVIEW.DVS.
Others should be XX-SCRIP.DVS.
   You can look at the scripts directly using the alt-H function
in LIST, or other hex-reader, if you get confused.  If you do, you
will find that the hex code for the alt key is FC.  So when you
get balloxed by your typing mistakes in LEARN mode, you can indeed
go back to FAKEY.....

            CONVSCR will use several different formats in its
write-to-text, some of them more esthetically pleasing than
others.  It doesn't seem to make much difference as to the layout
when you edit the text, and re-convert to script.  And, if
anything complicated is being done, you'll save a lot of time  by
editing the text once you know what you want to do and  how to do
it.  So, for the complicated stuff, run through it in the LEARN
mode just to make sure it works, save it, convert it, and edit the
script and re-convert to the right DVS file.  Sort of like converting
your volume & weight problems into metric for the actual calculations,
then back to British for the answer.  A word  of warning ---
it is possible to nest macros too deeply... like  two levels if
DV doesn't like what you're doing.  Assigning lots of function
keys to another function key and then executing that from the
second level of the startup script is what I found  didn't work.
More time travel......

Anyway... The new version of QFILER (23b) accepts parameters for right
window & left window on the invoking command line, and no longer inserts
a "\" at the end of the command line ARCx mode, to the confusion of
DOS 2.x users.  However, both 2.3 and 2.3b versions of QF will over-
whelm DESQview during multitasking.  Kenn Flee (to the rescue!) has
provided a patch to be inserted via debug, to disable the screen-
writing routine that's responsible, and make the program well-behaved
again during DV operations.  So well behaved, in fact, that I think it
would behoove the DESQview people at Quarterdeck to make a bid to Kenn
for the rights to package QFILER with DESQview at point-of-sale.  It
really is a great enhancement to the DV product.
        The patch does in fact work on 2.3b as well as on 2.3, so I'm
using the patched version only within DESQview, the unpatched (faster)
version outside, in DOS.