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THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) An Upper Memory Manager for MS-DOS Version 1.20 Copyright (C) 1990-91 All Rights Reserved by KEY SOFTWARE PRODUCTS 440 Ninth Avenue Menlo Park, California 94025 (415) 364-9847 The Last Byte Memory Manager is a trademark of Key Software Products. MS-DOS and Windows 3.0 are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. DR-DOS is a trademark of Digital Research Incorporated. 4DOS is a trademark of J.P. Software. Hyperdisk is a trademark of HyperWare. Other company trademarks are used with the company name. Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 2 CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION The Last Byte Memory Manager is a collection of software that can provide up to 384k of additional memory to your computer in the upper memory area between 640k and 1 meg. It does this by using left-over shadow ram memory, existing fixed read/write (RAM) memory, or by mapping expanded memory (EMS) pages into the upper area. With The Last Byte Memory Manager, device drivers, terminate and stay resident (TSR) programs, MS-DOS disk buffers, and the master environment can be moved up into upper memory, leaving more conventional memory available for your application programs. Depending on your hardware, you may also be able to extend the total conventional memory from 640k to as much as 736k. The Last Byte Memory Manager comes with utility programs that use upper memory to create ram disks, print spoolers, command line recal (history) buffers, emulated expanded memory, and TSR "markers" (to facilitate TSR removal). But best of all, these utilities can even use disabled shadow ram memory normally hidden behind the display buffer, read-only memories (ROMs), and other adapter cards. 1.1 Important Advantages The Last Byte Memory Manager offers six significant advantages over other MS-DOS Upper Memory Managers: o The Last Byte Memory Manager uses very little conventional memory: only 32 bytes for the kernel (LASTBYTE.SYS), and another 32 bytes for each device driver loaded into upper memory. o The Last Byte Memory Manager will work with any processor chip, even the 8088 used in the original IBM PC. Many memory managers require a 386 cpu or better. o The Last Byte Memory Manager does not use protected mode software. This means that unlike those that do, The Last Byte Memory Manager is totally compatible with any protected mode software, not just Windows 3.0. o The Last Byte Memory Manager doesn't require any extended memory. Other memory managers depend on the processor's ability to remap physical memory Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 3 from above 1MB into the upper memory area. o On motherboards that use one of the supported memory controller chips, The Last Byte Memory Manager, unlike all other MS-DOS memory managers, can use the unused shadow ram normally disabled by the display buffer, ROMs or adapter cards. This gives it the unique ability to use all 384k of upper memory! o The Last Byte Memory Manager does not slow down the performance of your computer, both because it does not incur the 5-10% execution overhead inherent in protected mode, and because it uses regular (full-speed) memory. (Some memory managers use the actual EGA/VGA graphics buffer as MS-DOS memory, but the display buffer memory of some EGA/VGA adapter cards can be as much as six times slower than regular memory.) Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 4 CHAPTER 2 - SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Fundamentally, The Last Byte Memory Manager requires version 3.0 or later of MS-DOS and some method of implementing memory in the upper memory area between 640k and 1 meg. Any Intel (or Intel-compatible) processor will do, including the original Intel 8088 cpu. No extended memory is required. 2.1 Supported Hardware To install The Last Byte Memory Manager, your computer must have any one of the following: o Fixed RAM memory already resident in the upper area, or o An expanded memory board (EEMS, LIM 3.2 EMS, or LIM 4.0 EMS), or ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTE: Using a LIM 3.2 EMS board is not advised │ │ as a method of providing upper memory. It pro- │ │ vides only 64k of upper memory and prevents ap- │ │ plication software from using expanded memory. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ o A 386sx, 386, 486, or 486sx processor and the Microsoft Windows 3.0 or DOS 5 versions of EMM386.SYS, or o One of the following shadow ram controller chips: Chips and Technologies: 82C212 - From the CS8221 NEAT (tm) chipset 82C222 - From the CHIPS/250 PS/2 50/60 chipset 82C230 - The PS/2 30 Single Chip Controller 82C235 - The SCAT (tm) Single Chip AT VLSI chip 82C241 - From the CS8223 LeAPset (tm) chipset 82C302 - From the CS8230 386/AT CHIPSet (tm) 82C307 - From the CS8231 386/AT CHIPSet (tm) 82C311 - From the CS8233 PEAK 386/AT CHIPSet (tm) 82C322 - From the CHIPS/280 PS/2 70/80 chipset 82C351 - From the CS8233 PEAK DM CHIPSet (tm) 82C812 - From the CS8281 NEATsx (tm) chipset 82C836 - The SCATsx (tm) Single Chip AT VLSI chip 82C841 - From the CS8283 LeAPset-sx (tm) chipset Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 5 ETEQ Microelectronics: 82C491 - From the Cougar 386DX/486DX chipset Forex Computer Corporation: 36C300 - From the FRX36C300/200 chipset OPTi Electronics: 82C281 - From the Cache SX/AT chipset (w/posted write) 82C282 - From the Cache SX/AT chipset (w/o posted write) 82C382 - From the HiD/386 AT chipset 82C391 - From the 386WB PC/AT chipset 82C482 - From the HiB/486 AT chipset Sun Electronics (SUNTAC): 62C202 - From the chipset 20 for 286 62C241 - From the chipset 24 for 386 62C251 - From the chipset 25 for 286 and 386sx Symphony Laboratories: 82C361 - From the SL82C360 80386DX/SX chipset 82C461 - From the SL82C460 80486 chipset Texas Instruments: 82411 - The Snake Single-Chip AT Controller 82S411 - The Snake+ Single-Chip AT Controller United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC): 82C212 - From the UM82C210 386SX/286 AT Chip Set 82C481 - From the UM82C480 50Mhz 80486 Chip Set ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTE: The UMC 82C212 is indistinguishable from │ │ the Chip & Technologies 82C212. CHIPSET and │ │ LASTBYTE.SYS will identify it as the latter. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ VLSI Technology: 82C202 - From VLSI Technologies' PC/AT chipset Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 6 ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTE: There is a pin on the VLSI 82C202 that │ │ controls whether or not the shadow ram memory │ │ has been relocated above 1 meg as extended │ │ memory. This pin is usually connected to a │ │ jumper or DIP switch on the motherboard. It │ │ may be necessary to change the jumper or DIP │ │ switch setting to work properly with this chip. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Not all memory controller chips allow use of the entire 384k of upper memory. Consult the appendix on "CHIPSET LIMITATIONS" for further information. 2.2 Checking Compatibility Using CHIPSET CHIPSET is a small program that simply checks to see if your computer has one of the memory controllers required to use The Last Byte Memory Manager. A>CHIPSET CHIPSET will identify the particular memory controller you have, if any. If it can't find a memory controller, it will look for fixed memory in the upper area or expanded memory as a means of installing The Last Byte Memory Manager. To see the entire list of what is supported, add a question mark to the command line, as in: A>CHIPSET ? If your computer has one of the listed devices, then The Last Byte Memory Manager should work on your computer. If your computer uses another kind of chipset, it may not be supported for one of the following reasons: o Some chipsets do not provide shadow ram support. Examples: VLSI Technologies 82C100 series Western Digital chipsets Texas Instruments TACT82300 series Early Suntac chipsets (ST62BC001-6) United Microelectronics Corp. UM82C231 o Some chipsets have shadow ram, but it can only be put into either write-only mode (for copying rom contents to ram), or read-only mode (to prevent accidental writes into what's supposed to be a copy Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 7 of rom). Examples: ACC Microelectronics chipsets Headland Technologies chipsets G2 chipsets o Many device drivers and TSRs either use Direct Memory Access (DMA) directly, or else they employ disk buffers that MS-DOS accesses via DMA. The hardware design of some memory controller chips prevent DMA from accessing the shadow ram, and thus loading this kind of software into shadow ram memory is pointless. Examples: VLSI Tech. VL82C286 & VL82C386 TOPCAT o The Last Byte Memory Manager software is table-driven, making it relatively easy to adapt to different memory controller architectures, but there are limits! Examples: Zymos chipsets United Micro. Corp. UM82C384, '388, '389 Forex Computer Corp. FRX36C100 Silicon Integrated System Corp. (SIS) chipsets o Some memory controllers are designed so that they can be "locked" at the end of software initialization, requiring a hardware reset to unlock, and thus preventing The Last Byte Memory Manager from accessing the controller. Examples: Intel 82335, 82335SX Some of these chips, however, have hardware EMS support and thus many of their motherboards come with an EMS device driver designed specifically to take advantage of this capability. So in many cases, you can install this driver first, and then The Last Byte Memory Manager can use it to manage the upper memory area. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 8 CHAPTER 3 - DISTRIBUTION FILES Version 1.20 of The Last Byte Memory Manager consists of the following distribution files. Feel free to upload this package to any bulletin board, but please be sure all original (unmodified) distribution files are included in the upload. CHIPSET.EXE A program to test your computer for compati- bility with The Last Byte Memory Manager. CLOCK.EXE A TSR program to display the current time in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. (Requires ANSI.SYS.) COLS.40,80 Text files to be used to verify that ANSI.SYS has been installed and is operating properly. HIGHAPND.EXE A program to enable/disable an extension of conven- HIGHAPND.SYS tional memory beyond 640k up to 704k or even 736k, depending on your hardware configuration. HIGHBFRS.EXE A program to put the MS-DOS 3.xx disk buffers (i.e., as specified in the "BUFFERS=" command of CONFIG.SYS) in upper memory. HIGHDISK.SYS A device driver that creates a ram disk in upper memory. HIGHDRVR.SYS A device driver used to load other device drivers into upper memory. HIGHEMS3.SYS A pair of device drivers that emulate expanded HIGHEMS4.SYS memory in upper memory. HIGHENV.EXE A program to move the master environment from conventional memory to upper memory. HIGHHOLE.EXE A program to locate empty space in shadowed ROMs that can be converted to free High-DOS memory. HIGHINST.EXE Exactly like HIGHTSR, except used with the "INSTALL=" command in a CONFIG.SYS file. HIGHKEY.EXE A command line recall editor similar to the DOS 5 DOSKEY program, but which can store the command line history in bank-switch memory. HIGHMARK.EXE A program to mark TSR's so that they may be removed from upper memory at a later time. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 9 HIGHMEM.EXE A program to display a map of upper memory usage. HIGHSPLR.EXE A program to create a printer spooler in upper memory. HIGHTSR.EXE A program to load TSR's into upper memory. HIGHUMM.DOC A device driver that application programmers may HIGHUMM.SYS use to access upper memory from their own pro- grams. (For a detailed specification of the soft- ware interface, see the information in the file HIGHUMM.DOC.) HIGHUNDO.EXE A program to remove TSR's (and their associated mark) that have been previously marked with HIGHMARK. LASTBYTE.DOC This text file. LASTBYTE.SYS A device driver that must be loaded before any other software of The Last Byte Memory Manager. LICENSE.EXE A program to install your name and personal access key into the file LASTBYTE.SYS. ORDERFRM.DOC A text file containing individual and site license order forms. WHATSNEW.120 A text file describing changes since the previous version. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 10 CHAPTER 4 - GETTING STARTED The first thing to do is to be sure that The Last Byte Memory Manager will work on your computer. You can do this by simply running the program called CHIPSET. Once you have determined that The Last Byte Memory Manager will work, you should then install it on a floppy according to the instructions that follow to verify that you can boot and operate your computer reliably. 4.1 Testing LASTBYTE.SYS HIGHDRVR.SYS and HIGHTSR.EXE To install The Last Byte Memory Manager on a floppy diskette, perform the following steps: Step 1: Use the MS-DOS FORMAT command with the /S option to prepare a bootable floppy disk. Step 2: Copy the files LASTBYTE.SYS, HIGHDRVR.SYS, HIGHTSR.EXE, HIGHMEM.EXE, HIGHMARK.EXE, HIGHUNDO.EXE, CLOCK.EXE, COLS.40, and COLS.80 onto the diskette. Step 3: Copy the MS-DOS device driver file ANSI.SYS onto the diskette. Step 4: Create a CONFIG.SYS file on the floppy that contains the lines: DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS ? DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS ANSI.SYS ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTE: If your installation is dependent on the │ │ presence of expanded memory, then you must pre- │ │ cede these lines with a similar line to install │ │ your expanded memory device driver before in- │ │ stalling LASTBYTE.SYS. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The "?" in the first line is intentional - it directs The Last Byte Memory Manager to display what it finds in the upper memory address space. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 11 Step 5: Create an AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the floppy that contains the lines: HIGHMARK HIGHTSR CLOCK Step 6: Boot from the floppy. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTE: Some memory controller chips provide a │ │ setup option to use some of the shadow ram as │ │ extended memory by relocating it above the │ │ 1 Meg boundary. This option must be disabled │ │ in the CMOS Setup Configuration Menu. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If everything goes ok, you'll see a sign-on box that looks something like the following: ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) Version 1.20a ║ ║ Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products, All Rights Reserved ║ ║ Licensed for EVALUATION ONLY ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ 25.0 Mhz 80386 with Chips & Technologies 82C302c ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ Address Range Size Width Bandwidth Description ║ ║ 00000-9FFFF 640 KB 32 bits 38.0 MB/Sec Conventional Memory ║ ║ A0000-FFFFF 384 KB 32 bits 38.0 MB/Sec Shadow Ram Memory ║ ║ A0000-BFFFF 128 KB 16 bits 3.1 MB/Sec VGA Display Buffer ║ ║ C0000-C7FFF 32 KB 16 bits 3.1 MB/Sec Adapter R/O Memory ║ ║ C8000-CB7FF 14 KB 8 bits 1.3 MB/Sec Adapter R/O Memory ║ ║ CB800-CBFFF 2 KB 8 bits 1.3 MB/Sec Adapter R/W Memory ║ ║ F0000-FFFFF 64 KB 16 bits 3.1 MB/Sec Bios (Boot) Rom ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ Conventional High-DOS Bank-Switch Shadowed Roms Excluded ║ ║ 640k 32k 32k 96k 224k ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ The Last Byte Memory Manager is a trademark of Key Software Prod. ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ If your computer stops before displaying the entire box shown above, or if it fails to operate properly after booting, this may be because The Last Byte Memory Manager failed to identify one of your installed adapters that uses some portion of the upper memory address space. If this happens, you'll probably need to use an "EXCLUDE=" option on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line to manually disable the corresponding region(s) where conflict occurs. To temporarily get around this problem, you can reboot and manually bypass all The Last Byte Memory Manager Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 12 device drivers and TSR's by simultaneously holding down the <left shift>, <alt>, and <ctrl> keys during the boot sequence. After AUTOEXEC.BAT is finished, you'll see the current time displayed in inverse video in the upper left-hand corner of your screen. This verifies that HIGHTSR has successfully loaded CLOCK into upper memory. You can verify that ANSI.SYS is installed and operating by using the commands: TYPE COLS.40 {switches display to 25 rows by 40 columns}, or TYPE COLS.80 {switches display to 25 rows by 80 columns}. (These commands will display garbage on the screen if ANSI.SYS has not been installed.) Once you are convinced that The Last Byte Memory Manager is working satisfactorily, you may copy it to your hard disk and modify the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files there accordingly. 4.2 Mapping Upper Memory with HIGHMEM Now run HIGHMEM to display a map of upper memory. Depending on what adapter cards you have installed, HIGHMEM's output should look something like that shown below. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 13 HIGHMEM v1.20a (C) Key Software Products 1990-91. All Rights Reserved. MCB Hex Address Description [Type] <Mark> High-DOS Bnk-Swtch Total ──── ─────────── ───────────────────────── ──────── ───────── ─────── B000 A0000-AFFFF Reserved Memory Group: B79D A0000-A042F ╠═TSR Marker <1> 1,072 B002 A0000-A042F ║ └─8-bit EGA Graphics Buffer 1,072 B79B A0430-A7FFF ╠═8-bit EGA Graphics Buffer [ 31,696] [31,696] B004 A8000-AFFFF ╚═8-bit EGA Graphics Buffer 32,768 B006 B0070-B10CF ANSI [DEV] 4,192 4,192 B10D B10E0-B112F CLOCK [ENV] <1> 80 80 B113 B1140-B12EF CLOCK [TSR] <1> 432 432 B12F B1300-B79AF [∙∙∙Free∙∙∙] [ 26,288] [26,288] B79F B7A00-B7EFF LASTBYTE [DEV] 1,280 1,280 B7FE B8000-FFFFF Reserved Memory Group: B7F0 B8000-BFFFF ╠═8-bit EGA Text Buffer 32,768 B7F2 C0000-C3FFF ╠═Shadowed 8-bit Rom 16,384 B7F4 C4000-C7FFF ╠═Excluded Block 16,384 B7F6 C8000-CB7FF ╠═8-bit Adapter Rom 14,336 B7F8 CB800-CBFFF ╠═8-bit Adapter Ram 2,048 B7FA CC000-EFFFF ╠═Excluded Block 147,456 B7FC F0000-FFFFF ╚═Shadowed 16-bit Bios 65,536 ─────── ─────── ─────── Upper Memory In Use: 5,984 1,072 334,736 [Free Upper Memory]: 26,288 31,696 57,984 MCB Overhead: 496 n/a 496 ─────── ─────── ─────── Total Upper Memory: 32,768 32,768 393,216 This listing is for a computer with a 8-bit EGA display adapter and an 8-bit SCSI hard disk adapter. The "Shadowed 8-bit Rom" at C0000-C3FFF is the EGA Bios and the "8-bit Adapter Rom" and "8-bit Adapter Ram" are on the SCSI adapter card. The column labelled "Bnk-Swtch" shows which entries can be used as bank-switch memory for a ram disk, a print spooler, emulated EMS memory, or TSR markers. Numbers enclosed in brackets (e.g., "[ 26,128]") refer to memory that is available for use. Once you have licensed your copy of The Last Byte Memory Manager, the "Excluded Block" shown above would be added to the free High-DOS memory pool, and the other entries labelled "EGA ... Buffer" would be added to the free bank-switch memory pool. The column labelled "Mark" is used in conjunction with HIGHMARK and HIGHUNDO. In particular, you may have wondered why the command HIGHMARK was included in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Since it was executed before running HIGHTSR CLOCK, you are now able to remove the clock from memory by simply running HIGHUNDO. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 14 Paging the output of HIGHMEM You may use the "/Page" (or simply "/P") option of HIGHMEM to force the output to pause after each screen full. 4.3 Running the LICENSE Program The Last Byte Memory Manager is distributed as a fully functional set of software. In its original form, you will be able to use all the features, but with three restrictions: o The amount of upper memory available to you will be limited to 32k of High-DOS memory and another 32k of Bank-Switch memory, and o The maximum number of device drivers and/or TSRs will be limited to 2. o The HOLE option of LASTBYTE.SYS is not available. Access to the rest of upper memory requires that your name and a personal eight-character access key be inserted into the file LASTBYTE.SYS. The access key may be obtained directly from Key Software Products or one of the authorized distributors listed at the end of this document. Installation of the key is accomplished by the program called LICENSE.EXE that is included in the distribution. The LICENSE program must be run on the same computer on which you intend to install The Last Byte Memory Manager. LICENSE computes a hardware "signature" and installs that signature into LASTBYTE.SYS; when invoked, it recomputes the signature and compares it against the one inserted by LICENSE. If the two do not agree, LASTBYTE.SYS will issue an error message and refuse to install. LICENSE tries to determine the memory controller type and then records it in the LASTBYTE.SYS file. This works fine on most systems, but occassionally the necessary sequence of tests that LICENSE must perform will cause the computer to "hang". You can avoid this test by manually specifying the memory controller type on the command line when you run the LICENSE program, as in: A>LICENSE 82C812 Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 15 For a complete list of memory controller types, see the section titled "LASTBYTE.SYS" later in this manual. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: If you change your hardware configur- ║ ║ ation, you will need to run LICENSE again. You ║ ║ can use LICENSE to recompute the signature in a ║ ║ previously licensed copy of LASTBYTE.SYS, but ║ ║ only with the same user name and access key. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Once you have installed your name and access key into LASTBYTE.SYS you will immediately have access to the rest of upper memory. No other files, diskettes, or manuals need to be ordered. We do not send out a new diskette or printed manual when you order an access key; otherwise the price would have to be greater. You may obtain your access key by mail by filling out the order form (included in the file ORDERFRM.DOC) and mailing it with the calculated amount to Key Software Products, or by contacting one of our distributors. If you order by mail, be sure to print your name clearly - it will be displayed in the sign-on screen of LASTBYTE.SYS and is used to determine your access key. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 16 CHAPTER 5 - DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS A complete detailed description of the command line syntax and options of each device driver and utility program in The Last Byte Memory Manager is provided below. With the exception of LASTBYTE.SYS which comes first, they are organized in alphabetical order for ease of reference. 5.1 LASTBYTE.SYS During initialization, LASTBYTE.SYS scans upper memory looking for Bios ROMs, display ram, and adapter cards that occupy the upper memory area. The unoccupied portion of upper memory defaults to High-DOS memory (for device drivers and TSR's). If your computer uses one of the supported memory controller chips, the occupied portion of the upper memory area will default to Bank-Switch memory that can be made accessible for Ram disks, a Print Buffer, emulated EMS memory, etc. These defaults can be modified by the use of command line options. There are several command line options for LASTBYTE.SYS. Many of these use a format like: <keyword>=<base>:<size> where "<keyword>" is one of the option keywords and may be abbreviated by its first letter, "<base>" is a four-digit hexadecimal segment address in the range A000 to FC00, and "<size>" is a decimal number in kilobytes. There are two restrictions on these options: o The base must be exactly 4 hexadecimal digits, must lie at or above A000, and must be a multiple of 0020 (512 bytes). (For APPEND, the base must always be A000, or may be omitted.) o The size must be in the range 1-384 kb. The "multiple of 0020" requirement for the base is necessary to be consistent with the way that The Last Byte Memory Manager organizes high memory during initialization. However, this requirement is often affected by the coarser resolution of the memory controllers: The upper area is partitioned into blocks. Some controllers use 16k blocks, some use 32k blocks, and some use 64k blocks. Each block must be either totally enabled or disabled. I.e., if any part of a block's address space is disabled by the presence of Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 17 an adapter card, the entire block of memory is disabled and cannot be made available as High-DOS Memory. APPEND=<base>:<size> -or- APPEND=<size> Allocates a region of upper memory for appending to the end of conventional memory, thus increasing it beyond 640k. The memory is NOT added until it is enabled with HIGHAPND. If "<base>" is used, it must be A000. (Note: "<size>" is limited to 16k in the unlicensed version so that some High-DOS memory will still be available.) For example, to force the 64k address range starting at segment A000 to be appended to the end of the 640k of Conventional memory, the proper option syntax would be: APPEND=64 BANKSWITCH=<base>:<size> Forces a region of upper memory that would normally be used as High-DOS memory to be made available as Bank-Switch memory. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ This option requires a memory controller chip. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ CACHE -or- CACHE=<kbytes> Forces LASTBYTE.SYS to think that there is a cache between the CPU and main memory. (This has nothing to do with disk caching!) This option is not normally necessary; LASTBYTE.SYS automatically detects the presence of a cache. If not specified, the cache size is assumed to be 256k; other sizes may be specified by the second form. Activating bank-switch memory causes the contents of a cache (if present) to be invalid; this is known as a "cache coherency" problem. If a cache is detected during installation, LASTBYTE.SYS checks to see if any portion of the upper address space is cached. If not, then no cache coherency problem exists. If the upper address space is cached, however, Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 18 LASTBYTE.SYS will flush the cache on every access to Bank-Switch memory in order to prevent the cache from providing invalid data to the CPU. On a 486 it does this by executing a special instruction that resets the cache. On other processors, the cache is flushed by filling it from low memory. In the latter case, the size value discussed above is used to determine how much to fill. DOS=<base>:<size> Forces a region of upper memory that would normally be used as Bank-Switch memory to be made available as High-DOS memory. EXCLUDE=<base>:<size> Forces a region of upper memory unavailable as either High-DOS or Bank-Switch memory. OVERRIDE Many memory controller chips can move all or part of shadow ram to the top of (extended) memory. If LASTBYTE.SYS fails to install with the error message: "Shadow Ram memory is relocated/remapped", try adding the Override option to the LASTBYTE.SYS command line. This disables any shadow ram relocation that may be in effect, regardless of your CMOS configuration menu setup. The CMOS setup menu of your BIOS may also provide an option to disable relocation directly, but there are some that determine whether to relocate or not based on other configuration options. HOLE=<base>:<size> Creates a "hole" of free High-DOS memory within the address space of a ROM that is shadowed. Use the HIGHHOLE program to determine where these holes are located, and the corresponding values of <base> and <size>. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 19 ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTES: (1) The HOLE option is not available in │ │ the unlicensed version of LASTBYTE.SYS. (2) The │ │ <base> and <size> parameters of the HOLE option │ │ are different from other options: <size> is in │ │ bytes and must be a multiple of 16; <base> may │ │ be any hexadecimal value from A000 to FFFF. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ MOVEXBDA This option relocates the Extended Bios Data Area (XBDA), if it exists, into Upper Memory. The XBDA is usually 1k reserved at the top of conventional memory by the main Bios. Not all machines use an XBDA, but if it exists, LASTBYTE.SYS will report 639k of Conventional Memory instead of 640k, and HIGHAPND will refuse to append any memory. Some machines may not operate properly with a relocated XBDA, so use this option with caution. (Note that some computer viruses also "steal" the top 1k of memory.) NOFRAME May be used in conjunction with the EMS4 or EEMS options (see below) to use the 64k page frame as High-DOS Memory. Doing so disables other (normal) use of all expanded memory. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTE: The EMS3 and EMS3/4 options imply NOFRAME │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ RESTRICT=<ab>,<cd>,<ef> Address lines A15 and A16 are not latched in hardware design of the AT bus. As a consequence, some 16-bit adapter cards do not properly decode these address lines within the narrow time constraints imposed by the Address Latch Enable (ALE) signal, and will occassionally respond to a memory access that is directed at some other portion of the address space. Thinking that it is for them, they force the transfer into 16-bit mode even though the intended recipient requires 8-bit mode, and thus cause erroneous data to be transferred to the bytes in the odd-numbered addresses. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 20 The most common (and damaging) occurence occurs during the 8-bit DMA transfers between a floppy disk drive and upper memory near the address space occupied by an offending 16-bit adapter card. Due to organization of the address signals on the AT bus, this phenomena only occurs when the two address areas are within the same 128k region. There are three such regions in the upper area: A0000-BFFFF, C0000-DFFFF, and E0000-FFFFF. LASTBYTE.SYS automatically senses the presence of 16-bit adapter cards in each of these three regions and records this information within its resident image for use by its utilities. LASTBYTE.SYS skips this test if it detects a PC with a Micro Channel bus (like the PS/2) since problem was corrected in its design. The RESTRICT option is provided to override this automatic detection of 16-bit adapters. Each of the three arguments (one per 128k region) should be replaced by either "0" (indicating no 16-bit adapters), or "1" (indicating the presense of a 16-bit adapter). For example, the option RESTRICT=1,1,0 would imply that one or more 16-bit adapters are located in the first two 128k regions of upper memory (A000-DFFF), so that when the /RESTRICT option of HIGHDRVR, HIGHTSR, HIGHINST, HIGHUMM, HIGHEMS3, and HIGHEMS4 is used, only High-DOS memory in the region E000-FFFF will be allocated. This is the default for HIGHBFRS, but may be disabled by use of its /NORESTRICT option. SHADOW=<base>:<size> Forces a region of memory (presumably ROM) to be copied into shadow ram. If other hardware outside the specified region, but within the same memory controller block conflicts with this request, a corresponding error message will be displayed and LASTBYTE.SYS will not be installed. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ This option requires a memory controller chip. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 21 36C300, 62C202, 62C241, 62C251, 82C202, 82C212, 82C222, 82C230, 82C235, 82C241, 82C281, 82C282, 82C302, 82C302c,82C307, 82C311, 82C322, 82C351, 82C361, 82C382, 82C391, 82C461, 82C481, 82C482, 82C491, 82C812, 82C836, 82C841, 82411, 82S411, EMS3, EMS3/4, EMS4, EEMS, FIXED Each of these command line options forces LASTBYTE.SYS to assume a particular memory controller device. Normally, LASTBYTE.SYS will automatically detect what's installed; these options are for those rare occasions when the automatic detection fails. (Note: EMS3 and EMS3/4 automatically enable the NOFRAME option described above.) ? (A question mark) Causes LASTBYTE.SYS to erase the screen, display a summary of what it finds in the upper memory area, and pause for two seconds to give the user an opportunity to read the information. To freeze this display for a longer period, press <Ctrl>-S; then to continue with CONFIG.SYS processing, press any key. 5.2 HIGHAPND.EXE and HIGHAPND.SYS HIGHAPND.EXE is a program that can only be used in conjunction with the "APPEND=" option of LASTBYTE.SYS. HIGHAPND.SYS is a device driver version of HIGHAPND.EXE. Either can be used to append some of the upper memory that begins at 640k onto the end of conventional memory (and also to return later to 640k). Monochrome (MDA), Hercules, and CGA display adapters don't use the 64k region starting at A000, and so this memory can be used to extend conventional memory from 640k to 704k, provided there is available read/write memory in this area. CGA display adapters also don't use the next 32k either, and so CGA users may be able to extend conventional memory all the way to 736k. EGA and VGA display adapters have a 64k hi-resolution graphics display buffer that is located at A000. This buffer is only needed when you are using only hi-resolution graphics. When the display is in either text or low-resolution CGA graphics modes, this memory is not used, and may be replaced (switched) with shadow ram memory if available, or the display buffer itseld may be used to extend conventional memory. Since most EGA and VGA adapters usually don't use the 32k region at B000, you may even Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 22 be able to extend conventional memory up to 736k. You may either use HIGHAPND.SYS during CONFIG.SYS processing, as in: DEVICE=HIGHAPND.SYS ON {Extends conv. memory beyond 640k} . . . DEVICE=HIGHAPND.SYS OFF {Resets conv. memory to 640k} ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: HIGHAPND.SYS may not work properly ║ ║ with some versions of MS-DOS; in such cases, ║ ║ use HIGHAPND.EXE instead. There is no benefit ║ ║ to using HIGHDRVR.SYS to load HIGHAPND.SYS ║ ║ because it never stays resident. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ or use HIGHAPND.EXE during AUTOEXEC.BAT processing (or at any time after the computer is booted), as in: A>HIGHAPND ON {Extends conv. memory beyond 640k} . . . A>HIGHAPND OFF {Resets conv. memory to 640k} ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: HIGHAPND.EXE may not work properly ║ ║ with DR DOS. In such cases, use HIGHAPND.SYS. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Don't forget - both HIGHAPND.SYS and HIGHAPND.EXE require the use of an APPEND option on the LASTBYTE command line. HIGHAPND can be used without any command line options to determine the current size of conventional memory and the state of EGA/VGA hi-resolution graphics: A>HIGHAPND You can put these commands into a batch file to simplify switching back and forth. For example, if you want the extra memory all the time except when you need hi-res graphics for Microsoft Windows, create a batch file like the following: @ECHO OFF HIGHAPND OFF WIN %1 %2 HIGHAPND ON HIGHAPND will automatically disable any EGA or VGA hi-resolution graphics capability whenever conventional memory has been Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 23 extended beyond 640k. This makes software that attempts to sense what type of display adapter is installed think that you have only a CGA adapter. Later, when you need the graphics capability, you can disable the memory extension and hi-resolution graphics will be automatically re-enabled. If you have hi-res graphics disabled and run a program that tries to use hi-res graphics without first sensing for an EGA or VGA adapter, LASTBYTE.SYS will notice the conflict, issue an error message, and terminate the program. Some programs redirect a few interrupts during their initialization and then restore them before termination. LASTBYTE.SYS's termination of graphics programs doesn't know how to restore these interrupts, so in some cases you may have to reboot the computer. In other words, if you experience this kind of program termination with an application program, it's best to reboot and prepare a batch file (as shown above) to run the program. HIGHAPND provides more detailed control over this protection through the /HIRESGFX option as described below. This may be helpful, for example, with software that uses the 43 (50) line text mode of the EGA (VGA) adapter. (The setting of this option is only meaningful when HIGHAPND ON is in effect.) /HIRESGFX=TRAPPED Disables all EGA/VGA high-resolution graphics functions provided by video BIOS interrupt 10h and makes programs think a CGA adapter is installed. (This is the default.) /HIRESGFX=SENSED Disables all EGA/VGA high-resolution graphics functions provided by video BIOS interrupt 10h, but does let programs sense the presence of an EGA or VGA adapter. /HIRESGFX=ALLOWED Allows all video BIOS interrupt 10h function calls, even if they might use the 64k EGA/VGA graphics display buffer at A000-AFFF. Technical Note HIGHAPND requires either a memory controller chip or an EGA or VGA display adapter. If the memory controller chip can enable shadow ram memory at A000, then shadow ram memory will be used to extend conventional memory; otherwise, HIGHAPND will convert Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 24 the graphics display buffer of the EGA or VGA display adapter into an extension of conventional memory. 5.3 HIGHBFRS.EXE (MS-DOS 3 only) ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: Placing MS-DOS buffers in high memory ║ ║ can result in the loss of data. I.e., it can ║ ║ damage the directory and file allocation tables ║ ║ of your disk. Read everything in this section ║ ║ before considering the use of this utility. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ HIGHBFRS can be used to place MS-DOS 3.x buffers in upper memory, but you must be careful that this does not cause DMA transfers into a 128k region of memory containing a 16-bit adapter, or else you may damage the data on your disk. (See the discussion of the "RESTRICT" option of LASTBYTE.SYS.) HIGHBFRS offers two solutions to this problem: The first (and default) solution is to restrict buffer placement to particular 128k regions where there is no conflict. If all three 128k regions contain 16-bit adapters, then a second (different) solution may be both necessary and sufficient. It intercepts transfers between floppy disk drives and upper memory, and redirects the transfer through an intermediate sector buffer in conventional (low) memory. The corresponding command line option would be: HIGHBFRS /FLOPPY Almost all hard disk controllers use 16-bit CPU instructions (rather than DMA) to transfer data and thus do not incur this problem. HIGHBFRS defaults to the maximum number of buffers and automatically determines the safest location for loading them into upper memory by checking with LASTBYTE.SYS for the location of 16-bit adapter cards, if any. If none of the three 128k segments is considered "safe", it will enable interception of floppy transfers. Any of these defaults can be overridden by one or more of the following command line options: BUFFERS=<number> Changes the number of MS-DOS buffers to the value specified; "<number>" is a number from 1-99, or may be replaced by the word "MAXIMUM". Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 25 /NORESTRICT (Abbreviated "/N") Disables the default restriction on buffer placement caused by the presence of 16-bit adapter cards or by use of the "RESTRICT" option on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line. /FLOPPY (Abbreviated "/F") Enables redirection of Bios INT 13h calls that attempt to transfer data between a floppy disk drive and upper memory. If redirected, such transfers go through an intermediate buffer located in conventional memory. (Disables restrictions on buffer placement.) When HIGHBFRS is invoked with no command line arguments, it simply reports the number of MS-DOS buffers presently located in upper memory and whether or not transfers between floppy disk drives and upper memory are redirected. You may use the HIGHMEM program to determine where the buffers have been placed in upper memory. Microsoft recommends setting the "BUFFERS=" option in CONFIG.SYS according to the type of application most frequently used. Implicit within this recommendation is the assumption that you won't change the value very often since it requires editing CONFIG.SYS and rebooting. In general, more buffers help when running programs that perform random access on a relatively small number of disk records (such as the index for a database program), or if your disk has many subdirectories organized on several levels. Since HIGHBFRS allows you to increase or decrease the number of buffers dynamically, you could create some batch files to tune the number of buffers to fit the application you're running at the moment. 5.4 HIGHDISK.SYS HIGHDISK.SYS is a device driver that implements a ram disk in upper memory. Bank-Switch Memory is allocated first, and if that isn't enough, then High-DOS Memory is allocated to satisfy the total request. The device driver automatically loads itself into upper memory without using HIGHDRVR or the DOS 5 DEVICEHIGH command, as in: DEVICE=HIGHDISK.SYS Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 26 This creates a ram disk that uses all available upper memory, with 32 directory entries and sectors of 128 bytes each. A command line option may be used to specify the size of the RAM disk as in: DEVICE=HIGHDISK.SYS 100 This creates a 100k byte ram disk. Other command line options may be used to change the number of bytes per sector and directory entries, as in: DEVICE=HIGHDISK.SYS 100 256 64 This creates a 100k RAM disk with 256 bytes per sector and 64 root directory entries. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ NOTE: If you have used the command DOS=UMB or ║ ║ DOS=HIGH,UMB with HIGHUMM.SYS to let DOS 5.0 ║ ║ manage the Upper Memory Blocks, you must limit ║ ║ how much upper memory HIGHUMM can use so that ║ ║ some will be available for HIGHDISK. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ 5.5 HIGHDRVR.SYS HIGHDRVR is a device driver that is used to load other device drivers into upper memory. For a brief introduction to its use, see the section titled "Testing LASTBYTE.SYS HIGHDRVR.SYS and HIGHTSR.EXE" in the "GETTING STARTED" chapter at the beginning of this manual. Also see the sections in the "HINTS / SUGGESTIONS / EXPLANATIONS" chapter near the end of this document on the /SIZE, /LOW, and /RESTRICT options. The command line syntax of the CONFIG.SYS line for HIGHDRVR is: DEVICE=[path]HIGHDRVR.SYS <filespec> where '<filespec>' is the filename of the device driver to be loaded high, optionally prefixed by a drive and directory specifcation. The filespec may be preceded by one or more of the /SIZE, /LOW, and /RESTRICT options, and followed by options at the end of the command line as required by the particular driver to be loaded. When HIGHDRVR searches the disk for the device driver to load, it follows the following search strategy: Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 27 (1) If '<filespec>' includes a drive or directory specification, this will be the only place that HIGHDRVR will look. Otherwise, HIGHDRVR will search for the driver in: (2) The current (root) directory, and then (3) The same directory where HIGHDRVR was found. 5.6 HIGHEMS3.SYS and HIGHEMS4.SYS Two expanded memory emulators are provided with The Last Byte Memory Manager. Both use upper memory as expanded memory. HIGHEMS3.SYS is compliant with the older LIM 3.2 spec, and HIGHEMS4.SYS with the newer LIM 4.0 spec. Both are included since the HIGHEMS3.SYS requires much less memory for the device driver itself than HIGHEMS4.SYS. In many applications, you may find that 3.2 is all you need. These device drivers emulate expanded memory! That means that they use software to copy data back and forth between the logical EMS memory (pages) and the page frame. Obviously, this is much slower than the performance you would realize with hardware support, or even with EMM386.SYS. Therefore, these device drivers are provided as a last resort for those who have no other way of providing EMS memory to their applications, such as users with only 1 meg of memory. Both HIGHEMS3.SYS and HIGHEMS4.SYS have an optional command line parameter which is the number of 16k EMS pages to allocate. If omitted, the maximum allocation will be used. Bank-Switch memory is allocated first, and if that isn't enough, then High-DOS Memory is allocated to satisfy the total page request. Use only one of these device drivers, and load it after LASTBYTE.SYS. The driver automatically loads itself into upper memory without the need for either HIGHDRVR or the DOS 5 DEVICEHIGH command. Also see the section on the /RESTRICT option in the "HINTS / SUGGESTIONS / EXPLANATIONS" chapter near the end of this document. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ NOTE: If you have used the command DOS=UMB or ║ ║ DOS=HIGH,UMB with HIGHUMM.SYS to let DOS 5.0 ║ ║ manage the Upper Memory Blocks, you must limit ║ ║ how much upper memory HIGHUMM can use so that ║ ║ some will be available for HIGHEMS3/HIGHEMS4. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 28 5.7 HIGHENV.EXE HIGHENV is a utility that moves the master environment of the command processor (typically COMMAND.COM) out of conventional memory and into High-DOS memory. It can also be used to change the size of the environment at any time. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: HIGHENV is incompatible with Novell. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ If used without a command line option, HIGHENV simply reports the location, capacity, and length of the master environment. If the environment has not been moved from low memory, it also examines and reports potential references to the environment that exist within the command processor. If one or more are located, the first line(s) of output from HIGHENV will be: "Potential command processor patch at location XXXX." where "XXXX" will vary from one command processor to another. HIGHENV should be used this way at least once to determine what "/PATCH" options (described below) may be required. To move the master environment into upper memory, you must use one or more /PATCH options and may use a /SIZE option. The patch options specify locations in the command processor that must be modified. (If there are no locations in the command processor that need to be modified, use /PATCH=NONE.) The /PATCH option may only be specified once, when the environment is moved from low to upper memory. The patch locations are recorded in upper memory and are automatically adjusted if the environment is repositioned within upper memory as the result of a subsequent use of HIGHENV to resize the environment. The size option is simply a number that specifies the extra space in bytes to be allocated to accomodate additional environment strings besides those already established. If the size option is omitted, the size of the environment block (and thus its capacity for growth) will not be changed. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 29 ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: The SET command of COMMAND.COM norm- ║ ║ ally warns you if you run out of space in the ║ ║ master environment. However, if you have used ║ ║ HIGHENV to move it into upper memory, this ║ ║ safegaurd no longer exists - you'll just write ║ ║ over the next thing in upper memory! Be sure ║ ║ to check the HIGHENV report to be sure that you ║ ║ have enough extra space in the environment so ║ ║ that this won't occur. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ A maximum of four command processor locations to be patched may be specified in either of two ways: A>HIGHENV 256 /PATCH=1057 /PATCH=1536 -or- A>HIGHENV 256 /PATCH=1057,1536 Each of the patch numbers specify a location in the memory image of the command processor; these locations contain the segment address of the master environment, and must be modified to point to the new master environment in upper memory. Possible values to be used are restricted to those locations reported when HIGHENV is run with no command line options and before the environment has been moved into upper memory. COMMAND.COM usually contains only one such location that needs to be patched; 4DOS contains none (use /PATCH=NONE). (Note: HIGHENV always patches the environment address stored in the program segment prefix of the command processor - this patch does not need to be specified.) ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ NOTE: The /U option of 4DOS is an alternative ║ ║ method for placing the master environment in ║ ║ upper memory. You don't need to use HIGHENV if ║ ║ you are already using the /U option of 4DOS. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Once moved into upper memory, the size of the environment may be changed by using HIGHENV with simply a size option. For example, to shrink the environment to only enough room for the current environment strings, use: A>HIGHENV 0 Or to change the growth capacity to allow for the current environment strings plus 100 bytes more, use: Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 30 A>HIGHENV 100 5.8 HIGHHOLE.EXE HIGHHOLE is a utility program that finds unused space ("holes") in ROMs. A "hole" is defined as a sequence of at least 256 bytes, all having the same value, and usually corresponds to unused, left-over space in the ROM. If the ROM is shadowed, this space can usually be converted into free High-DOS memory using the "HOLE=" option of LASTBYTE.SYS. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NOTE: The HOLE option is not available in the │ │ unlicensed version of LASTBYTE.SYS. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ These holes are often less than 1k in size, but sometimes as large as 6k. Since The Last Byte Memory Manager uses a "best fit" strategy when allocating Hi-DOS memory, even the smaller holes can become useful to hold the master environment created by HIGHENV, the markers of HIGHMARK, or with utilities like HIGHDISK and HIGHSPLR that can distribute their memory among several small pieces. In addition, The Last Byte Memory Manager will use the smallest holes for memory control blocks (MCB's) that must be allocated for Bank-Switch memory needs. HIGHHOLE merely locates probable holes, and suggests the corresponding option to be used with LASTBYTE.SYS. To activate these holes, you must then modify your configuration to include these options. No option will be suggested for a hole if (1) the corresponding ROM area is not shadowed, (2) the hole is in the Bios Data Area (FE05-FFFF), or (3) the corresponding shadow ram is not controlled by The Last Byte Memory Manager. NOTE: Use of LASTBYTE.SYS's HOLE option will cause warm boots to be converted into cold boots. 5.9 HIGHINST.EXE HIGHINST is simply a TSR version of HIGHTSR that is designed for use with the MS-DOS "INSTALL=" directive of a CONFIG.SYS file. MS-DOS requires that the program named in an INSTALL directive to be the name of a TSR, and anything else (e.g., HIGHTSR, which is not a TSR) will produce an error message. A small part of HIGHINST (96 bytes) will remain resident in conventional memory. For a full description of command line options and syntax, see Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 31 the description for HIGHTSR. Also see the sections on the /SIZE, /LOW, and /RESTRICT options in the "HINTS / SUGGESTIONS / EXPLANATIONS" chapter near the end of this document. 5.10 HIGHKEY.EXE HIGHKEY is a advanced command line editor that can recall and edit previous commands. HIGHKEY is similar to the DOSKEY program in DOS 5, but with filename completion and the unique ability to store the command line history in bank-switch memory. It does not support DOSKEY macros, or the editing keys F7, F9, Alt+F7, or Alt+F10. To install HIGHKEY, simply enter it as a command at the prompt: A>HIGHKEY This will allocate a recall buffer with a default size of 1024 bytes, but which can be changed at any time with the use of a command line option. 5.10.1 Options All of the keywords that follow may be abbreviated. /BUFSIZE=n Empties the recall buffer, and resizes it to 'n' bytes. If 'n' is replaced by the word "MAXIMUM", the recall buffer size will use all available memory up to 65535 bytes. /INSERT Sets the default typing mode to insert. /OVERSTRIKE Sets the default typing mode to overstike. /HISTORY Displays the contents of the command line recall buffer on the screen. filespec A filename, optionally preceeded by a drive and directory specification. If used with the /HISTORY option, causes the recall buffer to be written to the specified file. If used without the /HISTORY option, it loads the recall buffer from the file. 5.10.2 Editing Commands Some of the HIGHKEY editing commands use what is known as the "template". The template is initialized to a copy of the previous command line, but may be modified by one or more of the Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 32 editing commands. Left Arrow Moves the cursor back one character. Right Arrow Moves the cursor forward one character. Up Arrow Recalls the previous command and stores it in the template. Down Arrow Recalls the next command and stores it in the template. PgUp Recalls the oldest command and stores it in the template. PgDn Recalls the most recent command and stores it in the template. Ctrl+Left Arrow Moves the cursor back one word. Ctrl+Right Arrow Moves the cursor forward one word. Home Moves the cursor to the beginning of the command line. End Moves the cursor to the end of the command line. Esc Erases the command line; does not affect the template. Ins Toggles insert versus overwrite mode. Backspace Deletes the character to the left of the cursor; does not affect the template. Del Deletes the character at the cursor; does not affect the template. Ctrl+End Deletes from the cursor to the end of the line; does not affect the template. Ctrl+Home Deletes from the beginning of the line up to but not including the cursor; does not affect the template. F1 Copies one character from the template. F2 Waits for a keypress, then inserts charac- ters from the template up to but not in- cluding the first occurrence of that key. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 33 F3 Copies the remainder of the template to the command line. F4 Waits for a keypress, then deletes charac- ters from the template up to but not in- cluding that key. The template is then displayed on the command line. F5 Copies the command line to the template and then erases the command line. F6 Inserts an end-of-file character (Ctrl+Z). F8 Searches for the next command that matches the characters in the command line up to the position of the cursor, then copies that command to the template. Tab Searches for a file on the disk whose name matches the partial filespec given by the text indicated by the cursor. If found, the filespec is completed on the command line. 5.11 HIGHMARK.EXE Sometimes it can be useful to remove one or more TSR's from memory, either because you no longer want to use the features that they provide or perhaps in order to make room for another set of TSR's. In order to be able to remove a group of TSR's from upper memory, they must be be marked. To mark them, run HIGHMARK once before you use HIGHTSR to load the TSR's. Then later, simply run HIGHUNDO - the mark and all of its associated TSR's will be removed. HIGHMARK may be executed more than once to establish multiple levels of TSR's to be removed. Each execution of HIGHMARK places another mark in memory with a unique mark number. Every TSR loaded by HIGHTSR is automatically associated with the most recent execution of HIGHMARK. You can use HIGHMEM to see the marks, their mark number, and the set of TSR's associated with the mark. Every execution of HIGHUNDO will then remove the set of TSR's associated with the most recent HIGHMARK. You may specify a mark level on the command line of HIGHUNDO. This will cause it to remove all the TSR's and marks whose mark number is greater than or equal to the number on the command Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 34 line. IMPORTANT: When a mark is removed using HIGHUNDO, two basic things happen: (1) the interrupt vector table is restored to its state prior to the corresponding HIGHMARK, and (2) any memory control blocks marked with the same mark number are released. If you have installed one or more TSR's since the mark was established, but did so without the use of HIGHTSR, these TSR's will be disabled but they will not be removed from memory. The following three examples indicate this consequence: Disabled and Diabled but Disabled but removed remains remains -------- ------------ ------------ A>HIGHMARK A>HIGHMARK A>HIGHMARK A>HIGHTSR CLOCK A>CLOCK A>LOADHIGH CLOCK A>HIGHUNDO A>HIGHUNDO A>HIGHUNDO 5.12 HIGHMEM.EXE HIGHMEM is a program that provides a display of what is loaded into the upper memory area. For a detailed description on using the HIGHMEM program, see the section titled "Mapping Upper Memory with HIGHMEM" in the "GETTING STARTED" chapter at the beginning of this manual. 5.13 HIGHSPLR.EXE HIGHSPLR is a interrupt-driven print spooler that creates a print buffer in upper memory. Once installed, programs that send output to the printer are no longer held up waiting for the printer, but rather simply send their output to the buffer. Characters in the buffer are then sent to the printer by the resident portion of HIGHSPLR while your computer is free to do other work. Unlike the MS-DOS printer spooler (PRINT.COM), HIGHSPLR is driven by the printer hardware interrupt line that signals printer "ready", rather than the timer tick (that only interrupts 18 times per second). Unlike PRINT.COM, this allows full-speed transfers (e.g., up to about 8,000 cps) to the printer even while executing other programs. HIGHSPLR tries to place its buffer in Bank-Switch memory, but will use High-DOS memory if a sufficient amount of Bank-Switch memory is not available. The size of the buffer will default to all available Bank-Switch and High-DOS memory, but may be restricted (or resized later) by a command line option. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 35 HIGHSPLR supports both parallel and serial printers, but defaults to LPT1. Multiple copies of HIGHSPLR can be installed to support more than one printer. HIGHSPLR determines the physical i/o port address and interrupt vector automatically from the device name (e.g., LPT2), but these defaults can be altered with command line options. HIGHSPLR also has a unique "monitor" option. While output is being sent to the printer, you can monitor the actual transfer rate by entering the command, A>HIGHSPLR MONITOR The monitor operation may be terminated at any time by pressing a key, or will automatically terminate when the print buffer has been emptied. Once terminated, HIGHSPLR will display the maximum and average transfer rates measured during the monitor operation. The command line syntax for HIGHSPLR is given below. All parameters are optional and may be specified in any order. All of the options except LPTn, COMn, and IRQn may be abbreviated by their first letter. HIGHSPLR [opt] [opt] ... [opt] where opt may be selected from: KBYTES=n LPTn or COMn PORT=n IRQn MONITOR RESET or FLOW=<type>, where <type> may be selected from: XON DTR RTS NONE (default) Normally, neither the "PORT" or "IRQn" options are necessary since they are automatically derived from the "COMn" or "LPTn" option. The "RESET" option provides a way to cancel printing from the buffer at any time. One of the FLOW control options (XON, DTR, RTS) may be required with some serial (COMn) printers to provide flow control. 5.14 HIGHTSR.EXE HIGHTSR is a program that is used to load TSR programs into upper memory. For a brief introduction to its use, see the section titled "Testing LASTBYTE.SYS HIGHDRVR.SYS and HIGHTSR.EXE" in the "GETTING STARTED" chapter at the beginning of this manual. In addition to the /NOENV option described below, also see the sections on the /SIZE, /LOW, and /RESTRICT Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 36 options in the "HINTS / SUGGESTIONS / EXPLANATIONS" chapter near the end of this document. The command line syntax for HIGHTSR is: [path]HIGHTSR <filespec> where '<filespec>' is the filename of the TSR program to be loaded high, optionally prefixed by a drive and directory specifcation. The filespec may be preceded by one or more of the /SIZE, /LOW, /NOENV, and /RESTRICT options, and followed by options at the end of the command line as required by the particular TSR to be loaded. When HIGHTSR searches the disk for the device driver to load, it follows the same strategy that MS-DOS uses when loading programs: (1) If '<filespec>' includes a drive or directory specification, this will be the only place that HIGHTSR will look. Otherwise, HIGHTSR will search for the TSR program in: (2) The current directory, and then (3) Those directories given by the PATH environment variable. 5.14.1 The /NOENV Option All programs, including TSR's, are allocated two regions of memory when they are loaded: One is the area for the program itself, and the other is for a copy of the environment. Most TSR's don't make use of their environment, and some actually release it to the operating system rather than hanging onto it. If HIGHMEM finds an environment block, the corresponding entry in the "Description" column will have the name of the TSR that it belongs to (such as "CLOCK.EXE") followed by the indication "[Env]". Occassionally, you may see a similar indication "[Dat]"; this is a data block explicitly allocated by the TSR for some unknown purpose. TSRs that eliminate their PSP The authors of some TSR's attempt to save a little extra memory by having the TSR eliminate its own Program Segment Prefix (PSP) during initialization. Doing so makes it impossible to identify the TSR's Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 37 environment block. However, this byte-saving mentality will usually mean that the TSR's initialization code also eliminates its environment block, so this is rarely a problem. If you see a block labelled "[Env]" in the output of HIGHMEM, then you can use the /NOENV command line option of HIGHTSR to release this block, even if the TSR didn't: HIGHTSR /NOENV CLOCK As noted earlier, some TSRs will release their environment anyway and so you may be tempted to load them without using the /NOENV option. This usually will create a "hole" in upper memory since the TSR's environment is almost always allocated just below the TSR itself. Use of the /NOENV option forces the environment to be allocated down in conventional memory (where it will be reclaimed later) so that the "hole" is eliminated. 5.15 HIGHUMM.SYS HIGHUMM is a device driver that creates, and lets application software use, Upper Memory Blocks (UMB's) in the upper memory area via a standard protocol that is part of what is known as the Extended Memory Specification (XMS). The number, size, and location of UMB blocks vary widely depending upon the types of hardware adapter cards resident within the upper address space. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: HIGHUMM is NOT compatible with the ║ ║ simultaneous use of EMM386.SYS. Everything ║ ║ will work fine until you try to reboot, and ║ ║ then the system will "hang". The DOS 5 version ║ ║ of EMM386.SYS is capable of providing UMB ║ ║ support, and thus HIGHUMM.SYS is not needed. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ HIGHUMM may be installed in one of two ways: o If an XMS driver (such as HIMEM.SYS) has already been loaded, HIGHUMM will link into it, providing an implementation of the two XMS functions for accessing what the XMS specification refers to as "Upper Memory Blocks" (UMB's). Although described in the XMS specification, the UMB functions have not been implemented in any version of HIMEM.SYS. For example, DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS {and any options} Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 38 DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS {and any options} DEVICE=HIGHUMM.SYS o If an XMS driver has not been loaded, then HIGHUMM will become a UMB-Only XMS device driver, providing support for XMS functions 00h (Get Version Number), 10h (Allocate UMB Block), 11h (Deallocate UMB Block). All other XMS functions will return failure, indicating that the function is not implemented. For example, DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS {and any LASTBYTE options} DEVICE=HIGHUMM.SYS Important! If another XMS device driver is used (e.g., to provide management of extended memory or the upper memory area), it must be loaded before HIGHUMM.SYS. If you want to limit how much upper memory can be allocated by HIGHUMM as UMB's, you can specify this in kbytes as an option on the HIGHUMM.SYS command line, as in: DEVICE=HIGHUMM.SYS 60 This provides a guarantee that some amount of upper memory will never be allocated by HIGHUMM.SYS, and will thus still be available for other uses. HIGHUMM requires that LASTBYTE.SYS be installed first. It automatically loads itself into upper memory without using either HIGHDRVR or the DOS 5 DEVICEHIGH command. Also see the section on the /RESTRICT option in the "HINTS / SUGGESTIONS / EXPLANATIONS" chapter near the end of this document. 5.16 HIGHUNDO.EXE For a complete discussion of HIGHUNDO see the description of its companion program, HIGHMARK in an earlier section. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 39 CHAPTER 6 - HINTS / SUGGESTIONS / EXPLANATIONS The following article provides an excellent definition of the various kinds of memory, such as conventional, extended, expanded, high, and upper. More important, however, is its discussion of how various adapter cards make use of the upper address space, and may provide some insight if you're having problems getting The Last Byte Memory Manager to install properly: Barry Simon, "How to Get the Most from Your System's High DOS Memory", PC Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 10 (May 29, 1990), pp. 347-358. 6.1 The /SIZE Option This option can be used with HIGHDRVR, HIGHINST, and HIGHTSR. The amount of High-DOS memory required to load a device driver or TSR (hereafter called the "load requirement") is the larger of two amounts: (1) the amount required during initialization (greater than or equal to the size of the file) and (2) the amount required when finally resident. Although the final resident requirement of any high-loaded software may be obtained from the HIGHMEM output, remember that the initialization (and thus the load) requirement may be greater than either the file size or the HIGHMEM listing! Most device drivers and TSR's require more memory for initialization than when resident, although there are a few (such as SMARTDRV.SYS and NANSI.SYS) which require extra resident memory for buffers, etc. Thus the normal operation of HIGHDRVR, HIGHTSR, and HIGHINST is to use the largest free High-DOS memory block to load the software since the resident memory requirement cannot be determined until after the software has been loaded and initialized. Unfortunately, this can lead to a less than optimum use of memory. If the memory requirements were known, then a memory block could be selected using a "best fit" strategy; i.e., the smallest free High-DOS memory block which is larger than or equal to the load requirement. This usually results in much better utilization of memory. HIGHDRVR, HIGHTSR, and HIGHINST have a special option /SIZE that can be used to report the load requirement: DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS /SIZE SMARTDRV.SYS 2048 512 Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 40 or: INSTALL=HIGHINST.EXE /SIZE SHARE.EXE or: HIGHTSR /SIZE PRINT.COM /D:PRN The load requirement will then be displayed on the console after the software has been loaded and initialized. This information can then be used to specify the value (expressed in bytes) to be used with the /SIZE option to force a "best fit" allocation. For example: DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS /SIZE:16240 SMARTDRV.SYS 2048 512 or: INSTALL=HIGHINST.EXE /SIZE:13616 SHARE.EXE or: HIGHTSR /SIZE:17120 PRINT.COM /D:PRN 6.2 The /LOW Option This option can be used with HIGHDRVR, HIGHINST, and HIGHTSR. As noted earlier, TSR's and device drivers often require much more memory during installation as compared to that required once they are resident. This can prevent loading them into High-DOS memory even if there's enough for the resident image (but not enough for initialization). HIGHTSR, HIGHINST, and HIGHDRVR provide an option "/LOW" that can be used with some TSR's and device drivers to get around this problem: HIGHTSR /LOW APPEND -or- DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS /LOW MYDRIVER.SYS For example, the first example above loads a TSR (APPEND.EXE) and initializes it in low (conventional) memory where there's lots of room, then copies the (smaller) resident image up into upper memory. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: The design of some software may pre- ║ ║ vent the /LOW option from working properly. ║ ║ Don't use it unless necessary, and then only ║ ║ after you have tested it to be sure everything ║ ║ works as expected. (For example, it will NOT ║ ║ work with PRINT.COM, SHARE.EXE, FASTOPEN.EXE, ║ ║ MODE.COM, or HyperDisk.) ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 41 6.3 The /RESTRICT Option This option can be used with HIGHDRVR, HIGHINST, HIGHTSR, HIGHUMM, HIGHEMS3, and HIGHEMS4. When used, it restricts which 128k regions of upper memory may be allocated for use with these utilities. For a detailed discussion of why these regions may need to be restricted and how to control the restrictions, see the discussion of the RESTRICT option in the detailed description of LASTBYTE.SYS. 6.4 Specifying Command Line Options with Indirect Files Some of the device drivers and utility programs in The Last Byte Memory Manager package may require lots of options to be specified. To avoid lengthly command lines, these options can be placed in a text file if the name of that file is specified on the command line preceded by the '@' character. For example, you'd probably run out of room if all of the following options were required on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line: APPEND=64 DOS=B000:32 DOS=F000:32 ? 82C302 As an alternative, create a corresponding text file called LASTBYTE.CFG (for example), and put the options into it: A000:64 DOS=B000:32 DOS=F000:32 ? 82C302 (Carriage returns in the indirect file are treated as blanks) Then the CONFIG.SYS command line becomes simply: DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS @LASTBYTE.CFG In effect, options taken from the indirect file are inserted into the command line, so that one or more indirect file references may be placed among other options on the command line: DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS ? @TLB.1 A=A000:32 @C:\TLB\TLB.2 Indirect files may be used on the command line of any device driver (.SYS files) or utility program (.EXE files) in The Last Byte Memory Manager package. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 42 6.5 Using the DOS=F000:32 Option The 64k region starting at paragraph address F000 is the Bios ROM. Many computers use a Bios ROM developed by AMI or Phoenix. The more recent versions of these ROMs devote the first 32k to initialization code that is only used during the boot sequence, and use the second 32k for that portion that must remain available at all times. (This seems to be true of the Award Bios as well, but has not been verified.) By the time your computer gets to the point in its boot sequence where it is installing the device drivers (e.g., when it is installing LASTBYTE.SYS), the Bios initialization code is no longer needed. If you have one of these AMI or Phoenix Bios chips, you can capture another 32k of upper memory by using a DOS=F000:32 option on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line. Of course, whenever you press Ctrl-Alt-Del to do a warm boot, the ROM Bios initialization code needs to be executed again! And that could be a problem since you've effectively disabled it with the DOS=F000:32 option! Fortunately, LASTBYTE.SYS intercepts all keyboard input and keeps an eye out for Ctrl-Alt-Del. When it sees the warm boot request, it will force a cold boot if you've used the DOS=F000:32 option. This re-enables the entire 64k Bios ROM so that the initialization code is reactivated before the processor tries to execute it. Otherwise a normal warm boot is used. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: Some TSRs intercept keyboard interrupt ║ ║ 9, and jump directly into a fixed location in ║ ║ the Bios ROM where the Warm Boot code begins. ║ ║ Unfortunately, this will bypass LASTBYTE.SYS's ║ ║ attempt to turn the ROM back on. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ 6.6 Video Display RAM above 640k In general, the region A0000-BFFFF is the video display buffer area. Various display adapters (MDA, Hercules, CGA, EGA, and VGA) typically use only a small subset of this space. The Last Byte Memory Manager automatically senses what kind of video display adapter is installed and reserves the space it uses. The MDA (monochrome) adapter implements a 4k text buffer at B0000-B0FFF, and the CGA (color) adapter implements a 16k text and graphics buffer at B8000-BBFFF. The Hercules adapter uses the entire 64k region at B0000-BFFFF in graphics modes, although only the first 4k of this space (B0000-B0FFF) is used for text modes. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 43 The EGA and VGA adapters have a 64k graphics display buffer at A0000-AFFFF, and a 32k text display buffer at either B0000-B7FFF (when used with a monochrome display), or at B8000-BFFFF (when used with a color display). The following chart summarizes these regions as well as some of the DOS and APPEND optons you may be able to use on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line with these adapters. Unfortunately, the ROM bios on a (very) few PC's may write into locations outside the area reserved for a particular type of display. If you decide this is happening, you may need to add one or more EXCLUDE options to the LASTBYTE.SYS command line to disable that region. LASTBYTE.SYS Command Line Options for Display Adapters Adapter Reserved DOS APPEND ------- -------- ------- ------- CGA B800:16 96 MDA B000:4 64 Hercules B000:64 B400:48 64 EGA/VGA A000:64 BC00:16 96 w/Color B800:32 Display EGA/VGA A000:64 B400:16 64 w/Mono B000:32 Display VGA Bios C000:32 C600:8 (see next section) Note: Windows 3.0 may write in the region B000-BFFF. The ability to use the DOS and APPEND options depends on the availability of other memory in the indicated area. For further information, consult the appendix on "CHIPSET LIMITATIONS". 6.7 Video Adapter Bios ROMs MDA and CGA use the standard ROM Bios; they have no ROM of their own. EGA and VGA adapters, however, incorporate their own ROM Bios chip right on the adapter card. LASTBYTE.SYS successfully recognizes these ROMs, but has to treat VGA in a special manner: The VGA adapter made by IBM has a 24k ROM installed at C0000-C5FFF, which means that the 8k at C6000-C7FFF should be usable. Although almost all VGA clones have a ROM signature that indicates 24k, many of them use the C6000-C7FFF space for Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 44 ROM Bios or RAM extensions that provide their "Super VGA" features. In particular, the Video7 and Paradise VGA's incorporate their own RAM from C6000-C7FFF. (This may also be true of other VGA boards that uses a VLSI chip manufactured by Chips and Technologies, Tseng Labs, Paradise, or Headland Technologies.) For this reason, when LASTBYTE.SYS finds anybody's VGA adapter, it automatically assumes that there is a 32k ROM at C0000-C7FFF. 6.8 LASTBYTE.SYS and Expanded Memory Expanded memory always has an associated device driver. If that driver is loaded before LASTBYTE.SYS in the CONFIG.SYS file (and if the hardware is enabled) LASTBYTE.SYS will recognize the 64k EMM page frame of the expanded memory and do the right thing: It will treat the page frame like any other adapter ram and disable the motherboard RAM that falls in the same address space so that it doesn't interfere with the page frame. For example, if the EMM driver is loaded first, LASTBYTE.SYS will report the 64k EMM page frame as "EMS Page Frame". This works fine, of course, but loading the EMM driver first precludes the possibility of loading it into upper memory. To get the EMM driver into upper memory means that it must be loaded after LASTBYTE.SYS, but you must be careful! If LASTBYTE.SYS is loaded first, the page frame will be recognized only in two cases: o The page frame used by the expanded memory controller built into some memory controller chips will be recognized and reported as "EMS Page Frame". o The page frame of a REAL expanded memory board is (if enabled) recognized and reported as "Adapter RAM". In either case, LASTBYTE.SYS will not use that memory space. ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: Some EMS boards must be enabled by ║ ║ their device driver before they respond as ║ ║ read/write memory. This prevents LASTBYTE.SYS ║ ║ from recognizing them, and you may need a ║ ║ BANKSWITCH option to keep LASTBYTE.SYS from ║ ║ using the page frame memory space. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ If you don't have an expanded memory board, but have used a Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 45 device driver (like EMM386.SYS) that EMULATES expanded memory using extended memory, then LASTBYTE.SYS will not know about the page frame unless the emulator is loaded first. If LASTBYTE.SYS is loaded first, then you must use a "EXCLUDE=" (not "BANKSWITCH="!) command line option of LASTBYTE.SYS to reserve a 64k region where the emulated page frame can be placed. For EMM386.SYS, the page frame must be positioned at C000, C400, C800, CC00, D000, D400, D800, DC00, or E000. 6.9 Fine-Tuning your Adapter Hardware Configuration Many adapter cards occupy some portion of the upper address space. Some of these cards, such as SCSI Disk Controllers, often have DIP switches or jumpers that can be used to set the address space they occupy to one of a few alternatives. If the memory map displayed by HIGHMEM is fragmented because one of these adapters sits between two "....DOS Free" areas, you may want to try to reposition the address space occupied by that adapter by modifying the DIP switch or jumper settings on the card. Having one large free memory block is better than two smaller ones because TSR's and device drivers almost always require more memory during initialization than once installed. In other words, neither of the two smaller blocks may be large enough for the installation, but might if they were combined. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 46 CHAPTER 7 - USE WITH OTHER SOFTWARE 7.1 Microsoft's FASTOPEN and MODE programs The FASTOPEN and MODE programs that come with MS-DOS are TSR's and as such may be loaded into upper memory with either HIGHTSR or HIGHINST. Once installed, each requires very little memory, something on the order of 10k or less. However, neither will install unless a lot of memory is available - approximately 50-90k. (The actual requirement depends partly on command line options; you can determine the requirement using the /SIZE option of HIGHTSR or HIGHINST.) ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: Do NOT use the /LOW option of HIGHTSR ║ ║ or HIGHINST with FASTOPEN or MODE - it won't ║ ║ work and could damage data on your disk! ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ The worst part is that if FASTOPEN fails to install itself successfully, it doesn't issue any error message - it simply doesn't display the normal "FASTOPEN installed" sign-on message. Moral: Let FASTOPEN and MODE be the first TSR's that are installed into High Memory in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file so that they get access to the maximum amount of memory. The second hassle with these two TSR's is that they cannot be removed by using HIGHMARK and HIGHUNDO. Evidently they modify memory other than that tracked by HIGHMARK (the interrupt vector table and that memory allocated to them). 7.2 Microsoft's SHARE program MS-DOS 4 installs the SHARE program automatically if you have a hard disk which is greater than 32 MB in a single partition. It does this without asking because it is otherwise possible to corrupt the data on the disk when running programs that use the old File Control Block (FCB) approach to access files. Unfortunately, some internal parts of MS-DOS 4.0 also still use FCB's! So don't try to prevent SHARE from being loaded by removing it from your system! If MS-DOS can't find it, you'll get a warning message during the boot saying that "SHARE should be loaded for large media". You could load it during AUTOEXEC.BAT processing, but you'll still get the warning because the check occurs during CONFIG.SYS processing. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 47 ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ NOTE: Version 5 of MS-DOS has corrected this ║ ║ problem and no longer loads SHARE automatically ║ ║ regardless of the size of your hard disk. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ So how can you load this TSR into upper memory without getting the warning? MS-DOS recently introduced the "INSTALL=" directive that allows TSR's to be installed during CONFIG.SYS processing. Programs that Microsoft suggests be loaded in this manner include FASTOPEN, KEYB, NLSFUNC, and SHARE. For example: INSTALL=C:\DOS\SHARE.EXE The above command, however, causes SHARE to be loaded down in conventional memory. to get it into upper memory, use: INSTALL=HIGHINST.EXE C:\DOS\SHARE.EXE ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ WARNING: Do NOT use the /LOW option of HIGHINST ║ ║ with SHARE - it won't work and could damage ║ ║ data on your disk! ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ 7.3 Microsoft's MS-DOS 5.0 With the introduction of MS-DOS 5.0, Microsoft has added extensive support for loading software into high memory. This includes not only device drivers and TSRs, but also the MS-DOS disk buffers, the master environment, and most of the operating system itself. This capability requires the use of an Upper Memory Block (UMB) server such as Key Software Products' HIGHUMM.SYS. Although the MS-DOS 5.0 version of EMM386.SYS has been modified to provide such support, there are several disadvantages to using it instead of The Last Byte Memory Manager to load software high: o EMM386 requires a 386 or better processor. (HIGHUMM does not.) o EMM386 requires that HIMEM.SYS be loaded first. (HIGHUMM does not. However, HIMEM is also needed to load the operating system itself into extended memory; The Last Byte Memory Manager allows you to load HIMEM into upper memory using HIGHDRVR.) Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 48 o Using HIMEM and EMM386 as the basis of UMB support requires that both be loaded into conventional memory, where they use approximately 10k bytes. o EMM386 puts the processor into protected mode, adding an instruction execution time penalty of about 5%. There are two basic approaches that you can take to load software into upper memory using MS-DOS 5.0 and The Last Byte Memory Manager. The first of these is to install HIGHUMM and use the 'DEVICEHIGH' and 'LOADHIGH' commands introduced in MS-DOS 5.0; the other is to use HIGHDRVR and HIGHTSR (HIGHINST). We recommend the latter approach because HIGHDRVR and HIGHTSR provide a richer set of options for controlling the load high process. 7.3.1 Using DEVICEHIGH and LOADHIGH To use this approach, your CONFIG.SYS file should contain the following lines: DOS=HIGH,UMB DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS {and any options} DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=HIGHUMM.SYS {and any options} Then you can use the MS-DOS 5.0 DEVICEHIGH command in additional lines of your CONFIG.SYS file to load your other device drivers into upper memory, as in: DEVICEHIGH={device driver to be loaded high} DEVICEHIGH={device driver to be loaded high} . . . DEVICEHIGH={device driver to be loaded high} With this CONFIG.SYS file, your AUTOEXEC.BAT file may load TSRs high using the MS-DOS 5.0 LOADHIGH command as in: LOADHIGH C:\DOS\PRINT.COM 7.3.2 Using HIGHDRVR and HIGHTSR The second approach is to use the HIGHDRVR and HIGHTSR utilities of The Last Byte Memory Manager in the normal manner. To use this approach, your CONFIG.SYS file should contain the following lines: Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 49 DOS=HIGH DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS {and any options} DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS Then you can use HIGHDRVR in additional lines of your CONFIG.SYS file to load your other device drivers into upper memory, as in: DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS {device driver to be loaded high} DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS {device driver to be loaded high} . . . DEVICE=HIGHDRVR.SYS {device driver to be loaded high} With this CONFIG.SYS file, your AUTOEXEC.BAT file should load TSRs high using HIGHTSR as in: HIGHTSR C:\DOS\PRINT.COM 7.4 Microsoft's Windows 3.0 In general, The Last Byte Memory Manager has a high degree of compatibility with Windows 3.0. If you are having trouble running Windows, first be sure that your system is properly configured so that it runs without The Last Byte Memory Manager installed. If you have isolated the problem to their combination, then perhaps the following information will help to correct the problem: 7.4.1 Modifying the Windows SYSTEM.INI File With Windows 3.0 running in 386 enhanced mode, LASTBYTE.SYS and Windows will both try to use the upper memory area, thus creating a conflict. To avoid the conflict, you must ask Windows to not use this region. This can be done with a configuration option in the [386Enh] section of the Windows SYSTEM.INI file: EMMExclude=A000-FFFF If you have used the "EXCLUDE" option of LASTBYTE.SYS to disable any region of the upper memory, then Windows may be told it is ok to use that area. For example, if LASTBYTE.SYS is loaded using the line: DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS EXCLUDE=D000:64 then you may use the following configuration option (in addition to the EMMExclude option above) in your SYSTEM.INI file: Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 50 EMMInclude=D000-DFFF The EMMInclude option will take precedence over the EMMExclude option when the two overlap, as above. On system with a single display (e.g., VGA), Windows will sometimes write into the other display area (i.e., the monochrome area, B0000-B7FFF). Some users may thus also find it necessary to add the option "DualDisplay-True" to their SYSTEM.INI file, or to use the option "EXCLUDE=B000:32" on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line. 7.4.2 Positioning an EMS Page Frame If you are using the Real or Standard modes of Windows, you may have installed an EMS device driver for those applications that need expanded memory. In an attempt to reduce fragmentation of upper memory, it is useful to position the EMS Page Frame either at the bottom or top of an otherwise empty region of upper memory. However, if you have used the DOS=F000:32 option to gain another 32k of DOS memory, don't position your EMS Page Frame at E800 - Windows will not run with it any higher than E000. The Enhanced 386 mode of Windows will automatically emulate expanded memory for those applications that require it. Unfortunately, Windows ignores the EMMExclude option and positions the EMS page frame in upper memory. If the same 64k area is used by The Last Byte Memory Manager for something else, your system may hang. To correct the problem, add an "EMSPageFrame=nnnn" option in your SYSTEM.INI file to tell Windows where to put the page frame, combined with an "EXCLUDE=nnnn:64" option on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line to keep it from using this area. 7.4.3 "Unsupported Data Configuration" The 386 Enhanced mode of Windows 3.0 has a restriction that it cannot run when certain types of software have been loaded high. When this happens, Windows will terminate and display the error message, "Unsupported Data Configuration". This only happens in 386 Enhanced mode, and is not related in particular to use of The Last Byte Memory Manager. Device drivers that are known to load high without this problem include HIMEM.SYS, MOUSE.SYS, SETVER.SYS, ANSI.SYS, and all the Key Software Products device drivers. A device driver and a TSR known to cause this problem are EGA.SYS and DOSKEY.COM. If you are experiencing this error message, you can either run Windows Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 51 in another mode, or try modifying your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to locate and remove the offending software. Microsoft is removing this restriction in version 3.1 of Windows which is expected to be released around the end of 1991. 7.4.4 HIGHMEM and Windows 386 Enhanced Mode MS-DOS applications run from inside Windows 3.0 are given their own "virtual" address space of 640k. Windows tells the processor to map memory references in this space to the particular 640k of physical memory which has been allocated to the application. References outside this range are considered invalid and thus return garbage. Since HIGHMEM is a program that inspects upper memory between 640k and 1 meg, there's no way it can execute properly in this context. HIGHMEM will behave normally outside of Windows. 7.4.5 HIGHDISK and Windows 386 Enhanced Mode HIGHDISK.SYS also uses memory in the 640k to 1 meg range and so is susceptible to the same problems that HIGHMEM experiences as discussed above. Outside of Windows, and in any mode other than 386 Enhanced Mode, HIGHDISK will behave normally. 7.5 HyperWare's HyperDisk HyperDisk is a shareware disk caching utility. It's too large to load high with HIGHDRVR or HIGHTSR under the 32K limit imposed by the unlicensed evaluation version of The Last Byte Memory Manager. However, if your computer uses a Chips and Technologies NEAT or 386/AT chipset, you can work around this limitation by using HyperDisk's "XS" option to load itself into the 48k block starting at E400. Be sure to exclude this area by using the following option on the LASTBYTE.SYS command line: DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS EXC=E400:48 If you have a licensed version of The Last Byte Memory Manager, or if you don't have one of the Chips and Technologies chipsets mentioned above, then a better approach is to use either HIGHDRVR or HIGHTSR (as appropriate) to load HyperDisk high (without HyperDisk's "XS" option). This method guarantees that the minimum amount of upper memory will be used. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 52 HyperDisk can be downloaded from HyperWare's BBS at (615) 864-6871, or obtained directly from: HyperWare RR#1, Box 91 Pall Mall, TN 38577 Voice: (615) 864-6868 FAX: (615) 864-6870 7.6 J.P. Software's 4DOS 4DOS is a shareware replacement for COMMAND.COM. HIGHUMM.SYS may be used to move the 4DOS command processor and its master environment into "Upper Memory Blocks" (UMB's) in the upper memory area, thus reducing the amount of conventional memory below 640k used by 4DOS from 3.4k bytes to 256 bytes. First you must install HIGHUMM.SYS as described earlier in this manual. Then add a "SHELL=" line to CONFIG.SYS for 4DOS, including the options "/U" (to place the command processor in an UMB) and "/E:512U" (to place the master environment in an UMB). The value "512" is of course only an example - other environment sizes may be specified. You may also want to specify these options for secondary shells in the 4DSHELL environment variable. Consult the 4DOS documentation for further details. 4DOS may be downloaded from Channel 1 BBS at (617) 354-8873, or obtained directly from: J.P. Software CompuServe: 75300,210 P.O. Box 1470 BIX: "trawson" E. Arlington, MA 02174 Internet, Bitnet, etc: Voice: (617) 646-3975 75300.210@compuserve.com Fax: (617) 646-0904 7.7 David Hamilton's BUFFIT There's a very nice shareware scroll-back TSR called BUFFIT that saves lines of text that have been scrolled off the top of the screen and allows you to pull them back down for review. One of the advantages of version 3.0 and later of BUFFIT is that it will load itself entirely into a UMB provided by HIGHUMM.SYS, thus using no conventional memory at all. To install BUFFIT into upper memory, first you must install the HIGHUMM.SYS device driver by inserting the following lines in your CONFIG.SYS file: DEVICE=LASTBYTE.SYS {and any LASTBYTE options} Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 53 DEVICE=HIGHUMM.SYS Then all you have to do is reboot your computer and run BUFFIT from the command line, or else add it to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. BUFFIT is available from a number of BBS's, usually under the filename BUFFIT30.ZIP. 7.8 Charles Lazo's WAS On a computer with no expanded memory, you might want to use HIGHEMS3 to provide some Expanded Memory for Charles Lazo's scroll-back TSR, WAS.COM. This utility saves lines of text that have been scrolled off the top of the screen and allows you to pull them back down for review. WAS is available from a number of BBS's, usually under the filename WAS062.ZIP. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 54 APPENDIX 1 - HOW TO REACH US The KSP telephone (415-364-9847) is shared by our BBS and our voice mail answering system. Approximate hours of operation are: Voice mail system: 8am - 5pm PST (weekdays) BBS system: 5pm - 8am PST (24 hrs on weekends) BBS Parameters: 1200/2400/9600 baud (v.32, v.42bis) 8 data bits, No Parity If your call is answered by the voice mail system, it can take a message that will be automatically forwarded to someone who can return your call as soon as possible. In addition, it offers a touch-tone driven menu of useful information about our product. If you have access to electronic mail, you can send us a message via any of the following: On BITNET, send mail to: DLEWIS@SCU.BITNET On COMPUSERVE, send mail to: >Internet:DLEWIS@SCUACC.SCU.EDU On CONNECT, send mail to: CONNECT id "DASNET" 1st line of message: \"DLEWIS@SCUACC.SCU.EDU\"@DASNET On FIDONET, send mail to: UUCP 1st line of message: To: DLEWIS@SCUACC.SCU.EDU On INTERNET, send mail to: DLEWIS@SCUACC.SCU.EDU On MCI, At the "To:" prompt enter: DLEWIS (EMS) At the "EMS:" prompt enter: Internet At the "Mbx:" prompt enter: DLEWIS@SCUACC.SCU.EDU On PRODIGY, send mail to: VGDC59A On TELENET's Telemail Service: Send to: [INTERMAIL/USCISI]TELEMAIL/USA 1st line of message: Forward: ARPA 2nd line of message: To: DLEWIS@SCUACC.SCU.EDU Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 55 APPENDIX 2 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Last Byte Memory Manager wouldn't exist without all the companies that manufacture the shadow ram memory controller chips, and who have provided techinical information on how to program their configuration registers. If you know of a memory controller chip we haven't included, please let us know and we will try to add it. The Last Byte Memory Manager consists of more than half a megabyte of source code, written mostly in C with a sprinkling of assembly language, and compiled using version 3.1 of the DeSmet/C-Ware C compiler. We are grateful for the simplicity, flexibility, and speed of this compiler, as well as the generous support provided by Joel and Susan Farley of C-Ware Corporation. The Last Byte Memory Manager could not have been created without the gracious support of many people. We wish to thank the following individuals who helped to test beta versions or offered useful suggestions for new features: J.B. Compton, David Durgee, Mike Hagerty, Scott Jordahl, Alan Lambert, Rob Nee, Kevin Parris, Dan Proctor, Graham Robertson, Ken Sanquist, Tony Sheehan, Peter Summers, Steve Hodsdon, Anthony Cox, My Phung, and Martin Beckmann. Thank's also go to Tom Rawson of J. P. Software for providing a copy of 4DOS, to Sue Nageotte of Digital Research for providing a copy of DR DOS, and to Pat Gelsinger of Intel Corporation for lending his intimate knowledge of the 80x86 instruction sets. And finally, a special thanks to Serge Caron and Roger Cross for their suggestions, technical advice, patience, and friendship. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 56 APPENDIX 3 - CHIPSET LIMITATIONS Some of the features offered by The Last Byte Memory Manager are dependent on the presence of a shadow ram memory controller chip, what memory it controls, and the organization of that memory into regions. Shown below is a summary of RAM and ROM regions controlled by each of the memory controller chips that we support. Each entry indicates the starting segment address of memory, followed by an indication of the organization of that memory into regions. Part Ram Range RAM Regions ROM Regions ------ --------- ---------- ----------- 36C300 C000-FFFF C000:6x32k,1x64k n/a 62C202 E000-FFFF E000:4x32k n/a 62C241 E000-FFFF E000:4x32k n/a 62C251 E000-FFFF E000:4x32k n/a 82C202 A000-FFFF A000:6x64k n/a 82C212 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C222 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C230 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C235 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:8x32k 82C241 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C281 C000-EFFF C000:12x16k C000:3x64k 82C282 C000-EFFF C000:12x16k C000:3x64k 82C302 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C307 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C311 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C322 A000-FFFF A000:16x16k,1x128k C000:2x64k,1x128k 82C351 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C361 C000-FFFF C000:8x16k,2x64k C000:8x16k,2x64k 82C382 C000-EFFF C000:12x16k C000:3x64k 82C391 C000-EFFF C000:12x16k C000:3x64k 82411 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82S411 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C461 C000-FFFF C000:8x16k,2x64k C000:8x16k,2x64k 82C481 C000-FFFF C000:8x16k,2x64k C000:8x16k,2x64k 82C482 C000-EFFF C000:12x16k C000:3x64k 82C491 C000-EFFF C000:12x16k C000:3x64k 82C812 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k 82C836 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:8x32k 82C841 A000-FFFF A000:24x16k C000:4x64k Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 57 APPENDIX 4 - LICENSED DISTRIBUTORS You can order directly from Key Software Products or any of the licensed distributors listed below. Those which can accept credit card orders are noted. If you order by credit card, you must indicate the type of card, the card number, your name exactly as printed on the card, and the card expiration date. Information in this list is subject to change without notice. Foreign exchange rates vary and thus affect overseas pricing, so it is a good idea to check with the distributor before ordering. Distributors are for ordering only. For additional information about dealer pricing, volume discounts, site licensing, shipping of product, returns, latest version number or other technical information, call or write Key Software Products directly. Most distributors can provide the access key directly. The Public (software) Library, however, accepts your telephone order, and then forwards an E-Mail message to Key Software Products. Delivery of this message may take one or two days. We will contact you and provide the access key upon receipt of this purchase confirmation. Companies interested in obtaining 10 or more copies of The Last Byte Memory Manager with discounted pricing should have an officer of the company (such as the president, a vice president, director, etc.) complete the Site License Order Form and send it directly to Key Software Products, to the BRISBUG Brisbane PC User's Group in Australia, British Software Licensing in the United Kingdom, or to Eurocom Shareware in Holland. No other distributor will process a Site License request. KEY SOFTWARE PRODUCTS Phone: (415) 364-9847 440 Ninth Avenue Price: US $29.95 + Tax (CA) Menlo Park, CA 94025 Method: Check The Public (software) Library Phone: (800) 242-4775, or P.O. Box 35705 (713) 524-6394 Houston, Texas 77235-5705 FAX: (713) 524-6398 CompuServe: 71355,470 Price: US $29.95 + Tax (TX) Method: MC, Visa, AmEx, Discover Card Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 58 HYPERWARE (makes HyperDisk) Phone: (615) 864-6868 RR#1, Box 91 FAX: (615) 864-6870 Pall Mall, TN 38577 CompuServe: 72230,2321 Price: US $29.95 + Tax (TN) Method: Master Card, Visa BRISBUG Brisbane PC User's Group 18 Headland St Contact: Mr. Dan Bridges SUNNYBANK Phone: (61.7) 345-9298 Queensland 4109 Price: AUS $45 (incl. post.) AUSTRALIA Method: Check EUROCOM SHAREWARE Contact: Mr. Gary van Beeck Zwedenburg 119 Phone: (+31.70) 347-3777 NL-2591 BD The Hague FAX: (+31.70) 347-7356 HOLLAND Price: Hfl 74.-- (guilders only) Method: By Eurocheque, or Postbank (Giro): 304747 payable to: G. van Beeck BRITISH SOFTWARE LICENSING Contact: Mr. Graham Robertson 280 (T/L) West Princes Street Phone: (44.41) 339-8855 x5021 Glasgow G4 9EU (44.41) 339-7264 (msg) UNITED KINGDOM Price: 21 pounds Method: Access, Visa, MC, Eurocard Internet E-Mail: Graham_Robertson@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved Jul 31, 1991 THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 59 APPENDIX 5 - LIMITED WARRANTY This software is provided 'as is' without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the program is with you. Some states do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so the above exclusions may not apply to you. This warranty gives you specific legal rights and you may also have other rights which vary from state to state. Key Software Products has taken due care in preparing the documentation and software included in The Last Byte Memory Manager to ascertain their correctness and effectiveness. However, Key Software Products does not warrant that operation of this software will be uninterrupted or error free. In no event shall Key Software Products be liable for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the furnishing, performance, or use of this software. LICENSE You MAY use this software on any computer or computers in your possesion, but on no more than one computer at any given time. You MAY copy this software into any machine readable or printed form for backup or modification purposes in support of your use of the software. You MAY distribute the original unmodified, unlicensed version of this software, but you may not charge a fee exceeding $5.00 to cover the cost of duplicating, shipping, and handling. You may NOT distribute a licensed version of this software. You may NOT use, copy, modify, sublicense, assign or transfer this software and its license, or any copy or modification, in whole or in part, except as expressly provided for in this license. Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION ........................... 2 1.1 Important Advantages ........................ 2 CHAPTER 2 - SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ..................... 4 2.1 Supported Hardware .......................... 4 2.2 Checking Compatibility Using CHIPSET .......... 6 CHAPTER 3 - DISTRIBUTION FILES ...................... 8 CHAPTER 4 - GETTING STARTED ......................... 10 4.1 Testing LASTBYTE.SYS HIGHDRVR.SYS and HIGHTSR.EXE 10 4.2 Mapping Upper Memory with HIGHMEM .............. 12 4.3 Running the LICENSE Program ................... 14 CHAPTER 5 - DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS ................... 16 5.1 LASTBYTE.SYS ............................... 16 5.2 HIGHAPND.EXE and HIGHAPND.SYS ................ 21 5.3 HIGHBFRS.EXE (MS-DOS 3 only) .................. 24 5.4 HIGHDISK.SYS ............................... 25 5.5 HIGHDRVR.SYS ............................... 26 5.6 HIGHEMS3.SYS and HIGHEMS4.SYS ................ 27 5.7 HIGHENV.EXE ................................ 28 5.8 HIGHHOLE.EXE ............................... 30 5.9 HIGHINST.EXE ............................... 30 5.10 HIGHKEY.EXE ............................... 31 5.10.1 Options .............................. 31 5.10.2 Editing Commands ...................... 31 5.11 HIGHMARK.EXE .............................. 33 5.12 HIGHMEM.EXE ............................... 34 5.13 HIGHSPLR.EXE .............................. 34 5.14 HIGHTSR.EXE ............................... 35 5.14.1 The /NOENV Option ...................... 36 5.15 HIGHUMM.SYS ............................... 37 5.16 HIGHUNDO.EXE .............................. 38 CHAPTER 6 - HINTS / SUGGESTIONS / EXPLANATIONS ......... 39 6.1 The /SIZE Option ............................. 39 6.2 The /LOW Option .............................. 40 6.3 The /RESTRICT Option ......................... 40 6.4 Specifying Command Line Options with Indirect Files 41 6.5 Using the DOS=F000:32 Option .................. 41 6.6 Video Display RAM above 640k ................... 42 6.7 Video Adapter Bios ROMs ....................... 43 6.8 LASTBYTE.SYS and Expanded Memory .............. 44 6.9 Fine-Tuning your Adapter Hardware Configuration 45 CHAPTER 7 - USE WITH OTHER SOFTWARE ................... 46 7.1 Microsoft's FASTOPEN and MODE programs ......... 46 Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved THE LAST BYTE MEMORY MANAGER (tm) 7.2 Microsoft's SHARE program .................... 46 7.3 Microsoft's MS-DOS 5.0 ....................... 47 7.3.1 Using DEVICEHIGH and LOADHIGH ............ 48 7.3.2 Using HIGHDRVR and HIGHTSR ............... 48 7.4 Microsoft's Windows 3.0 ...................... 49 7.4.1 Modifying the Windows SYSTEM.INI File ..... 49 7.4.2 Positioning an EMS Page Frame ............. 50 7.4.3 "Unsupported Data Configuration" ........ 50 7.4.4 HIGHMEM and Windows 386 Enhanced Mode ...... 51 7.4.5 HIGHDISK and Windows 386 Enhanced Mode ..... 51 7.5 HyperWare's HyperDisk ....................... 51 7.6 J.P. Software's 4DOS ......................... 52 7.7 David Hamilton's BUFFIT ...................... 52 7.8 Charles Lazo's WAS ........................... 53 APPENDIX 1 - HOW TO REACH US .......................... 54 APPENDIX 2 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................... 55 APPENDIX 3 - CHIPSET LIMITATIONS .................... 56 APPENDIX 4 - LICENSED DISTRIBUTORS .................. 57 APPENDIX 5 - LIMITED WARRANTY ....................... 59 Copyright (C) 1990-91, Key Software Products. All Rights Reserved