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- Speeding up Memory Check
-
- Henry Ho
- Toronto Users Group
-
- If you have a very large amount of
- memory installed in your IBM PC, you
- probably have to wait a very long
- time for the memory check at start
- up. I have a program, MEMSIZE, that
- accelerates start up time for systems
- with large amounts of memory.
-
- Instead of setting the system board
- switches to show the actual amount of
- RAM, set the switches to indicate 64K
- of RAM, This will speed up the start
- time considerably. The program
- MEMSIZE will reset the memory size
- once your system boots up. Any memory
- error is reported through the parity
- check capability of the PC. The
- results have been quite good. On a
- 256K system board fully populated
- with memory, it takes only 7 seconds
- to boot and another 5 seconds to load
- and run MEMSIZE.
-
- To use MEMSIZE you must follow some
- rules and accept some limitations.
-
- 1. The format of the program is
- "MEMSIZE [n] where n is a digit
- between 1 and 9:
-
- 1=128K 2=192K 3=256K
- 4=320K 5=384K 6=448K
- 7=512K 8=576K 9=640K
-
- 2. You must specify a size between 1
- and 9; if you don't specify a
- size or if the size is out of
- range, the program will not run.
-
- 3. You must set your PC's switch 2
- to 64K. (Just set switches 1 to 4
- on switch 2 to the ON position).
-
- 4. MEMSIZE must be the FIRST program
- that you execute after you boot
- up. (MEMSIZE can be the first
- program in an AUTOEXEC.BAT file.)
-
- 5. The memory size you specify must
- be valid (For example, if you
- specify n=3, you must really have
- 256K installed).
-
- 6. MEMSIZE is compatible with DOS
- 1.10, 2.00, and 2.10.
-
- 7. MEMSIZE will not run on XT's as
- they don't read the memory
- switch.
-
- To create the program, use the DEBUG
- program on your DOS diskette by
- typing the following (DO NOT type the
- underlined portions, they are the
- responses from DEBUG; the hyphens are
- DEBUG's prompts):
-
- A>DEBUG
- --
- -N MEMSIZE.COM
- -RCX
- CX 0000
- --------
- :6A
- -E100 8A 0E 80 00 80 F9 01 7C
- -E108 14 A0 82 00 3C 31 7C 0D
- -E110 3C 39 7F 09 2C 30 8A D8
- -E118 8A D0 EB 03 90 CD 20 B8
- -E120 40 00 8E C0 26 A0 12 00
- -E128 3C 00 75 F1 2A FF B1 06
- -E130 D3 E3 83 C3 40 26 A1 13
- -E138 00 3B C3 74 E0 26 89 1E
- -E140 13 00 83 EB 49 26 89 1E
- -E148 15 00 2B C0 FC 8A DA BA
- -E150 00 10 8E C2 B9 FF FF 2B
- -E158 FF F3 AB FE CB 80 FB 00
- -E168 CD 19
- -W
- WRITING 006A BYTES
- ------------------
-
- -Q
-
- A>