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- Tips by Craig S. Stevenson using: DesqView 2.25, 2.26
- QEMM 4.23, QEMM 5.00
- Manifest 1.00
- PCTools Deluxe 5.5, 6
- RBBS-PC 17.3 / 0518
- USR Courier HST
- Zenith Z386-25
- DTK 386-25
-
- From: The Bertha BBS (218)-924-2060
- Date: June 07, 1990
-
- The most current version of TIPS is available to subscribers
- of The Bertha BBS.
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: When I run RBBS-PC and someone does a download or
- upload, I can't open another DesqView window
- without interfering with their communications. I
- have replaced my UARTS with 16550's.
-
- SYMPTOMS: When a user on one node of RBBS-PC is uploading or
- downloading, opening another window will introduce
- CRC errors into their transmission. This occurs
- on the internal protocols (Xmodem, Ymodem, Ascii).
-
- SOLUTION: This is a very obscure problem which does not have
- an obvious answer. The problem is that RBBS-PC by
- itself does not initialize the 16550 chips.
- Therefore the internal protocols do not benefit
- from the buffering. External protocols such as
- Zmodem, YmodemG, and others have a program such as
- DSZ to initialize the 16550. The solution is to
- use a fossil driver such as X00 to initialize the
- 16550 chips. This will make them available to the
- internal protocols as well.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: I can't get enough memory free to run the
- applications I want to run when using a Zenith
- computer.
-
- SYMPTOMS: After setting up DesqView, my window size is
- limited to about 480K. Nothing I do seems to be
- able to raise it much above that.
-
- SOLUTION: There are two solutions that I have used with
- success. These solutions only apply if you have a
- Zenith 386 computer and a Z-549 VGA video card.
-
- Zenith normally "slushes" the Video ROM to E000-
- E7FF. A pointer is changed so that applications
- expect to find the ROM at that location. You can
- include the area from C100-C5FF with the I=C100-
- C5FF switch on the QEMM command line. This adds
- 20K of extra high RAM. Video speed is not
- affected by using this area, since the ROM has
- been slushed to the E000 area.
-
- The second solution is more elegant. There is a
- file on CompuServe called UNSLUSHV.SYS. This
- program changes the pointer back to the C000
- paragraph and as a result does not use the E000-
- E7FF area. Video slushing still occurs, but since
- the pointer has been changed back to C000, the
- E000-E7FF area can now be mapped over with RAM
- by QEMM for its high RAM. The only problem is
- that BIOS video calls will be agonizingly slow.
- The solution is to have QEMM map the video ROM
- into RAM. Your Config.Sys should contain the
- following:
-
- DEVICE=C:\UNSLUSHV.SYS
- DEVICE=C:\QEMM.SYS ON NCF NR ROM=C000-C7FF RAM
-
- This should give you an extra 32K of high RAM with
- no degradation of video performance. Note that
- you should include the NCF and NR switches on
- Zenith machines. These are explained in another
- area of this file.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: When I do a print screen in DesqView 2.26, my
- computer hangs.
-
- SYMPTOMS: Pressing the print screen key while using DesqView
- 2.26, part of the screen will print and then the
- computer hangs up. Even CTRL-ALT-DEL will not
- reset the machine.
-
- SOLUTION: DesqView 2.26 uses a different method to do a
- printscreen. There is a patch available to change
- back to the old way of doing it. Patch your
- program and the problem will go away.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: I can't get a caching program to work properly
- with DesqView.
-
- SYMPTOMS: After loading PC-Cache version 6, the cache does
- not work if you enter DesqView directly.
-
- SOLUTION: I was not able to get PC-Cache version 6 to work
- correctly on my system. Either switch back to
- version 5.5 or get a shareware copy of ADCACHE.
- ADCACHE was written with QEMM, 386-to-the-max, and
- DesqView in mind. It is fast, small, and
- compatible.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: System hangs when using PCTools Deluxe Version 6
- within DesqView.
-
- SYMPTOMS: If you try to delete multiple files with PCShell,
- the system will hang after deleting the first or
- second file. Sometimes you will be able to get to
- the DesqView Menu, but you will get an error
- message when you try to open another window.
-
- SOLUTION: The problem seems to be isolated to the Delete
- Tracking option of Mirror. Use Mirror, but do not
- use the Delete Tracking Option.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: System hangs when using high speed communications
- within DesqView.
-
- SYMPTOMS: When running high speed (>9600 baud)
- communications, the system will hang
- intermittently.
-
- SOLUTION: Switch to buffered (16550) serial ports. On my
- system, I was able to move to 19200 baud with no
- hangs by switching to the buffered ports. You may
- also try setting "Optimize Communications" to Y in
- the DesqView Setup area. Be cautious with this
- setting as it can cause some problems as well. It
- is also helpful to upgrade to DesqView 2.26 as
- there is better support for high speed
- communications.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: Other DesqView windows operations grind to a halt
- when using a communications program in the
- foreground.
-
- SYMPTOMS: Severe performance degradation when using a
- communications program in another window.
-
- SOLUTION: Use Tame on your communications program to make it
- release the clock-ticks it doesn't need. It made
- about 400 cps difference on my system.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: Repeated system hangs when using DesqView.
-
- SYMPTOMS: System will hang intermittently and with no
- warning.
-
- SOLUTION: Check the setting of "Manage Printer Contention"
- in the DesqView Setup area. Numerous hangs are
- caused by having this set to "Y". Set it to "N".
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: System hangs when using QEMM 5.0 and doing a warm
- boot on Zenith machines.
-
- SYMPTOMS: When requesting a CTRL-ALT-DEL reboot, the system
- hangs. You must then power down to reset.
-
- SOLUTION: Use the NOROM (NR) switch in QEMM 5.0. QEMM
- normally maps one 4k segment of the BIOS rom in
- order to detect reboots. Because of the way
- Zenith handles reboots, you must defeat this with
- the NOROM switch.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PROBLEM: Video seems slow after installing QEMM 5.0 on
- Zenith machines.
-
- SYMPTOMS: Screen update speed is very slow. When you run
- a benchmark the BIOS video speeds are very slow.
-
- SOLUTION: Zenith normally maps the VGA and EGA roms to RAM
- in order to speed up their access. Compaq does
- things similarly, but not identically. You must
- use the NOCOMPACFEATURES (NCF) switch to defeat
- this. Your video should return to the correct
- speed. You must also exclude C000-C7FF and E000-
- E7FF with the X=C000-C7FF and X=E000-E7FF switches
- in order to make room for the video slush area.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- -------------------------------------------------------------