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- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!auvm!CUNIXB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU!PJB3
- Message-ID: <CMM.0.90.4.718732363.pjb3@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu>
- Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 11:52:43 EDT
- Sender: Nota Bene List <NOTABENE@TAUNIVM>
- From: "Paul J. Bodin" <pjb3@CUNIXB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU>
- Subject: Re: Quest for the eschatological RAMbyte
- Comments: To: Nota Bene List <NOTABENE%TAUNIVM@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.notabene
- In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 10 Oct 92 09:34:35 EDT
- Lines: 41
-
- Jerome Walsh writes:
-
- > ... do you have any advice, warnings, or
- > other insights into either of these programs or their ilk? Some spe-
- > cific questions that occur to me: (1) What use is expanded memory for
- > NB3.x? How about for the eschatological NB4? (2) Does anybody have
- > any advice on how to juggle a Stackered RAMdrive, PC-CACHE, and VRAM
- > in 1 Mbyte of extended memory? (3) If I use VRAM in my AUTOEXEC.BAT
- > in TSR mode to create permanent expanded memory, is it possible to
- > load any of the device drivers there? (I doubt it, since they've al-
- > ready been loaded by CONFIG.SYS, but who am I to set limits to magic?)
-
- For NB's use the RAMdrive is probably the best single asset on a 286
- platform. PC-Cache will speed up disk access, but a word processor is
- not a disk-intensive application most of the time. VRAM on a 286
- *emulates* expanded memory--such emulations are unfortunately not very
- stable and usually use a fairly big chunk of conventional memory for a
- page frame emulation. The resulting virtual EMS is not fully LIM 4.0
- compliant, and cannot be used to create UMBs for such operations as
- loadhi. The resulting EMS *might* be stable enough to use for the
- speller feature in NB 4.0 (MX=10), but then again it might not. If
- you are really squeezed for memory it is worth a try, but exercise
- caution. Other than that it can't be used for any adjunct to NB.
-
- The use of video RAM as supplementary conventional memory when in text
- mode is an ingenious technique. On a 386 the actual video memory can
- be mapped out and replaced by fast RAM from the mother board and the
- result is a very useful improvement. On a 286 platform such devices
- use the actual video memory on the video card instead of fast
- motherboard RAM. Remember that no matter how fast your computer is,
- this memory is usually running at 8 Mhz! That means unless you have
- an 8 Mhz AT the extra memory will be significantly slower than the
- rest of your conventional memory. This will usually not cause
- problems like crashes, but it *can* cause noticeable degradation of
- performance in the programs that use this extra memory. Be prepared
- for occasional unexpected slow-downs.
-
- ___________________________________________________________________________
- Paul J. Bodin Internet: pjb3@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
- Union Theological Seminary smail: 435-52nd Street
- (718) 439-3549 Brooklyn, NY 11220
-