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- ID:ST Using Stacker and QEMM
- Quarterdeck Technical Note #214
- By: Robert Ngan
-
- I. Hardware considerations:
-
- The AT/16 coprocessor card and the MC/16 microchannel card tested were
- found to work with QEMM 6 without the need to exclude any High RAM
- addresses.
-
- The XT coprocessor card needs an exclude and this address is normally at
- CC00-CFFF but is changeable during the Stacker install process. This is
- an 8 bit card designed for use on XTs, although one can also use it on
- AT machines. QEMM will need an EXCLUDE for this RANGE.
-
- For example: if the card uses CC00-CFFF, then add X=CC00-CFFF to the
- QEMM device line in the config.sys
-
-
- II. Using STACKER 2 with EMS memory and QEMM's Stealth:
-
- a) When installing STACKER 2 on a machine with QEMM already
- present. The STACKER Install program will ask whether or not you
- wish to use EMS. Selecting yes would add the /EMS switch to the
- Stacker device line. If you want to use EMS with STACKER 2 and
- QEMM's Stealth option, make sure to add DBF=2 to the QEMM device
- line before installing STACKER 2. Otherwise the machine will just
- reboot and go into a loop saying that you need to add DBF=2. DBF is
- needed because STACKER 2 is accessing the disk via the page frame,
- and this is not allowed when using Stealth.
-
- The only way out of this loop is to REBOOT, then hold down the ALT
- key after you hear a beep. You will be prompted to press the
- Escape key to unload qemm. Press escape, then edit the config.sys
- (on the uncompressed drive) and add DBF=2 to the QEMM386.sys device
- line,
-
- Device=c:\qemm\qemm386.sys dbf=2
-
- IMPORTANT: This change should be done on the uncompressed drive.
-
- b) When installing QEMM 6 on a machine with STACKER 2 already
- installed, if you plan to let STACKER 2 use EMS provided by QEMM
- 6, make sure to edit the config.sys and add the DBF=2 parameter to
- the QEMM device line in the config.sys. At the same time, you
- could add /EMS to the Stacker device line to allow it to use EMS.
-
- II. Running OPTIMIZE with STACKER 2
-
- a) How can I make OPTIMIZE work with STACKER?
-
- Optimize fails because of the SSWAP.COM driver in the config.sys.
- SSWAP's line in config.sys typically looks like:
-
- DEVICE=C:\STACKER\SSWAP.COM C: D: /SYNC
-
- SSWAP.COM is the non-resident program that switches the drive
- letters. In the example above, drive C: becomes drive D: and drive
- D: becomes drive C:. Optimize reboots your machine a few times and
- writes data to the disk during this process. SSWAP.COM will make
- Optimize think it is writing to C when in fact it was writing to D.
-
- 1. When running Optimize, this device line needs to be either
- remarked or removed temporarily from the CONFIG.SYS. Also,
- your AUTOEXEC.BAT (and some lines in the config.sys that came
- after SSWAP.COM) probably contains references to drive C:. All
- these references (except for references to files that you know
- exist on both the compressed and uncompressed drive) need to be
- changed to drive D:. Conversely, all references to drive D:
- should be changed to drive C:. This is necessary since Optimize
- requires that the CONFIG.SYS and the AUTOEXEC.BAT reside on
- drive C:.
-
- 2. When installing STACKER 2 on a machine with QEMM already
- installed, STACKER2 will automatically copy most of the files
- Optimize needs to the \QEMM subdirectory of the boot
- (uncompressed) drive. As of the date of this writing, the
- STACKER2 install program did not copy TESTBIOS.COM (needed for
- STEALTH testing) and WINSTLTH.VXD (needed for Windows enhanced
- mode if using STEALTH). This means that you have to copy the
- TESTBIOS.COM and WINSTLTH.VXD from the compressed drive to the
- uncompressed \QEMM subdirectory. Go to step 4...
-
- 3. When installing QEMM on an existing STACKER drive, create a
- QEMM sub-directory on the uncompressed drive. (That is C: since
- we already REMOVED SSWAP.COM in step 1.) Some files need to be
- in the QEMM sub-directory in order to run Optimize properly:
- QEMM386.SYS, OPTIMIZE.COM, LOADHI.SYS, TESTBIOS.COM,
- LOADHI.COM, BUFFERS.COM, RSTRCFG.SYS, MCA.ADL (if
- you are running on a microchannel machine), WINHIRAM.VXD and
- WINSTLTH.VXD (if using Windows 3 enhanced mode)
-
- 4. Once you have done this, you should reboot before running
- Optimize so that the drives are set up correctly. Now you
- should be able to run Optimize normally. After Optimize has
- run, you should edit your CONFIG.SYS and restore the SSWAP.COM
- line. Also, you should edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT to restore the
- drive specifications to what they were before; e.g. change all
- references to drive D: to drive C: and all references to drive
- C: to drive D:. Reboot again. You are now getting the most
- out of your conventional memory.
-
- Copyright (C) 1991 by Quarterdeck Office Systems
- * * * E N D O F F I L E * * *