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- >>>>> "Gene" == I HATE INDIANA WEATHER <DECLARKG@DEPAUW.EDU> writes:
-
- Gene> I am trying to run Exec/Dos 1.99o on Windows 3.1 and am
- Gene> having trouble with memory allocation. Basically, I need to
- Gene> know how best to set the PIF parameters.
-
- Gene> What happens is this: after loading up the soundblaster
- Gene> and CD-ROM drive (the first because it will I assume
- Gene> eventually work with Exec. and the second because it does) I
- Gene> have 5.06 free DPMI memory (I think that's the acronym).
-
- You should alter your config.sys so that you have a special option for
- booting when you plan to run Executor. In it, you should cut out
- soundblaster (it doesn't work right now; you can restore it later) and
- trim your CD-ROM drive buffer down to 256k or so. That should leave
- you with about 7.5 MB left at this point.
-
- Gene> But, with Windows, automatically 2 Meg (by the way, that
- Gene> should read 5.06 Meg) goes to smartdrive (it's amost
- Gene> impossible to run Windows without it, even on a fast 100MHz
- Gene> DX4) and 0.88 to Windows.
-
- You can then trim the smartdrive down to 512k, so you'll then be at
- about 6 MB left.
-
- Gene> So, thanks to the wonderful way
- Gene> in which DOS and Windows allocates and reallocates memory,
- Gene> if I run just about any application before Executor, I end
- Gene> up with about 0.4 Meg left... out of 8 Meg!
-
- Well, now you can run a 1 MB app and still have 5 MB left.
-
- Gene> Forget about
- Gene> running multiple copies of Executor for multitasking... you
- Gene> can't even run it once!
-
- Executor itself takes up about 1.5 MB of memory before doing anything
- else, so you're now down to about 3 MB left, which means you can get
- about a 1.5 MB ApplZone and still have room to avoid paging.
-
- Gene> And even if it is the first thing I
- Gene> launch, it still won't run much of the software, especially
- Gene> memory intensive stuff (like spell checking on MS Word 5.1a,
- Gene> which doesn't work even with 5.06 Meg DPMI available...)
-
- Gene> What should I do?
-
- I would suggest running Executor from DOS instead of from Windows.
- Word 5.1a runs fine on our 75 MHz DX4 laptop with a 512 kb read only
- smartdrive.
-
- Other than trimming the buffers, like I suggest above, programs
- require memory -- Windows requires memory, Executor requires memory,
- the programs that you run under Executor require memory.
-
- Gene> Just wait for Windows '95?? I
- Gene> really can't afford to buy more physical memory (especially
- Gene> since I'd only need it to run Exec on Windows, which isn't
- Gene> all THAT critical... but it would make cutting and pasting
- Gene> between DOS and Exec stuff easier (then so would a DOS
- Gene> shell...)) .
-
- Executor is a windowing operating system all by itself, *and* a
- synthetic CPU. There's no way we can significantly trim its memory
- requirement, but if you cut out Windows and big buffers, you should be
- able to run on an 8 Mb system without much hassle.
-
- Gene> How about the RAM doubling software out there for IBM
- Gene> compatibles? I really don't know how well it works, but it
- Gene> is much cheaper. Do you know if said application would work
- Gene> when Exec is running? I would think so, but then I didn't
- Gene> think it would override doublespace either... which it did.
-
- I don't know about RAM doubling software.
-
- Gene> I made a 400 Meg HFV file on a compressed drive and it's
- Gene> reported in Exec as 200 Meg... not all that surprising, but
- Gene> kind of disappointing.
-
- Hmmm... that's very surprising to me. If DOS shows the file as 400
- MB, Executor should think it is 400 MB, too. I've had other people
- say that it works, although the compression ratio that they get varies
- greatly depending on how much free space is still "virgin".
-
- --Cliff
- ctm@ardi.com
-
-