First post, by boggit
Hi all!
- Today, I set up my new system: An Acer 386SX-33mhz using [this motherboard] with 8 mb RAM (two 4 mb SIMM cards).
- I am using a 128 mb compact flash card for hard drive, installing PC DOS 7.01 (aka PC DOS 2000) to use for operating system.
- I intend to use this system for playing some late '80s/early '90s games, and I thus need to get beyond the 640k barrier. However, what I knew about memory management back when I was a wee youngster in the mid-'90s, I have long since forgotten, and I am grasping to comprehend terms like UMB, high memory, XMS and EMS.
- I ran into my first problem almost right away, when running PC DOS 7.01's RAMSETUP.EXE, having it put himem.sys and ems386 into my config.sys. On startup, HIMEM.SYS reports an error:
Unable to control A20 line! XMS Driver not available.
- I googled around a bit in search for a solution, but didn't really stumble upon many other users (here on Vogons or elsewhere) with a similar enough context (or relevant enough solutions) for me.
- CheckIt Pro confirms that I am in Real mode, with A20 off:
- I've fiddled around a bit in CMOS Setup, but cannot find any option explicitly dealing with access to the A20 gate:
Basic CMOS setup:
Advanced CMOS setup:
This is what my SIMM memory cards look like:
Some memory-related screens from Norton System Information:
So, what should I do to get high memory/XMS working? Or is that even the right thing to pursue? Are there better ways for me to make use of my 8 mb of RAM?