vkcpolice wrote on 2022-04-03, 04:11:
its hard to find software that runs on windows 3 in real mode
Some programs, such as those written with Turbo Pascal/Windows, may run in theory, but in practice the little conventional memory of ~640KB isn't enough for them to fit. 🙁
Even in the Windows 1.x days, Windows programs ran out of memory quickly.
The only way out is bank-switching via Expanded Memory.
Luckily, Windows 3 Real Mode kernal can use Expanded Memory.
But yeah, Windows 3.0 was quickly obsoleted by Windows 3.0 MME and Windows 3.1x.
Most programs want to see Windows 3.1, thus.
Unfortunately, it can run on 286+ only. 🙁
Personally, I can merely attest that the 286 from my childhood ran very well on Windows 3.1x.
It had both banks filled with 1MB SIMMs, though.
And that's the problem. It's not possible to use the full potential of a 286 with a lousy Megabyte of RAM, no matter how.
One Megabyte was barely enough for professional software from ~1986, even.
DesqView, Lotus 123, DTP programs etc. they all wanted more memory than available.
That's why Expanded Memory boards for DOS and PC/XTs came into existence.
Most started with 512KB capacity, whike 2MB was the "full" capacity often. Of course, EMS can go up to 32MB, but I meant in practice. Memory was expensive back then.
As a workaround, professional software also used overlays or swap files sometimes.
Which was very slow, though, especially if huge amounts of data were processed (dBase databases, etc).
Sadly, though, Windows never used them. It didn't even supported swap files on a 286 like OS/2 1.x did,
but entirely relied on the hardware paging ability of the 386 MMU. Those lazy dogs at Microsoft. 😉
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