VOGONS


First post, by Stiletto

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...and free upgrades for VPC4 users! 😀

Homepage here:
http://www.connectix.com/products/vpc5w.html

Read what's new here:
http://www.connectix.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimate … c&f=18&t=000014

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 5 of 14, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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More good news: UMBPCI.SYS _does_ indeed work under "Virtual PC" now:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
UMBPCI c't 11/95 - Siering/Schapers/Stiller
V3.40 - support for new Intel/VIA/ALI/SIS chipsets + P2 - Uwe Sieber 06/02
Using CC00-DFFF
Intel 440ZX w/o AGP found
Program installed
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haven't thoroughly tested it yet, but the author says loading DOSKEY.COM high with it is a good test, and that worked fine.

So now I can test "Memory Pigs" with the same ease as on my Win98 partition. It also means that if your motherboard doesn't support UMBPCI natively, you get a second chance with Virtual PC.

Reply 8 of 14, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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Snover wrote:

Yeah, except QEMM sucks, so why does it matter? 😉

Hey, QEMM dug me out of some serious holes in the old days. On my original 486 I couldn't get 600K to save my life.

There were a lot of titles that simply WOULD NOT work without QEMM. (Of course, there were a bunch that REFUSED to work while it was there, too...)

That's what multi-config's were made for...

Reply 9 of 14, by Snover

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It's also what good configuation files were for 😉

Seriously. With VirtualPC you shouldn't NEED to have QEMM. If you do, there's something flawed with it (VPC, although QEMM is flawed as well 😉)

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 10 of 14, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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Snover wrote:

Seriously. With VirtualPC you shouldn't NEED to have QEMM. If you do, there's something flawed with it (VPC, although QEMM is flawed as well 😉)

Actually, it's a sign of good emulation. Remember, I'm talking about memory pigs: DOS Mouse Driver, DOS CD-ROM Driver (plus some DOS tools that for special VPC functions) and still need 600K+ for the game/utility itself.

IOW, it's working like a real DOS-PC.

So it's :
QEMM or UMBPCI or MEMMAKER or "cross your fingers and hope that this doesn't need EMS or Upper memory or anything at all fancy".

With UMBPCI I can just plop UMBPCI.SYS into the CONFIG.SYS (all 240 bytes of it) and BING! I've got 384k of Upper Memory to use as I please.

The only real down-sides are that it's only useful in a DOS/Win9x enviroment (obviously) and that it only works on some hardware configurations.
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/umbpci_e.html

Reply 11 of 14, by Snover

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I'd think it would be better to have CD drivers and EMS drivers and sound card drivers (route to card via *Out) automatic, without using any conventional memory. Just my opinion. (It'd sure as shit make things a helluva lot easier to do.)

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 12 of 14, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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That's kind of what I was thinking but with a slight variation. If they made all of it "automatic" they'd probably break the DOS emulation (you could make DOS SoundBlaster emulation without an IRQ. But if you did DOS programs would freak out when they couldn't find the IRQ). To "keep it legal" they could make tiny drivers (mouse/CD-ROM) that draws all it's _real_ resources from the real PC but leaves something in the actual DOS so the OS can "see it there". That should allow the maximum amount of memory while keep the emulation "legitimate".

Unfortunately, DOS emulation, Base memory, and Game compatibility are of no interest to Connectix; so I don't see it happening anytime soon.