WOW! 😎

Several thoughts...

1) Yes, it was possible to have UMBs and EMS memory via a special software (.sys) on 286s but with 1MB it isn't worth it.

2) I have owned several VGA cards. OAK OTI 067 WAS THE DEVIL!!! I still remember running Joe & Mac Caveman Ninja and seeing how bad it run. It was even worse than Trident.
A few VGA cards were good... TSENG ET4000, Paradise, S3, etc...

Yes, you have proven me wrong. EMS for 286 exists! An interesting collection of tools can be found here:

http://www.filelibrary.com/Contents/DOS/54/36.html

and here:

http://www.bookcase.com/library/software/msdo … til.memory.html

Some are indeed helpful and I can now get the flightstick and other expanded memory features in Wing Commander 1. Still I don't understand why I can't load the expanded memory drivers in the extended memory to have more free conventional memory.

well originally you could just get EMS plugin cards that needed a special driver to control it. Could just get ems on your xt that way too 😀

While searching the net I found that qram from Quarterdeck supports converting EMS on a 286 into UMBs which allow TSRs to be loaded high. (Wow, lots of cool abbreviations...) Unfortunately, I neither had an EMS expansion board nor such a program.

Guess there are simply limits as to what you can do with one meg. (Such as not being able to listen to music in Wing Commander 2 🙁 .) Well, what do we have Dosbox for!

Why not add more memory? IIRC, they are SIMMS aren't they?

Last time I played around with a 286 was back in 1994, still had the same amount of memory as when we bought it back in 1990. 1mb of ram. 😮

Hey cool! Found some SIMMS on pricewatch! Just a dollar or two for a 30pin SIMM.

Well, the question is what to do with the added memory. If I simply add memory to the system board (up to 4MB of SIMMS are possible according to the manual), I believe it would only be available as XMS via Himem.

To use it as EMS I would need a 286-EMS-emulator which exists but has two disadvantages. First, it uses large amounts of conventional memory (no loading of TSRs into UMBs for 286s) second, it would be very slow due to missing EMS hardware support.

Since most games need EMS rather than XMS I think the only option would be an expansion board.

Might want to try out FDXMS286. Newer than the Himem.sys from DOS 6.22. Of course newer doesn't necessarily mean better......

If you are using MS-DOS you may want to switch to FREEDOS, possibly more conventional memory available there.

FreeDOS Homepage

Its not impossible to get more than 600k free on a 286....I've done worse 😉 Get rid of everything in your config that is not needed.

Also, try CTMOUSE in place of mouse.com (that driver eats memory like a sandwich) I believe ctmourse was part of freedos....

Search "Cute Mouse" or "CTMOUSE" in google to get it.

While I do know about these possibilities, out of nostalgia I'd rather want a solution which would have been available "back in the day".

Getting beyond the 600K barrier seems difficult under 6.22 even if you use ctmouse. But I haven't yet tried everything. Perhaps trading DOS=High for the memory himem.sys uses may do the trick, but I'm sceptical about that.

The thing is that I'd like to have about 593K of conventional memory and about 200K of expanded memory to have all features in Wing Commander 1&2. And that seems to be almost impossible with the 286-EMM-emulation drivers.

Man, I dunno how you got it to run on a 80286, I had a 80386 when i was a kid.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/wing-comman … lrathi/techinfo

Though according to Moby the minimum Req was 286. 🤣.

Update on the Quest for Memory

Searching for a way to get real EMS on my 286 I nearly bought this
board which would give me hardware controlled EMS.

But since I read on the web that generally mainboards had hardware support for EMS in the early nineties, I reinspected my motherboard manual and found a surprise:

Memory Subsystem: 4MB using 1M SIMMs 1MB using 156bx4 DRAM chips or 256k SIMMs Support memory mixing of 256K and 1M System BIOS […]
Show full quote

Memory Subsystem:
4MB using 1M SIMMs
1MB using 156bx4 DRAM chips or 256k SIMMs
Support memory mixing of 256K and 1M
System BIOS Shadow
Video BIOS Shadow
Hardware EMS implementation
128K or 256K Eprom Bios space
0 or 1 wait state selectable

Hardware EMS implementation?! How could I overlook this? So I quickly bid on some 1MB SIMM modules and got four for 1 Euro (They would've cost a fortune back in 1990).

Next thing to do was to rip out the DIP type DRAM modules since a memory bank could only be filled with either DIPs or SIMMs. These little bugs really wanted to stay on the board, but brute force got them divorced from their 15-years-marriage with the motherboard. (DIPs look like this and belong into these slots.)

After praying that I hadn't destroyed some already weakened or corroded contacts (the battery is leaking and some resistors already look ugly - what do you clean a motherboard with?) and that the old 30-pin-SIMMs still work, I switched on the computer. To my big relief I already heard him counting up the memory really long while the monitor was still warming up.

Upon entering the bios I saw the satisfying number of 3072 KB extended memory. But starting DOS and typing mem my exhilaration was soon ended by noticing that there was no EMS. Well, what did I think, hardware controlled or not - DOS would need a driver. Ok I thought, RTFM. Looking into the BIOS documentation only revealed the following mysterious statement:

Hardware LIM EMS is supported using 4 register sets for software applications which require expansion memory. Hardware EMS can also be disabled allowing the use of software "Limulators" for maximum flexibility.

Well, obviously it can be disabled. What about enabling? Perhaps my BIOS lacked the functionality for activating the EMS my chipset provides? Googling for answers I found this nice page providing the first hint. My chipset is the HT12 (286, 6xISA, memory controller w/ EMS, fully) so EMS really should be possible.

Ok, so I used different google queries with the word "ht12" in them. Lo and behold! There really exists a DOS driver for the Headland chipset! Exactly one site on the net still hosts it. Maybe it's gone in two months (who cares for such old DOS stuff) so I've been really lucky.

After fighting a little with the driver I now listen to The Emperor of Kilrah planning the final Terran destruction! And 4 MB still give me plenty of room for hard disk caching. My oldschool device is now really a 286 on steroids!

Impressive work! 😎

Hey, thanks. It was a pretty cool oldschool experience... 😎

I'm still impressed with the coicidence by which I got hold of this old driver. I had almost given up and thought it would be lost forever.

I'm curious if anyone here has ever used Quarterdeck QRAM on a 286? It is supposed to provide UMBs somehow.

Congratulations on your work with the 286, I would have chickened out because of the memory issues and got a 386sx instead (I hate protected mode memory drivers, but at least they are a fallback 😜).

There are a couple of UMB drivers that should be useable with 286 CPUs. Most of them are still available on the net, but I'm not sure if there is one compatible with the Headland chipset (The ones that i've got on my 486 aren't). It is possible that someone supported this chipset, because it was one of the more powerful in the days of yore (even better than C&T's NEAT).

It was a wise decision not to buy the EMS board, because access via the AT-bus is really slow.

Do yourself a favour and exchange the OAK VGA with an ET4000 (These are very cheap on Ebay) 😀

Hmm, I can't remember exactly what UMB drivers/programs I tried but I think none worked with the Headland chipset. There are none specifically designed for this chipset, either.

As for the graphics card, I have better ISA VGA cards but I didn't want to exchange anything which would alter the incredibly slow Wing Commander performance (apart from loading time).