VOGONS


First post, by Harry Potter

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Hi! I've been helping the people here get more memory from DOS, and now it's my turn to ask. I probably don't currently need this right now, but I'm looking for more ways to increase available UMB memory. In general, other than the strategies I've stated here before, what can I do to gain available memory for DOS?

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 1 of 21, by Jo22

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Hi, my current favorite is Helix software/Cloaking technology. 🙂
It will run especially adapted DOS drivers past the 1 MB barrier, and merely leaves small stubs in conventional memory. If only DOS itself had been Cloaking enabled.. sigh.
Re: Can I skip Smartdrive?

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 3 of 21, by Jo22

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Hi, sure. There are a few applications that support it.
Re: DOS Memory maximization

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 5 of 21, by Jo22

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Good luck! 😃🤞

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 6 of 21, by Harry Potter

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I looked at the docs but can't install it right now, as I'm not at my mother's house where the laptop resides. 🙁 Other than for cloaking technology, how does it fare against QEMM?

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 7 of 21, by megatron-uk

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Of course EMM386 (and equivalent EMS providers) can make UMB available, but the main downside is that they put the CPU into v86 mode. Sometimes this isn't a good thing. Better is to create UMB to load drivers and other bits of DOS into without having to use EMM386/v86 mode. This can be done, but it's reliant on some other components (and often chipset-specific support):

UMB_PCI.SYS
https://www.uwe-sieber.de/umbpci_e.html

UMB_DRVR
http://www.win3x.org/win3board/viewtopic.php? … =26070&view=min

The Last Byte
https://archive.org/details/TLB_V231_ZIP (there's a 2.52 version kicking around the web, too)

Some of these even allow you to load HIMEM/EMM386 (or their alternatives) into UMB, freeing even more base memory. On one of my systems with a compatible chipset I was able to get all the PCMCIA drivers loaded, a cdrom driver, the Roland SCP-55 enabler, the 4DOS shell and most of DOS out of base memory, leaving a very healthy 627KB free.

Both UMB_DRVR and TLB have the big advantage that, if you have the right hardware, they also work on 286 hardware!

My collection database and technical wiki:
https://www.target-earth.net

Reply 8 of 21, by Jo22

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I looked at the docs but can't install it right now, as I'm not at my mother's house where the laptop resides. 🙁 Other than for cloaking technology, how does it fare against QEMM?

Hi, it depends. It's not a rival to QEMM but rather an alternative.
Helix Multimedia Cloaking has an DPMI-enabled Cloaking manager and a set of replacement drivers for MSCDEX, MOUSE, SMARTDRV.
That helps to reduce memory consumption without loosing features.
Other cloaking-enabled drivers migbt exist, as well.
QEMM9 can still be loaded (I tried), with a little bit of caution.

Edit: The other Helix software packages do ship with cloaking-enabled BIOSes and other things.
That way, it's possible to get the big parts of PC/AT BIOS out of the UMA.
It's a very interesting concept, I think. The use of pointers.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 9 of 21, by Harry Potter

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I actually was forced to use UMBPCI on a Win98SE tower, because I had no other way to get UIMBs or EMS in DOS under Windows mode. Thank you for your advice. 😀

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 10 of 21, by Jo22

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Hi, EMS Magic can be used under difficult situations.
https://www.emsmagic.com/

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 11 of 21, by Harry Potter

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I just looked at it but don't think I need it, as UMBPCI works fine. However, the web site doesn't mention any benefits over other UMB/EMS providers other than support for later verions of Windows. What are they?

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 12 of 21, by Harry Potter

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I just looked again and found that it copies data to and from EMS by software. I also just remembered that I tried it before, and it didn't work. 🙁

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 13 of 21, by Jo22

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Ah I see, never mind then. I'm just glad that UMBPCI does the trick! ^^

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 14 of 21, by Harry Potter

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I don't like that UMBPCI doesn't allow the use of the mono buffer as UMBs, but it does everything else I want it to do. 😀 IIRC, I have EMS, XMS, a RAM drive and DOSKEY installed for DOS. Is there anything else I can use for DOS in Windows mode? BTW, I have an alternate ANSI driver, but I don't think I have it installed there.

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 15 of 21, by analog_programmer

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Jo22, I have some questions for you.

Are there any free packs/collections with cloacking capable device drivers for Helix Netroom?

What can be done for complete substitution of the buggy M$ EMM386.EXE UMBs/EMS manager? EMSmagic seems very promising for the EMS part, but what about the UMBs without using hardware dependent and mostly not 100% compatible UMBPCI? I wish I could use DOS 7.10 (the one from win98) without its terrible EMM manager and not to sacrifice windows98 compatibility when using some EMM386.EXE substitutes like JemmEx/Jemm386 (QEMM also has its problems).

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Reply 16 of 21, by Jo22

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analog_programmer wrote on 2024-12-16, 19:31:

Jo22, I have some questions for you.

Hi, I'll try to answer as best as I can. 😅

analog_programmer wrote on 2024-12-16, 19:31:

Are there any free packs/collections with cloacking capable device drivers for Helix Netroom?

I'm not sure, have to check.

Disks with cloaking-enabled drivers were bundled free of charge with certain hardware, such as computer mice or CD-ROM drives.

Problem is, that cloaking-enabled drivers don't look any different from their normal versions.
The cloaked MSCDEX can run without Helix software, just like ordinary MSCDEX can.
It even supports EMS as an option, which makes it take up more memory than if just cloaked.

Then there are BIOS-related things.
Many PC BIOSes of the 90s did use cloaking technology to keep memory foot print small.

The Helix Netroom 3 software even ships with some BIOSes, I think.
So users of certain 90s PC didn't just got a smaller RAM BIOS, but also a free BIOS upgrade of some sort.

Note that Helix 1 and 2 were more like conventional* memory managers.
Their focus was on providing better memory for network environments.
Novell, Banan and Microsoft network software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Netroom

(*Though the VM approach for running the network drivers outside of conventional memory was creative, I must say.)

Edit: Here's a low-res version of a Netroom advertisement.
It's from 1992, so it predates Netroom 3.

Netroom1992.jpg
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Helix Netroom advertisement, Febr 1992, v2.1?
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analog_programmer wrote on 2024-12-16, 19:31:

What can be done for complete substitution of the buggy M$ EMM386.EXE UMBs/EMS manager? EMSmagic seems very promising for the EMS part, but what about the UMBs without using hardware dependent and mostly not 100% compatible UMBPCI? I wish I could use DOS 7.10 (the one from win98) without its terrible EMM manager and not to sacrifice windows98 compatibility when using some EMM386.EXE substitutes like JemmEx/Jemm386 (QEMM also has its problems).

I'm speaking under correction, but I think that EMM386 from later releases of IBM DOS is quite good.
A few bugs had been fixed that did exist in EMM386 supplied with MS-DOS 6.x.
The only downside is that the switches aren’t same. MemMaker might not work so well with IBM's EMM386.

Another version worth a look might be EMM386 of Japanese DOS (DOS/V).
Japanese DOS relies a lot on EMM386 to make all the language-specific utilities fit memory.
By comparison, in western DOS, EMM386 isn't even installed by default.
MS-DOS/V 6.20 is latest Japanese MS-DOS, but there are other versions of DOS/V of course.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 17 of 21, by igully

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I will add in my TODO list, to enumerate within a list the cloaking drivers/applications implemented: memory is a little fuzzy but I remember Norton Antivirus 4.x, some Logitech pointing devices (mouse and trackballs), as already mentioned, MSCDEX, a SMARTDRV cache clone, a RAMDRIVE clone, ethernet drivers for a specific manufacturer, screen savers, and an entire BIOS reimplementation.

My notes regarding EMM managers:

EMM386 v4.95 - from Windows 95 - craps with FDAPM.COM /APMDOS or any /ADV mode when inserting/ejecting floppies

EMM386 v4.50 - from IBM PC-DOS 2000/7 - craps with APACK.EXE on its built-in 32-bit DOS extender (might negatively affect other 32-bit DOS extenders)

EMM386 v4.49 - from MS-DOS 6.22 - No >4GB RAM support, and prone to FDAPM bug issue too.

QEMM in all versions does not support proper power management and cpu speed slowdown programs (they halt the cpu), with only a maximum of 256 MB of RAM. It is also too aggressive when looking for available RAM "pockets" to use, and when it fails in this, it crashes.

JEMMEX maintainer refuses to support GEMMIS to run Windows 3.x in enhanced mode. Some hacks and workarounds do exist, but are not for everyone. Compromised
compatibility, but otherwise small and still maintained.

EMSMAGIC does not run with Windows 1.x/2.x

Best bet is still, IMHO, Microsoft's EMM386 v4.95, which despite its shortcomings with FDAPM and its huge size (125KB), does support >4GB of RAM and is vastly superior than all other counterparts when it comes to compatibility (Any coder willing to pack EMM386.exe v4.95 in order to shrink it down a bit?).

Reply 18 of 21, by Jo22

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igully wrote on 2024-12-17, 18:56:

EMSMAGIC does not run with Windows 1.x/2.x

Really? WTF is this statement supposed to mean? 🤷‍♂️

My apologies for my wording, but the way this (complaint ?) reads is close to a provocation.
- Because discussing optimization of Windows 98 era system first, and then arguing about missing support of obsolete toy Windows from 1986/87. That's.. odd. 😟

To me that's as if we're talking about how good MS-DOS 6.22 is for general compatibility,
but then some voice says "But it can’t run CHESS from 86-DOS 0.11! But PC-DOS 1.x can!"
I mean, sure, that might be true, but.. Oh well. 😮‍💨

Anyway, never mind..
But just for sake of curiosity, does EMM286 do any better or worse here? 🙎‍♂️

And how about Windows 3.0 in Real-Mode, if we're at it? 🙎‍♂️
It will fail with both EMM286 and EMSmagic, I guess?

To my understanding, Real-Mode Windows has quite some demands when it comes to Expanded Memory support.

That's just natural considering that Windows 2.x /386 has its own EMS provider built-in (sort of a cousin of EMM386).
- Whereas normal Windows 2.x ships with drivers for EEMS/LIM4 compatible expanded memory boards, such as AST Rampage or Intel Aboveboard.

Edit: And we must consider this: Windows is a multitasking or multi-program environment. Things like context-switches may happen.
EMS use must be coordinated somehow, thus. So that multiple programs can use EMS simultanously, such as Excel and PageMaker, without corrupting data.
Not sure how it does work in detail, but this might be different than providing EMS to one single EMS-aware DOS program.

EMS always had been the centre of memory support in the 1980s, in short.
Larger Windows applications needed EMS badly because they couldn't access XMS or Extended Memory.

DESQView even wanted to use that back-filling trick that required moving most RAM from system motherboard over to the EMS board, so it could act as an MMU.

IBM had an even more advanced type called "XMA", which was more like EEMS and with a huge page frame.

IBM's own EMS drivers in PC DOS 4 had compatibility issues with EMS software, such as Windows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_memory
http://annex.retroarchive.org/cdrom/orig_shar … 4WIND/DOS40.TXT

Windows 3.0 even supports two kinds of EMS, Small Frame (64KB) and Large Frame (256KB) type.

And it's EMM386 who provides the latter type, of course.

If you're running MemMaker, it will ask for Windows support.
Answering with "yes" will make Windows 2.x and 3.x see proper EMS support.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 19 of 21, by igully

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I just came across more notes on Helix "cloaking" related products:

Helix licensed a version of Award Software's BIOS and developed cloaked system and video
BIOSes which executed entirely in protected mode, reducing their real-mode memory
footprint down to 8 KB (instead of 96 KB) and used these as run-time BIOS in
conjunction with their NETROOM memory manager.

As part of their Multimedia Cloaking product, Helix provided cloaked versions of
a home-grown disk cache to replace Microsoft's SmartDrive cache driver.
Helix's CACHECLK could reduce conventional memory usage from 30 KB to just 5 KB.

There was also a product named Multimedia Stacker consisting of Stac's DPMS-enabled
Stacker 4.01 with Helix's above suite of cloaked DOS utilities.

The Logitech DOS mouse driver since MouseWare 6.50 was enabled to take advantage of
CLOAKING as well, thereby reducing the mouse driver's memory footprint visible to DOS
applications from 27 KB to 1 KB.

The MSCDEX Helix variant could reduce conventional memory footprint from 36 KB to 3 KB.

CLOAKING was also licensed to Symantec for their utility suite (Norton Utilities and Norton Antivirus), to Corel for their
CD Creator and Corel SCSI products, and to SMC Networks for their Ethernet drivers.

Also, it seems that version 3.x required a 386+, but versions 2.x could work (up to some extent) with a 286 cpu.