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Dos 6 conventional memory tricks

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Reply 61 of 298, by Iris030380

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Back in the day I never had a game I couldn't get enough memory for, even if it meant sacrificing one thing or another in order to make it work. However, I came across a good guide a few years ago and have had a lot of success with it, if only I'd have known all this back in the early 90's! But then I was the only one out of my friends who even owned a PC... It's a long read and the authors english isn't tip-top, but it might help some people.

It's a good read!

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Reply 62 of 298, by valnar

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I've been using DOSMax, UMBPCI.SYS and the like for years and just bought a Toshiba Libretto 100CT. I'm going through my whole optimization process on the boot files now.

One peculiarity. Has anyone seen this or know how to fix it?

If I load DOSMAX.EXE in the config.sys (DEVICE=DOSMAX.EXE) it loads all the appropriate parts high and seems to work fine, but I can no longer issue a ctrl-alt-del to reboot the laptop. In fact, doing so makes it freeze and no longer respond to any key press. I have to shut it off and boot cold. It works fine without DOSMAX, so that's the culprit.

Any ideas?

Edit: Fixed it. There are some additional parameters which can be used with DOSMAX to handle that.

DEVICE=C:\XYZ\DOSMAX.EXE N+ P- R- U02 U08 U09 U0A U0B U0C U0D U0E U70 U72 U73 U74 U76 U77

Last edited by valnar on 2010-12-31, 18:56. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 63 of 298, by DonutKing

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Are you using emm386? You can specify the altboot parameter for emm386 in your config.sys which changes the ctrl+alt+del handling:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722864.aspx

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 64 of 298, by Alphakilo470

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For my retrobox, most of my software doesn't need much of the lower 640k. The few games I have that require more conventional memory all handle mouse and sound themselves so I just simply reboot and hold down the shift key while doing so.

On a computer I had awhile ago, I just had separate autoexec and config.sys files that'd I'd use depending on if I wanted to use Windows or one of my fussy games. Then I wrote a batch file that'd rename the appropriate files when I wanted to change how the computer booted.

Reply 65 of 298, by valnar

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Alphakilo470 wrote:

On a computer I had awhile ago, I just had separate autoexec and config.sys files that'd I'd use depending on if I wanted to use Windows or one of my fussy games. Then I wrote a batch file that'd rename the appropriate files when I wanted to change how the computer booted.

That's what boot menus are for.
http://www.mindspring.com/~dmerriman/Bootup.htm

Reply 66 of 298, by schlang

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am I the only one who is using these small DOS replacement drivers?

- kbd.com (http://www.helmrohr.de/ftproot/Kbd.zip)
- doskey (http://paulhoule.com/doskey/index.php)

PC#1: K6-III+ 400 | 512MB | Geforce4 | Voodoo1 | SB Live | AWE64 | GUS PNP Pro
PC#2: 486DX2-66 | 64MB | Riva128 | AWE64 | GUS PNP | PAS16
PC#3: 386DX-40 | 32MB | CL-GD5434 | SB Pro | GUS MAX | PAS16

Think you know your games music? Show us: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=37532

Reply 67 of 298, by rick12373

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Which version of QEMM should I use for a 486DX4 100?

486 DX4-100 (overdrive)
16MB 72-pin SIMM RAM (2x8MB)
1MB Diamond Speedstar Pro VLB video card
SB 16 Value CT2770
AOpen VI15G Socket 3 Motherboard
HDD/FDD VLB controller card

Reply 69 of 298, by rick12373

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There must be some differences between the versions. I just wanted to know which one to look out for.

486 DX4-100 (overdrive)
16MB 72-pin SIMM RAM (2x8MB)
1MB Diamond Speedstar Pro VLB video card
SB 16 Value CT2770
AOpen VI15G Socket 3 Motherboard
HDD/FDD VLB controller card

Reply 70 of 298, by Jorpho

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Whatever the differences are, they are unlikely to affect the program's functionality on a 486 DX4. I do not understand what would lead you to believe otherwise.

(Admittedly UMBPCI has no chance of working on a 486, but UMBPCI is not QEMM.)

Reply 71 of 298, by rick12373

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Jorpho wrote:

Whatever the differences are, they are unlikely to affect the program's functionality on a 486 DX4. I do not understand what would lead you to believe otherwise.

(Admittedly UMBPCI has no chance of working on a 486, but UMBPCI is not QEMM.)

OK, no problem. That makes me wonder why they bothered bringing out newer versions if they didn't significantly add or change anything worth mentioning. Anyway, I have a choice of QEMM 8.0 or QEMM 97. I seem to remember using 97 back then, I'll try that one.

486 DX4-100 (overdrive)
16MB 72-pin SIMM RAM (2x8MB)
1MB Diamond Speedstar Pro VLB video card
SB 16 Value CT2770
AOpen VI15G Socket 3 Motherboard
HDD/FDD VLB controller card

Reply 73 of 298, by rick12373

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sliderider wrote:

Do you even need programs like QEMM if you know how to set up your .bat and .sys files correctly?

You do if you can't remember all of the tricks you used to know 15+ years ago. Like me 😁

486 DX4-100 (overdrive)
16MB 72-pin SIMM RAM (2x8MB)
1MB Diamond Speedstar Pro VLB video card
SB 16 Value CT2770
AOpen VI15G Socket 3 Motherboard
HDD/FDD VLB controller card

Reply 74 of 298, by Jorpho

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rick12373 wrote:
Jorpho wrote:

Whatever the differences are, they are unlikely to affect the program's functionality on a 486 DX4. I do not understand what would lead you to believe otherwise.

(Admittedly UMBPCI has no chance of working on a 486, but UMBPCI is not QEMM.)

OK, no problem. That makes me wonder why they bothered bringing out newer versions if they didn't significantly add or change anything worth mentioning.

Of course they changed things. But what do you think they would change to break compatibility with a 486 DX4?

Reply 75 of 298, by rick12373

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Jorpho wrote:
rick12373 wrote:
Jorpho wrote:

Whatever the differences are, they are unlikely to affect the program's functionality on a 486 DX4. I do not understand what would lead you to believe otherwise.

(Admittedly UMBPCI has no chance of working on a 486, but UMBPCI is not QEMM.)

OK, no problem. That makes me wonder why they bothered bringing out newer versions if they didn't significantly add or change anything worth mentioning.

Of course they changed things. But what do you think they would change to break compatibility with a 486 DX4?

It really doesn't matter anymore. I am going to use 97.

486 DX4-100 (overdrive)
16MB 72-pin SIMM RAM (2x8MB)
1MB Diamond Speedstar Pro VLB video card
SB 16 Value CT2770
AOpen VI15G Socket 3 Motherboard
HDD/FDD VLB controller card

Reply 76 of 298, by rug

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Fair call...

Personally I love DOSKEY but do not use SMARTDRV

Do you prefer DosKey over 4Dos? If yes, why?

Cheers,
Rita Graça.

My DOS machine: MS-DOS 6.22, Pentium MMX 200MHz, 64MB RAM, AWE64 Gold, 4GB HD, Philips 19" CRT, 3"1/2 Floppy, CDROM, Parallel ZIP, ThrustMaster FLCS+TQL+Elite.

Reply 77 of 298, by gerwin

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From the The Windows 98 Config.txt File, and some internet articles.
This information goes for MS-DOS 7.10.

BUFFERS: 1...99, default 30, Disk buffers, 528-bytes memory each!.
FILES: 8..255, default 8, File access entries, 40-bytes memory each.
FCBS 1..255, default 4, file control blocks (FCBs) for DOS network file sharing.
STACKS: [n,s] n=0 of 8..64, s(size)=32..512. Data stacks to handle hardware interrupts?

In a configuration without EMM386 you might want to keep buffers low to save base memory. But a value between 10 and 20 is generally recommended.
so:
BUFFERS=10
FILES=40
FCBS=1
STACKS=0,0

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 78 of 298, by schlang

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be careful with the stacks settings, disabling them will cause a lot of games to crash

PC#1: K6-III+ 400 | 512MB | Geforce4 | Voodoo1 | SB Live | AWE64 | GUS PNP Pro
PC#2: 486DX2-66 | 64MB | Riva128 | AWE64 | GUS PNP | PAS16
PC#3: 386DX-40 | 32MB | CL-GD5434 | SB Pro | GUS MAX | PAS16

Think you know your games music? Show us: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=37532