Sneakernets wrote on 2025-05-09, 22:01:

EMS can be emulated on later CPUs, but it's never the other way around...

I understand you have some kind of a hardware EMS card in your XT clone. Maybe providing XMS would be a solution? I have spent an evening writing an XMS 2.0 driver that uses EMS memory as a backend. I named it "EXMS86". It is attached to this post.

Since I do not have any EMS card I cannot really test it. I did run it under 86box with an emulated "Bocaram XT" memory card and was able to play large MIDI files with DOSMid. I do not know if it will cooperate as seamlessly with the real thing. Let me know if this is helpful.

mateusz.viste wrote on 2025-07-16, 14:57:

Sneakernets wrote on 2025-05-09, 22:01:

EMS can be emulated on later CPUs, but it's never the other way around...

I understand you have some kind of a hardware EMS card in your XT clone. Maybe providing XMS would be a solution? I have spent an evening writing an XMS 2.0 driver that uses EMS memory as a backend. I named it "EXMS86". It is attached to this post.

Since I do not have any EMS card I cannot really test it. I did run it under 86box with an emulated "Bocaram XT" memory card and was able to play large MIDI files with DOSMid. I do not know if it will cooperate as seamlessly with the real thing. Let me know if this is helpful.

You are correct that I have a 2 MB EMS board installed, and, Holy crap, this program works!

It doesn't work while USE!UMBS v2.2 is running, but I guess that comes with the territory!

But, nothing a boot disk can't fix, I suppose.

mateusz.viste wrote on 2025-07-16, 14:57:

Sneakernets wrote on 2025-05-09, 22:01:

EMS can be emulated on later CPUs, but it's never the other way around...

I understand you have some kind of a hardware EMS card in your XT clone. Maybe providing XMS would be a solution? I have spent an evening writing an XMS 2.0 driver that uses EMS memory as a backend. I named it "EXMS86". It is attached to this post.

Since I do not have any EMS card I cannot really test it. I did run it under 86box with an emulated "Bocaram XT" memory card and was able to play large MIDI files with DOSMid. I do not know if it will cooperate as seamlessly with the real thing. Let me know if this is helpful.

uhhh holy crap? could we get this as a package for freedos? this is amazing

Sneakernets wrote on 2025-07-16, 16:18:

It doesn't work while USE!UMBS v2.2 is running, but I guess that comes with the territory!

Could you provide more information about the not-working symptoms when USE!UMBS is used?
I have created a separate thread for EXMS86 to avoid polluting the DOSMid board. -> EXMS86 (XMS for your 8086)

megatog615 wrote:

uhhh holy crap? could we get this as a package for freedos? this is amazing

That's no big deal really, just a couple of hours playing with nasm. But I like your enthusiasm. :-)
I'm not a huge fan of FreeDOS, but EXMS is distributed on its own website now and a SvarDOS package will be published later today.

mateusz.viste wrote on 2025-07-16, 20:22:

Could you provide more information about the not-working symptoms when USE!UMBS is used? I have created a separate thread for EX […]
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Sneakernets wrote on 2025-07-16, 16:18:

It doesn't work while USE!UMBS v2.2 is running, but I guess that comes with the territory!

Could you provide more information about the not-working symptoms when USE!UMBS is used?
I have created a separate thread for EXMS86 to avoid polluting the DOSMid board. -> EXMS86 (XMS for your 8086)

megatog615 wrote:

uhhh holy crap? could we get this as a package for freedos? this is amazing

That's no big deal really, just a couple of hours playing with nasm. But I like your enthusiasm. 😀
I'm not a huge fan of FreeDOS, but EXMS is distributed on its own website now and a SvarDOS package will be published later today.

I posted what I found in the other thread. It does work when I make a boot disk and turn DOSMAX and USE!UMBs off (they kinda go together, so no sense having one without the other).