CompuServe Messages

Ron, EMM386.SYS would not have worked on the older 8088 and 80286 bridgeboards, but it works fine on the 386 BB. However, the main reason for not using the Janus emm.sys is that it ONLY provides for expanded memory. If you use windows or any newer DOS software, you don't need expanded memory, you need extended memory (usually called XMS memory.) If you set up both expanded and extended memory, then you reduce the amount of memory available to windows or any other program which needs extended memory. You aalso use up 64k of UMB space for the expanded memory manager's page frame. That means you can't load as many TSRs or other things that can locate in the UMB and not take up conventional memory. On the 386BB you can use EMM386.SYS from DRDOS to handle both extended and/or expanded memory. If you don't want expanded memory, then set the /F switch to NONE and the /K switch to 0. If you do want to set up some expanded memory, then set the /F switch to AUTO and the /K switch to the number of kbytes of expanded memory you want to allocate. Otherwise emm386.sys will treat all of your memory above himem as extended memory. That's what you want if you use windows. No expanded and ALL extended memory. Also be sure to set the /B=FFFF to locate BDOS into the himem area and not in the UMBs. With the 386 BB there is no need to use DRDOS's HIDOS.SYS driver or Janus's emm.sys driver. For your reference here's an abbreviated list of my config.sys: DEVICE=C:\DRDOS\EMM386.SYS /F=NONE /K=0 /B=FFFF /R=AUTO /E=D000-D7FF HIDOS=ON SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:/ \P /E:512 HIDEVICE=C:\DRDOS\ANSI.SYS INSTALL=SHARE.EXE /L:500 HIBUFFERS=(put however many you want. I use 10 and a diskcache program) BREAK=ON FILES=120 The rest of config.sys has stuff in it which DRDOS normally sets up. However, if you find a FCBS line, you can delete that. DRDOS doesn't actually support it, so it's really just a dummy command. I use Hyperdisk disk caching program, so I don't allocate many disk buffers, but if you don't use a caching program, then you want to allocate at least 30 buffers or more to help improve access speed. The share.exe command is there for windows. If you don't need file locking/sharing then you can delete that line. I also have some SETs in the config.sys, but you can put in what you need for your system. If you have other cards which use the UMB, you might need to add onto the /E the addresses to exclude. I have excluded the Janus segment in the above example. You don't need to explicitly exclude the segment your video card uses, emm386.sys will auto skip over it. Hope this is helpful, Ron.