From: sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu (Charles Sandmann)
Message-Id: <9706121523.AA17392@clio.rice.edu>
Subject: Re: suggestion for moving DTA to fixed place in __tb
To: Vik DOT Heyndrickx AT rug DOT ac DOT be (Vik Heyndrickx)
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:23:47 -0600 (CDT)
Cc: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To: <339FF899.5D7@rug.ac.be> from "Vik Heyndrickx" at Jun 12, 97 03:24:41 pm
Content-Type: text
Precedence: bulk

> I've seen that while compiling large packages like the copilers
> themselves, nearly a quarter of all DOS interrupts is to set the DTA
> address (int 21-1Ah), over and over again to the same address. 
> So, why don't we set the DTA address to the start of __tb in crt1.c and
> leave it there for the rest of the program? 

As a matter of fact, in the very first version of the libc I wrote for
V2 (and one I still use myself) it was done this way.  There were
some concerns over when it needed to be reset if ever (when spawning, etc)
and it was never re-addressed to see if there was a significant speed
issue.  The first release of the libc is significantly faster than the
current version, but it has a lot fewer capabilities.