From: sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu (Charles Sandmann)
Subject: Re: Some "stupid" questions from a new user
To: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 1995 11:19:23 -0600 (CDT)
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu

> Is that the reason that a program is unable to malloc() more than half of 
> the available physical RAM when virtual memory is disabled?  When you ask 
> for 8MB, the program actually asks for a few bytes more, because of 
> malloc() overhead, right?

This may be the cause.  Some DPMI providers use a strange algorithm when
resizing memory blocks, which also prevents a single block from being 
resized to more than 1/2 the memory available.  When in doubt, call 
sbrk() directly.