Mail Archives: opendos/2001/11/05/10:09:45
On 2001-11-04, "cyborg" <impala AT dfsi DOT net> wrote:
>> anyone know how to make qemm use autodos7 and dconfig ?
>> that would work also.
>> however i will try the call in the dconfig-autodos file
There are several possibilities. Depending on the version, OPTIMIZE
has a command line switch /B:d or /BOOT:d to specify the boot drive
letter, so you can use CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files from a
different drive.
A quick examination of the OPTIMIZE.EXE binary also revealed
"AutoExecToRead=" and "ConfigSysToRead=" strings in there, leading
to the assumption that you can either specify them on the command
line, or, more likely, specify these alternatives filenames in
the OPTIMIZE.INI file.
I only had a quick look at the documentation and the various
.TEC files and could not find any hint on these directives,
but in case this does not work for you, I suggest to check the
docs and Quarterdeck´s valueable tips & tricks material yourself
more carefully.
I haven´t used QEMM for a long while now, as the use of the
DR-DOS EMM386 with manually fine-tuned configuration files gave
better results for me.
Without the DR-DOS EMM386 you cannot use the DR-DOS preemptive
multitasker, however, without QEMM you cannot use DESQview/386.
QEMM and DR-DOS are compatible in general (see their docs for the
supported versions), however, there are two small issues with QEMM
and DR-DOS 7.02+, which you should know about:
- The memory arrangement of the handle structures (MEM /A HANDLES=)
changed with the introduction of the FILESHIGH= and FCBSHIGH=
[D]CONFIG.SYS directives in order to free up to several more Kb
of conventional memory under DR-DOS (depends on the count of
handles (FILES+FCBS) on your system). They are now grouped in
3 chunks while they were arranged in 2 chunks previously.
The change should not have caused problems for QEMM because this
is completely valid in terms of DOS standards, however, QEMM´s
DOS-UP feature does not expect this, and its sanity checks keep
it from loading the DOS structures high. This results in ca. 1 Kb
less conventional memory than the theoretical possible maximum
under QEMM. (Maybe, there´s an undocumented QEMM configuration
directive to override this sanity check, but I don´t know about
any such directive...) Unfortunately, Quarterdeck stopped working
on QEMM before they could incorporate this really minor correction
on their party, so you will just have to live with it.
I once wrote a patch (a DEBUG script named IBMBIO85.SCR IIRC)
for the DR-DOS kernel which will reenable the old handle memory
layout. This will free even more conventional memory under
DR-DOS, but causes serious compatibility problems with Windows 3.xx
when the FILESHIGH=, FCBSHIGH=, or DOS=AUTO directives are used
at the same time, because it will leave only 5 handles in low
memory in contrast to the 8 handles that are required for
Windows to work properly due to an extremely dangerous hack
on Microsoft´s side to determine the size of the DOS internal
SFT structures (this is known as "CON CON CON CON CON" hack,
because Windows opens CON five times and then scans the first
512 Kb of memory for the "CON" string to measure the displacement
between these strings, something that could be easily fooled by
just placing some "CON" strings in the DOS memory image with
incorrect offsets from each other - with fatal consequences for
the running system).
You can find my patch by searching the 1998-1999 archives of
this list. In case you cannot locate this anymore, let me know,
I can also look this up in my archives.
- The other issue is QEMM´s Stealth feature which may conflict
with the new DR-DOS 7.02+ YEAR2000=ON [D]CONFIG.SYS directive.
Either use YEAR2000=OFF before you load QEMM (requires a ROM BIOS
which does not have Y2K bugs, or a 3rd party Y2K-fixing TSR
instead of DR-DOS´ built-in fix), or use QEMM´s EXCLUDESTEALTHINT=1A.
Hope it helps,
Matthias
BTW. What´s your real name, "cyborg"? As in real life, it´s always
more fun to know who you´re talking to. Most people inhere do
not post incognito and this is must appreciated in this forum
to create a more personal "feeling".
--
Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany
<mailto:Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>; <mailto:mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org
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