Re: LZ: More RAM


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Re: LZ: More RAM



On Wed, 4 Sep 1996, SAM STAUFFER wrote:


> -> >I'm confused. 640k of what? It can't be RAM or hardrive. So what is
> -> it?
> -> Are you being serious?  If not, then forgive me, but WHERE HAVE YOU
> -> BEEN FOR THE LAST DECADE?  640k is the conventional memory limit on a
> -> PC.  And the best part (thanks to Microsfot), it is still there and
> -> probably will be until the entire memory structure in DOS is
> -> rewritten.
> 
> They have to leave it for compatibility. There's always Protected mode,
> if you want Flat memory.


Since we're off topic anyway, there's also the unreal mode, which
Microsoft likes to call the real big mode.  That's a flat memory
model you can get into from dos and still use dos and all 4 gig of
memory if you have it.  You just have to be careful to avoid anything
that goes into protected mode.  A ram disk or a memory manager or
some protected mode apps.


It's the reason MS began developing Dos 6 but they decided they
couldn't use it because too many aps did go into protected mode
and they would crash.  They initially thought they'd find a way
to avoid that problem but they couldn't.


Barry


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