1. Making emm386 work
On my old computer, something in the BIOS was set wrongly (memory hole or
video card thingie)
Emm386 made all *grafix* programs hang, until I copied the windows-emm386
from c:\windows which did work.
Emm386 is not like himem.sys
Himem.sys is a device/driver to acces memory out of the first 640 kb,
Emm386 is a device/driver to page pieces of the extended memory (already
available because you NEED to load himem.sys to make emm386 work) in the
lower memory, I think, just after the video memory.
Emm386 provides a simpeler interface to the programmer, *and* avoids the 32
mb limit. Since the programmer, first loads the page he wants, and then
works on it. (I would thus suppose the first 640 kb of the memory work
faster.. is that true ?). However you do have a limited page size (something
protected mode solves in Euphoria BTW). Himem.sys doesn't page, but simply
gives acces to the extended memory, and thus for any pointer or memory
addresing you are limited to 32 mb. This problem will dissapear when our
intel chips start to work with 64 bit values (instead of 32-bit), it would
double the maximum memory and it sounds a good idea for MS (and their shares
in the hardware industry)... typically MS.. solving a software problem in
the hardware.
So emm386 is a paging device, himem.sys gives direct acces.
Emm386 is tend to hang in the older versions or a wrong thingie set in the
bios.
Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen
nieuwen at xs4all.nl
