Re: Before you go on.....

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>Can someone explain what a "Dos Extender" and Causeway is ?
>And what a compiler is. (I tought that BIND.EX was one)

Normally, DOS uses a mode called Real Mode that only lets programs access
the first 640 kilobytes of RAM. Upper memory, which is above 640k and below
one meg, is used by programs like MOUSE.COM and MSCDEX.EXE that run in the
background. (Heh, TSRs are kinda like multitasking in DOS...)

The rest of the memory can be accessed in two ways: Expanded memory and
extended memory.

Expanded memory requires a memory manager like EMM386, and is slow because
you must page in blocks of 4k, I think. (Or is it 64k? Oh well, we don't
have to worry about it.. Read on. smile

Extended memory is accessed by a DOS Extender. Causeway is a common DOS
Extender used by Euphoria and one of my favorite games. Another common
extender is DOS4GW. (Look for DOS4GW.EXE on your harddrive... you should see
it for many DOS games.)

DOS Extenders are cool because they make it easier to program... (Far and
Near pointers aren't needed in C, for example.) You also don't have to worry
about that 640k limitation in all but a few cases.

A compiler just converts code to computer readable form. Euphoria is an
interpreter and 'compiles' the code as it's being run. Bind and Bindw shroud
the source and append them to a copy of EX.EXE or EXW.EXE.

Ok, long, but I think it answered your question in more detail than you
wanted. smile

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