PC-DOS 3.30 - what was used for himem.sys then? (5179)

[alank2]

I've been using 6.22 on it, but I'm wanting to put PC-DOS 3.30 on it so it would be more period correct. It has 640K + an ast rampage board. I am using REMM.SYS for some expanded memory, but I'd also like some extended memory and to be able to load a disk cache.

 

[Stone]

QEMM, etc.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

Pretty much the only "period correct" use for extended RAM under DOS 3.3 was to use VDISK.SYS or RAMDRIVE.SYS (depending on whether you're running PC-DOS or MS-DOS) to make a RAMdisk out of it. The versions included with 3.3 don't use the XMS API, so they tend to not be good citizens when it comes to getting along with the scarce amount of other software from that period that might want to use extended RAM. I think there were third-party disk caching programs from that period that could also used extended memory without an XMS driver, but I can't name one off the top of my head.

Or to put it another way, "XMS" wasn't really a thing until Windows 2.x/286 introduced the himem.sys driver. So if you really want to use XMS on DOS 3.3 I guess the period correct way would be to use the HIMEM.SYS from a pre-3.0 copy of Windows.

 

[krebizfan]

There was also Lotus 1-2-3 R3 and a few other DOS extender programs but most of the early ones used VCPI which generally only allows a single program to have access to extended memory at a time.

DesqView had its own driver to access the high memory area.

 

[SomeGuy]

At least the earlier versions of himem.sys will run under DOS 3.30. You can then run programs that require XMS memory, but DOS 3.3 will not load in to HMA memory like DOS 5. As I recall, some other programs, such as mouse drivers, can load in to HMA.

 

[AndyM1981]

Pretty much the only "period correct" use for extended RAM under DOS 3.3 was to use VDISK.SYS or RAMDRIVE.SYS (depending on whether you're running PC-DOS or MS-DOS) to make a RAMdisk out of it. The versions included with 3.3 don't use the XMS API, so they tend to not be good citizens when it comes to getting along with the scarce amount of other software from that period that might want to use extended RAM. I think there were third-party disk caching programs from that period that could also used extended memory without an XMS driver, but I can't name one off the top of my head.

Or to put it another way, "XMS" wasn't really a thing until Windows 2.x/286 introduced the himem.sys driver. So if you really want to use XMS on DOS 3.3 I guess the period correct way would be to use the HIMEM.SYS from a pre-3.0 copy of Windows.

In addition to the copy of HIMEM.SYS that comes with Windows 2.x, it also includes an early version of SMARTDRV.SYS that has support for extended memory. Windows 286 and above will also load high into extended memory if its available.