Nostalgia time: MS-DOS memory management!

manveruppd

manveruppd

manveruppd

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http://archive.org/details/memory_2

In my case we had a 286 wqith 1MB RAM and I used DR-DOS 5 to load most of the OS into high memory (HMA) and XMA. I had more base memory free than my friends with fancy new 386s with like 4MB RAM! :D

That little video made me think though: how come Windows won the battle of the DOS-extenders? (Which is all it was up until 95 when it started forcing you to boot directly into it - and even then it was still just a DOS-extender imho, just a better disguised one) There were other alternatives, including stuff like OS/2 which could do stuff we didn't get on Windows till the NT kernel!
 
Windows 95 ran in protected mode, unlike DOS. So things like the Virtual Machine Manager (vmm32.vxd) did "real" 32-bit memory management (and flat addressing).

If you look at the Windows 95 boot process (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174018) you can see that up until step 5.7 the computer is in "real mode"; at step 5.7 it switches to protected mode.
 
The other thing of course to note, is the whole microsoft/ibm thing, which meant that business were used to microsoft products, and tended to stick with them rather than change.. we don't like change you know. That, and a few dirty tricks in the basic programming of dos to have 'issues' with non-MS software, or purchasing the company altogether.
 
Back then geek talk was "How much base memory you got?"
"637"
"No way, I've only got 636, how do you get that?"
and so on

Kids today don't know how much we had to re-write config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get stuff working
 
OS/2 was a quality operating system, especially with its warp4 gui. Lack of driver support and Microsofts dominance sadly killed it.

I still fondly recall spending ages getting Microprose grand prix to work on it, the screen going black, and the low deep tones of the grand prix theme tune (Macs 'the chain') starting up :cool:
 
take me back to my first pc in the 1980, running DOS. then such a big upgrade to windows 3.1, can still remember my first 286, then upgraded to a 386DX, memory was £50 per mb, had a 10mb hard drive, spent many happy nights on that.

spent all week inputting code then on Friday or Saturday setting it to run only to find some typo errors and it didn't run, happy days
 
Dimple said:
Back then geek talk was "How much base memory you got?"
"637"
"No way, I've only got 636, how do you get that?"
and so on

Kids today don't know how much we had to re-write config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get stuff working
Click to expand...

Oh yes! "Going to have to load the mouse driver high..." I remember those days... Freeing up enough base memory for Doom to run :)
 
I actually found an old pricing sheet the other day from a competitor I can't mention dated 1991 lol.

Loading stuff himem in the autoexec.bat to make things work better and having to go through process of elimination to figure out what your soundblasters irq/dma/io were because you forgot, those were the days, 8Kb modem ftw. I remember the old stacker program, the menu.bat program, Windows 2.8.

And people today ***** about their systems/software, lol.
 
platypus said:
OS/2 was a quality operating system, especially with its warp4 gui. Lack of driver support and Microsofts dominance sadly killed it.

I still fondly recall spending ages getting Microprose grand prix to work on it, the screen going black, and the low deep tones of the grand prix theme tune (Macs 'the chain') starting up :cool:
Click to expand...

God bless Geoff Crammond :D

I could never get my head around F117-A, another one of his sims.
 
Urgh sound drivers and having to manually sit about till you worked out which one was the right one for you system (at 4 I never remembered to write it down).

Had a special boot floppy to create enough free memory to play F17 the flight game that came with theme park on my pc! That took ages for a game that wasn't even any good :(
 
Those were in deed the days, I remember having differen boot disks for different games and the tie fighter sound test in the old x-wing games
 
Dimple said:
Back then geek talk was "How much base memory you got?"
"637"
"No way, I've only got 636, how do you get that?"
and so on

Kids today don't know how much we had to re-write config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get stuff working
Click to expand...

I remember all that. QEMM was my friend in getting free himem. Used to love it when it worked, felt like you actually understood the machine. Mouse drivers used to chew memory, I seem to remember.
 
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