Tuesday, January 24, 2012

MS-DOS 6.22 & 640k memory limits

I had one hell of a time getting MS-DOS to work properly. 640k right? After lots of reading I finally got DOS to load a TCP/IP Stack, SB16 Drivers, CD-ROM drivers and Win3.11 all working nicely and loading properly without memory errors.

I used the following AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to get everything to load. (Something my hours of googling never found). Final memory output (VM has 32mb of memory)


Memory Type        Total  =   Used  +   Free
----------------  -------   -------   -------
Conventional         638K      246K      392K
Upper                  0K        0K        0K
Reserved               0K        0K        0K
Extended (XMS)    30,656K    2,396K   28,260K
----------------  -------   -------   -------
Total memory      31,294K    2,642K   28,652K

Total under 1 MB     638K      246K      392K

Largest executable program size       392K (401,392 bytes)  
Largest free upper memory block         0K       (0 bytes)  
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.


Not too bad, 61% memory free, I'm sure there is more I can do to extend the memory usage, but I got my ancient copy of Stonekeep and the D&D Gold box CD series to work, good enough for me.

AUTOEXEC.BAT

@ECHO OFF


REM --- Sound
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
LH C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
LH C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q




REM ---  By HiSpeed CD-ROM Drive installation program.  1/23/2012  ---
LH C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD000


SET TEMP=C:\TEMP


REM --- Load utilities & Set settings ---
LH c:\util\dosidle.exe
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\NET;C:\DOS;c:\WINDOWS


REM --- Networking ---
C:\NET\net initialize
LH C:\NET\nwlink
LH C:\NET\netbind.com
LH C:\NET\umb.com
LH C:\NET\tcptsr.exe
LH C:\NET\tinyrfc.exe
LH C:\NET\nmtsr.exe
LH C:\NET\emsbfr.exe
LH C:\NET\net start basic

CONFIG.SYS

DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH
LASTDRIVE=Z
STACKS=9,256


REM --- By HiSpeed CD-ROM Drive installation program. 1/23/2012 ---
DEVICE = C:\HXCD-ROM\CDROM.SYS /D:MSCD000


FILES=40
buffers=25
DEVICE=C:\dos\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=c:\dos\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DEVICE=C:\NET\ifshlp.sys


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