Will an IBM XT run MS DOS6.2?
Lauri-Juhani Jussi S{{ski
I have some strange questions, to which I would like to receive some
enlightment. I am about to buy an original IBM XT with the following
specifications: 640KB ram, 10/20MB HD, CGA,EGA or Hercules display.
[Someone might ask why the heck would some goof head want a piece
of that junk? Well, I'm going to build a museum of obsolete PCs.
What else would be more natural machine to start with?]
Back to business. Will this computer run MS DOS 6.2 or any other
relatively new MS DOS or am I stuck with IBM DOS (which I unfortunately
don't own)? Are there any hardware based incompatibilities with
MS DOS 6.2 that I should be aware of?
I have been trying to find information about old IBM computers,
but haven't found any. There are some WWW based obsolete computer
museums but they do not include IBM PCs. I would like to know
the period of time IBM XT was manufactured. What I know is that I
the first XTs rolled out in '83. The same question goes for the
following IBM models: AT and AT/E. Does anyone know the complete
list of the IBM early PCs before the introduction of the PS/2 family?
In what countries where these early models manufactured?
Thanks in advance for your advice,
Jussi
---
//////
lsa...@utu.fi (o o )
----------------oOOo(_)--oOOo---
Jussi Sääski
Rehtorinpellonkatu 4-6 B 504
SF 20500 Turku F18LAND
Voice/Fax 358-921-2505621
Geoffrey Glave
compatibles (of course, you can merrily delete doublespace, memmaker etc.)
However... you may find it tricky to get 6.2 on 360K 5.25" floppies :) !
Lauri-Juhani Jussi S{{ski
: Yes, an IBM XT should run DOS 6.2... I have several friends doing it on
: compatibles (of course, you can merrily delete doublespace, memmaker etc.)
You're right about that. Yesterday I checked the the setup of my two
computers (486 and 286) of which the former had Win95 and the latter Dos5.0.
I came to a conclusion that in the DOS mode of Win95 I had 11K more of
conventional memory, had I used the absolute minimum configuration of drivers.
I suppose in this respect Dos 6.2 is better than Dos5.0?
A Question about 286 memory managers: According to my understanding
Emm386.exe is for 386 processor or higher. How do I get the most out of the
memory above 640K using a 286? Some friends tell me that there is a driver
called monoumb.sys. Is there one? The name suggests to me that you can load
one program into high/upper memory. Can anyone tell me about this or
other prominent 286 memory drivers?
: However... you may find it tricky to get 6.2 on 360K 5.25" floppies :) !
I intend to use Winlink or similar software to transfer the 6.2 into XT.
j...@olivetti.dk
>Hello!
>
>I have some strange questions, to which I would like to receive some
>enlightment. I am about to buy an original IBM XT with the following
>specifications: 640KB ram, 10/20MB HD, CGA,EGA or Hercules display.
>
>[Someone might ask why the heck would some goof head want a piece
>of that junk? Well, I'm going to build a museum of obsolete PCs.
>What else would be more natural machine to start with?]
>
>Back to business. Will this computer run MS DOS 6.2 or any other
>relatively new MS DOS or am I stuck with IBM DOS (which I unfortunately
>don't own)? Are there any hardware based incompatibilities with
>MS DOS 6.2 that I should be aware of?
>
>I have been trying to find information about old IBM computers,
>but haven't found any. There are some WWW based obsolete computer
>museums but they do not include IBM PCs. I would like to know
>the period of time IBM XT was manufactured. What I know is that I
>the first XTs rolled out in '83. The same question goes for the
>following IBM models: AT and AT/E. Does anyone know the complete
>list of the IBM early PCs before the introduction of the PS/2 family?
>In what countries where these early models manufactured?
>
>Thanks in advance for your advice,
>---
> //////
>lsa...@utu.fi (o o )
>----------------oOOo(_)--oOOo---
>Jussi Sääski
>Rehtorinpellonkatu 4-6 B 504
>SF 20500 Turku F18LAND
>Voice/Fax 358-921-2505621
>
There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
Lauri-Juhani Jussi S{{ski
: You may get problems with your keyboard, and possibly with a lot of
: other things. There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
: The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
Can anyone else confirm this? Is this an IBM XT specific problem or does
it occur in all XTs?
Lance Hendrix
>A Question about 286 memory managers: According to my understanding
>Emm386.exe is for 386 processor or higher. How do I get the most out of the
>memory above 640K using a 286? Some friends tell me that there is a driver
>called monoumb.sys. Is there one? The name suggests to me that you can load
>one program into high/upper memory. Can anyone tell me about this or
>other prominent 286 memory drivers?
I don't know about monoumb.sys, but depending on which BIOS chipset
you have, there are several programs that will allow you to load
programs into the UMB. The problem is in the way that the 286
accessed this memory. I don't remember what these programs are, but I
might be able to find the names of some. I just replaced my 286 at
the first of the year. It did not have a BIOS that was compatible
with any of the software that I found.
Cheers
--
Lance Hendrix
la...@fs.cei.net
Jim Royer
>I have some strange questions, to which I would like to receive some
>enlightment. I am about to buy an original IBM XT with the following
>specifications: 640KB ram, 10/20MB HD, CGA,EGA or Hercules display.
>[Someone might ask why the heck would some goof head want a piece
>of that junk? Well, I'm going to build a museum of obsolete PCs.
>What else would be more natural machine to start with?]
>Back to business. Will this computer run MS DOS 6.2 or any other
>relatively new MS DOS or am I stuck with IBM DOS (which I unfortunately
>don't own)? Are there any hardware based incompatibilities with
>MS DOS 6.2 that I should be aware of?
The old XT will run MS-DOS 6.x (or any other version of either MS or
PC-DOS) just fine.
>I have been trying to find information about old IBM computers,
>but haven't found any. There are some WWW based obsolete computer
>museums but they do not include IBM PCs. I would like to know
>the period of time IBM XT was manufactured. What I know is that I
>the first XTs rolled out in '83. The same question goes for the
>following IBM models: AT and AT/E. Does anyone know the complete
>list of the IBM early PCs before the introduction of the PS/2 family?
>In what countries where these early models manufactured?
I'd suggest you try to find a contact at the Boston Computer Museum in
Boston Mass. here in the USA. They have display models and info on the
entire PC revolution.
Jim Royer
jro...@comm.lts.aetc.af.mil
Cliff Lum
writes:
>
> Posted: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 09:21:21 GMT
> Org. : Turku School of Economics
> j...@olivetti.dk wrote:
> : You may get problems with your keyboard, and possibly with a lot of
> : other things. There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
> : The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
> Can anyone else confirm this? Is this an IBM XT specific problem or does
> it occur in all XTs?
> Jussi
> ---
> //////
> lsa...@utu.fi (o o )
> ----------------oOOo(_)--oOOo---
I'm running MSDOS 5.0 on my XT. I think you may have problems with a few
utilities like the disk compression program. just don't use those programs.
cl
Joe Epperson
Gosh, I hate 360K
Joe
Geoffre...@mindlink.bc.ca (Geoffrey Glave) wrote:
>Yes, an IBM XT should run DOS 6.2... I have several friends doing it on
>compatibles (of course, you can merrily delete doublespace, memmaker etc.)
>However... you may find it tricky to get 6.2 on 360K 5.25" floppies :) !
Patrick M. O'Gara
lsa...@utu.fi (Lauri-Juhani Jussi S{{ski) wrote:
>j...@olivetti.dk wrote:
>
>: You may get problems with your keyboard, and possibly with a lot of
>: other things. There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
>: The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
>
>Can anyone else confirm this? Is this an IBM XT specific problem or does
>it occur in all XTs?
>
>Jussi
>---
> //////
>lsa...@utu.fi (o o )
>----------------oOOo(_)--oOOo---
>Rehtorinpellonkatu 4-6 B 504
>SF 20500 Turku F18LAND
>Voice/Fax 358-921-2505621
Hi;
At work I have a IBM PC and a PC-XT with expansion chassis. I had dos 3.3
on them. I've since retired the old PC, but still have the XT. The XT now
has dos 6.0 on it and runs just fine. The only thing is that it is not
capable of using the enhancements meant for the i286 or above. Such as
memmaker, HIMEM, emm386, etc. the rest of the commands do work that are
standard dos, as does the editor. It wasn't necessary to upgrade to dos 6.0
except that I had lost the HD and no longer had a copy of dos 3.3 anymore.
If you have dos 3.3 it is actually better for the old XT because it doesn't
take as much room and uses the old standard low density 5.25" diskette to
load from since the old XT doesn't recognize the 3.5" 1.44MB drives
available now nor the newer 5.25" 1.2MB drives because of the ROM BIOS that
was used.
Good luck with that old machine. I have known some people that have kept
the outsides and put in another mother board with a 486DX2/66. This really
makes the old horse go since the only thing that is the same is the supply
and the case. This makes it good to hide the machine since most people see
only the case and immediately reject it as outdated when the only thing
outdated is the case!
PAT
____________________________________________________________________________
| Patrick M. O'Gara |
| |
| 'What is obvious to the few, is a mystery to the many' |
|____________________________________________________________________________|
| Communications Consulting Lab | EG&G / Energy Measurements, Inc. |
| Broadcast Engineering Consultants | Electronic Radiation Detectors Group |
| @Wizard.com The Internet Connection | DOE Primary Contractor for the NTS |
| E-Mail pato...@wizard.com | E-Mail ogar...@egg.nv.doe.gov |
|_____________________________________|______________________________________|
Lauri-Juhani Jussi S{{ski
: If you have dos 3.3 it is actually better for the old XT because it doesn't
: take as much room
What do you mean by this? I doesn't take that much of HD to store all
the files _or_ that the earlier dos takes less memory when the minimum
configuration is loaded into RAM?
Joe Martine
> Patrick M. O'Gara (pato...@wizard.com) wrote:
>
>
> : If you have dos 3.3 it is actually better for the old XT because it doesn't
> : take as much room
> What do you mean by this? I doesn't take that much of HD to store all
> the files _or_ that the earlier dos takes less memory when the minimum
> configuration is loaded into RAM?
>
Lots of replies on this thread, here's my experience:
Any DOS version will work on the XT. I have used just about all of them,
and used (no longer have the XT) 6.2 because I liked the extra goodies
that came with it. In fact, a primary reason for using it was
DoubleSpace. I have Stacker, and it absolutely won't run on an XT but
DoubleSpace works, albeit like molasses!
On the other hand, the 6.2 kernel is MUCH bigger than previous DOS
versions. If you have some software that needs as much memory as
possible, you may opt for an older version. The DOS 3.2 kernel used
approx. 20K whereas the DOS 6.2 kernel uses approx. 54K! And all the
goodies that come with 6.2 eat up disk space... Just a matter of
priorities! :-)
Oh, and I had absolutely no problems with anything hardware or software
related using 6.2 on the XT. (Obviously the 386 memory stuff won't work!)
Hope this helps in some small, insignificant way...
======================================================================
Joe Martine N5USR E-Mail: jo...@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu
Gerry Kroll
>
>j...@olivetti.dk wrote:
>
>: You may get problems with your keyboard, and possibly with a lot of
>: other things. There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
>: The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
>
>Can anyone else confirm this? Is this an IBM XT specific problem or does
>it occur in all XTs?
Nonsense. I have an XT, and I run MS-DOS 6.20 on it -- no problem. Just
don't try to run any sort of disk compression utility (except PKZIP).
There's just not enough horsepower.
Given that the previous respondent works for Olivetti -- they produced a
hardware-specific version of DOS 3.3x that worked only on the Olivetti M24
and the AT&T 6300. It included a clock driver for the on-board clock, and
this wouldn't work unless the DOS ran on an M24.
For anybody that's interested -- I have a stand-alone clock driver that
lets you run any version of DOS on that M24 or 6300, giving you access to
the hardware clock. Just send me an e-mail, and I'll send you the driver.
whoareyou
> : other things. There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
> : The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
>
> Can anyone else confirm this? Is this an IBM XT specific problem or does
> it occur in all XTs?
The PC/XT keyboard is different than the one used in AT. Just make sure
you get a PC/XT keyboard or a new keyboard that has DIP switches or
something that will change between PC/XT or AT mode. As for the MS-DOS
3.20 for XT -- that's just misinformation.
************************************************************
Looking for roadkills... drop it by ho...@creighton.edu...
e-mails are welcome anytime -- but mails are not.
Keyboard stuck failure. Press F1 to continue.
The FDA considers chocolate acceptable for public
consumption as long as there are less than 60 microscopic
insect fragments per 100 grams (that's 4oz).
************************************************************
------------- clip here with virtual scissors --------------
Magnum
>A Question about 286 memory managers: According to my understanding
>Emm386.exe is for 386 processor or higher. How do I get the most out of the
>memory above 640K using a 286? Some friends tell me that there is a driver
>called monoumb.sys. Is there one? The name suggests to me that you can load
>one program into high/upper memory. Can anyone tell me about this or
>other prominent 286 memory drivers?
There are utilities for getting UMB's out of an 286. I however, can't point
you to them.
What I CAN, though, is explain about MONOUMB.386 (not .SYS). It won't help you
a bit, but it might satisfy your curiosity.
Using MemMaker (which of course only works on 386's and above...) you can tell
it to turn the part of the Upper Memory Area usually reserved for monochrome
screens into Upper Memory Block into which you can load drivers and TSRs.
This, however, won't usually work with machines with a Super-VGA card,
especially not when running Windoze - unless you put the line
device=c:\dos\monoumb.386 into the SYSTEM.INI.
So that's what it's for.
If you don't find a utility to get some UMBs out of whatever memory you've got
above 640K, I would suggest running HIMEM.SYS (which, unlike EMM386.EXE DOES
work on a 286) to use it as extended memory (XMS) and put a disk cache (like
SmartDrive) there.
--
Mail: Finger: Talk:
Ole-Magn...@hiof.no ol...@sofus.hiof.no ol...@gyda.hiof.no
Snail: Ole M. Olsen, Peder Colbjoernsensg. 5, N-1767 HALDEN, NORWAY
<URL:http://www-ia.hiof.no/~olemo>
Magnum
>You may get problems with your keyboard, and possibly with a lot of other
>things.
Why?
>There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
>The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
Bah! DOS 3.2 was full of bugs and not good for anything! DOS 3.3, however...
Brad Garcia
> You may get problems with your keyboard, and possibly with a lot of other things.
Haven't had a single problem running 6.20 on my original PC!
> There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
Sure there is! I *have* that version!
I don't feel like buying 3.20 when I have 6.20 in my possession.
> The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
I'm curious - why do you say this?
Not that I don't believe you - I'd just like to know.
Mimi Milstein
Oh> From: Ole-Magn...@hiof.no (Magnum)
Oh> Subject: Re: Will an IBM XT run MS DOS6.2?
Oh> Organization: Ostfold College
Oh> lsa...@utu.fi (Lauri-Juhani Jussi S{{ski) wrote:
>A Question about 286 memory managers: According to my understanding
>Emm386.exe is for 386 processor or higher. How do I get the most out of the
>memory above 640K using a 286? Some friends tell me that there is a driver
>called monoumb.sys. Is there one? The name suggests to me that you can load
>one program into high/upper memory. Can anyone tell me about this or
>other prominent 286 memory drivers?
Oh> There are utilities for getting UMB's out of an 286. I
Oh> however, can't point you to them.
...but I can refer you to a few:
UMBDriver, QRAM, DR-DOS6, NOVELL-DOS7 can all implement 386-style memory
management on a 286, *IF* the 286 is *hardware* compatible. All the real
old machines are not, but some of the latter ones with for example
Chips&Technology chipsets will cooperate nicely.
I will just repost a few of my old replies... to give you a few ideas.
smc...@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu wrote in a message to All:
su> ah...@detroit.freenet.org (Scott Zemsta) writes:
>managers that come with it. They require 386 and up. What should I do?
>Can I get replacements that are as good or beter for a 286 (1M RAM)?
>Thanks in advance
su> My suggestion to 'what should I do' would be this:
su> If DOS3.3 doesn't suit your needs, get DOS5.0. Anything
su> more on a 286 is more hurt than help. The later DOS kernels
su> just suck away resources that you don't have to give. And,
su> you don't want to mess with the DOS4.0/4.01 garbage.
and my 'what to do' would be:
Find out if your motherboard supports EEMS (some 286es do).
If your board doesn't support EEMS, do as mentioned above - nothing else
will help you as your board is hardware incompatible.
If your board DOES support EEMS, you can use several kinds of software
to get '386-style' hiloading [but you should really get some more memory
to take fuller advantage of this bonus - 1mg is simply too little for
any reasonable setup]. These are the possibilities:
1) Quarterdeck's QRAM [commercial program] compatible with any DOS
2) UMB DRIVER [shareware] compatible with selected boards
3) DR-DOS6 [commercial program]. Alternative operating system
(equivalent to MS-DOS5++) capable of '386-style' hiloading on
EEMS enpowered boards.
4) Novell-DOS7 [commercial program]. Next version of DR-DOS6
(in case DR-DOS6 is not available on the market).
... Greetings from Mimi
Hello Anthony!
I wrote ...
MM> ... BUT, even though you can't hiload all your favorite utils,
MM> don't give up... get a good swapper and run your TSRs as tasks -
MM> not quite the same, but not bad at all.
and you replied...
AC> Could you expand on this, please. Some examples of "good
AC> swappers" - s/w if possible. I'm currently experimenting
AC> with the s/w version of Geos, but I don't really like GUIs
AC> at all. Any suggestions gratefully received.
I assume that we pick up the thread of "what to do with a 286 WITHOUT
a suitable chipset for upper memory loading"... 'cause if your chipset
can handle a memory manager such as QRAM or UMB_Driver, you would not
be interested in running utils as tasks :-)
Anyway, here goes... taskswappers which can perform on a plain old AT
are not plentiful nowadays, but you may be able to pick up a cheap one
from around 1990: Software Carousel, HeadRoom, DR-DOS6 - or look for
shareware Back & Forth ver1.70 (BF_170.ZIP ?) - and the new Novell-DOS7
will also do the job on an old machine.
All of them would work in pretty much the same fashion on a 286 (with
some amount of extended memory, to give some speed):
1) HIMEM.SYS (or HIDOS.SYS in DR-DOS) will be the only possible memory
manager and will provide the high mem area and convert extended mem
into XMS.
2) DOS will be loaded high.
3) All free memory, both low and XMS, will be pooled and utilized by
the swapper. If memory if scarce the swapper can be ordered to use
disk-space as an alternative - but speed will be drastically reduced.
Some swappers can also emulate EMS mem.
4) Older swappers demand you provide a memory configuration for each
program you wish to run - newer ones simply open a "DOS partition"
where you can run whatever you want at the moment.
5) All of them are able to load a pre-selected set of programs from
AUTOEXEC.BAT
From my own experience back in time, on a 286 with 4mb mem, I ran following
simultaneously: RAM assigned:
Lotus 1-2-3 512k
MultiMate Wordprocessor 400k
BBS user stuff, Telix, reader 512k
PC-Tools/Desktop 512k
Finance Manager accounting 512k
DOS + several utils 512k
This was done with Software Carousel and was not a bad setup at all. I
could do all my work and play without ever closing a program.
If I should chose today, I would take DR-DOS6. It is good and solid and
has a great manual. On the other hand, Back&Forth is shareware, so if
you can find it, it could give you nice and free material to experiment
with.
... Greetings from Mimi
BTW, if you are not 100% sure whether your chipset can handle something
better than HIMEM.SYS - look for QuarterDeck's test program QTEST.COM.
It is meant to test for QRAM compatibility, but will actually give you
a YES/NO for ANY "286 upper memory manager".
... Greetings from Mimi
Gerry Kroll
ho...@creighton.edu says...
>
>> : You may get problems with your keyboard, and possibly with a lot of
>> : other things. There is no good reason for using DOS 6.22 in an XT.
>> : The last good DOS for XT's was 3.20.
>>
>> Can anyone else confirm this? Is this an IBM XT specific problem or does
>> it occur in all XTs?
>
>The PC/XT keyboard is different than the one used in AT. Just make sure
>you get a PC/XT keyboard or a new keyboard that has DIP switches or
>something that will change between PC/XT or AT mode. As for the MS-DOS
>3.20 for XT -- that's just misinformation.
This keyboard stuff is useful information if the original author had asked
about replacement keyboards. He didn't, sooo.....
Actually I have a very good reason for NOT upgrading beyond MS-DOS 3.33.
The XT has an external connector that allows you to attach two external
floppy drives, for a total of 4. Internally, it has a set of DIP switches
that tell the BIOS how many drives there are.
In my case, I have an XT (not the one referred to in my previous reply)
that has an external 8" and an external 5.25" high density drive. I'm
_not_ using the standard IBM floppy controller to do this -- it doesn't
know what to do with these weird drives. MS-DOS 3.33 assigns drive letters
A: and B: to the internal floppies, and C: and D: to the external ones.
The hard drive is E:. MS-DOS 5.0 and later versions (I haven't tried 4.0)
assigns C: to the hard drive and D: and E: to the external floppies.
This change in drive letters doesn't make my special custom disk copying
software very happy. That's why I haven't upgraded this particular
special-purpose XT to a newer operating system. Also: "if it ain't broke,
don't fix it".
Frank Slootweg
[deleted]
> Actually I have a very good reason for NOT upgrading beyond MS-DOS 3.33.
>
> The XT has an external connector that allows you to attach two external
> floppy drives, for a total of 4. Internally, it has a set of DIP switches
> that tell the BIOS how many drives there are.
>
> In my case, I have an XT (not the one referred to in my previous reply)
> that has an external 8" and an external 5.25" high density drive. I'm
> _not_ using the standard IBM floppy controller to do this -- it doesn't
> know what to do with these weird drives. MS-DOS 3.33 assigns drive letters
> A: and B: to the internal floppies, and C: and D: to the external ones.
> The hard drive is E:. MS-DOS 5.0 and later versions (I haven't tried 4.0)
> assigns C: to the hard drive and D: and E: to the external floppies.
> This change in drive letters doesn't make my special custom disk copying
> software very happy. That's why I haven't upgraded this particular
> special-purpose XT to a newer operating system.
Well, there are zillions of solutions to drive letter problems
(DRIVER.SYS, DRIVPARM, ASSIGN, What_ASSIGN_is_called_on_your_DOS/release,
etc..), so that is, IMHO, hardly a reason not to upgrade.
> Also: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
How very true/wise! :-)
Frank Slootweg
Ian Smith
jhu...@netcom.com "Jeffrey Hurwit" writes:
> Found it!
>
> ftp://oak.oakland.edu/simtel/msdos/sysutil/bf-171[ab].zip
I find Fastflip better - faster, smaller and up to eight tasks in the
S/W version. Fflip218.zip from the same archive.
Ian.
--
| Ian Smith | "The Moving Finger writes;
| i...@isis.demon.co.uk | and, having writ, Moves on."
Jeffrey Hurwit
lsa...@utu.fi (Lauri-Juhani Jussi S{{ski) wrote:
>Patrick M. O'Gara (pato...@wizard.com) wrote:
>
>
>: If you have dos 3.3 it is actually better for the old XT because it doesn't
>: take as much room
>What do you mean by this? I doesn't take that much of HD to store all
>the files _or_ that the earlier dos takes less memory when the minimum
>configuration is loaded into RAM?
Both, actually. The older versions of DOS weren't written with the
assumption that you would have a minimum of 4 to 8 Megs of RAM to
run your applications in-- both the kernel and the command
processor is smaller. The extra tools that come with the later
versions of DOS will also tie up plenty of space if all you have is
a 20 or 30 Meg hard drive, and they're out of the question if your
XT is floppy-based.
Jeff
Jeffrey Hurwit
\Ian Smith <i...@isis.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <tXU/vw8Z7O...@netcom.com>
> jhu...@netcom.com "Jeffrey Hurwit" writes:
>
>> Found it!
>>
>> ftp://oak.oakland.edu/simtel/msdos/sysutil/bf-171[ab].zip
>
>I find Fastflip better - faster, smaller and up to eight tasks in the
>S/W version. Fflip218.zip from the same archive.
I guess my cancel didn't get out (and I may be glad of it). I
should've looked at back & forth before proclaiming this. It is
both crippled and naggy, and I won't have such garbage on my
machine (I use unzip on my account to check the docs before I even
waste the time to download).
I'll have a look at Fastflip-- thanks for the tip.
Jeff
Matthias Kring
In article <yw8Aww8Z...@netcom.com>, jhu...@netcom.com (Jeffrey Hurwit) writes...
> I guess my cancel didn't get out (and I may be glad of it). I
> should've looked at back & forth before proclaiming this. It is
> both crippled and naggy, and I won't have such garbage on my
> machine (I use unzip on my account to check the docs before I even
> waste the time to download).
Hmm. I cannot understand this. I always have been very satisfied with
Back&Forth. It was neither crippled nor naggy, and I sometimes had about
ten tasks 'running' (registered, of course) (B&F supports up to 20 jobs).
The shareware version only has a reminder screen and a swap file limit,
but such is very common for shareware programs. However, you have the *full*
functionality. Such, B&F is NOT crippled.
B&F is far better than the MS-DOS task swapper or even that of the PCTOOLS
package form Central Point SW.
For example, I can switch from a graphics application into a text mode one
and back without hanging up the system. And also Cut&Paste between
different applications works fine, even graphic screen shots.
The only thing I could complain about is that B&F does not properly release
memory after quitting.
So I'm sorry, that they stopped the further development (after V2.02 in 1992),
but I think they had no chance against upcoming MSWindows.
I *must* use Windows in my current environment (though I hate it because
of its slowness), but in a DOS environment B&F is my first choice!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthias Kring kr...@sieus2.enet.dec.com
DITEC Informationstechnologie Stolberger Str. 78 D-50933 Koeln
Partner der Digital Equipment GmbH
--- Collect 1000 of these lines, and you'll have a large FREE BONUS FILE! ---
John Savage
>>Emm386.exe is for 386 processor or higher. How do I get the most out of the
>>memory above 640K using a 286? Some friends tell me that there is a driver
>>called monoumb.sys. Is there one? The name suggests to me that you can load
>>one program into high/upper memory. Can anyone tell me about this or
>>other prominent 286 memory drivers?
Perhaps ...
ftp oak.oakland.edu /SimTel/msdos/memutil/
use-umbs.zip B 20972 941107 Driver to use upper memory blocks on XT/ATs
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