From: 386users@TWG.COM To: 386users@TWG.COM Subject: 80386 User's mailing list vol 4 #26 Date: Mon, 24 Apr 89 15:02:22 EDT 80386 User's mailing list vol 4 #26 Apr 24, 1989 In this issue: Re: 386 memory Re: 386 windows Re: 80386 mailing list, vol 4 #24 Re: 386 Windows AT Questions Which 386 system to buy ? Sooooo many choices!! Zenith 386, Xenix 2.3.1, and VP/ix FiveStar or CPU?? Info wanted. The addresses for the list are now: 386users@TWG.COM - for contributions to the list or ...!uunet!TWG.COM!386users 386users-request@TWG.COM - for administrivia or ...!uunet!TWG.COM!386users-request P L E A S E N O T E If you want to get on or off the list, or change your address, please mail to the 386users-request address, or the message will be delayed by having to hand forward it (for your convenience, not mine). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Joseph A. Cimmino Jr." Subject: Re: 386 memory Date: Fri, 14 Apr 89 21:33:47 EDT > From: mg32+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Ginsberg) > Class of '92, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA > Subject: 386 memory > Date: 4 Apr 89 18:33:43 GMT > When 80386 MS-DOS clones advertise 1 Megabyte, expandable to 16 Megabytes on > motherboard, what type of memory is this? Are there several different types > that could be found, and if so, which is better/best? Is this the type of > memory products like SideKick Plus say they can run in (all but a small > kernal)? The first 640k of the 1st meg will be "conventional" DOS memory. The next 384k will either be turned off, "shadow RAM", or remapped somewhere in the address space above 1 meg. The next N meg on the motherboard usually starts at 1 meg and is known as "extended" memory. As such, it is addressable only in protected modes and not directly useable for much other than ram disks or disk cache. A memory manager product "LIMulator" will do all kinds of things with the extended memory, including emulating expanded memory. This is the type of memory that SideKick Plus will make use of. > ------------------------------ > From: BENEDIK > Subject: 386 windows > Date: Wed, 5 Apr 89 14:46:13 CDT > Second question, what are the relative advantages of Windows 386 > vs. 386 to the Max, vs Deskview? Apples and oranges. Windows 386 and DesqView are multitasking environments building ontop of DOS. 386MAX is a memory manager. Windows 386, not supporting VCPI is incompatable with memory managers. Windows is graphically based, DesqView supports graphics, but is character based. Windows 286 or DesqView may be used with memory managers in order to make use of both their tasking and a memory manager's features. There is more to the differences between DesqView and Windows, but that is better left to those that know them better. > ------------------------------ > From: steinmetz!uunet!cunyvm.cuny.edu!MMKOISTI@FINKUO.BITNET > Subject: 386max > Date: Tue, 11 Apr 89 02:57 N > I read the discussion about 386max and load. They seem to be > very pretty. But where i can get them and what do they cost. 386MAX and 386LOAD together form a package called 386MAX Professional. The professional package retails for $129.95 and is available from the producer of the product, Qualitas, whose address follows. ------------------------------ Joseph A. Cimmino, Jr. jac@umd5.umd.edu Qualitas, Inc., 8714 Thoreau Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817 +1 301 469 8848 Bertolt Brecht: You made your bed, so you lie in it. ------------------------------ From: Jerry Peek Subject: Re: 386 windows Date: Fri, 14 Apr 89 10:00:37 -0500 > From: BENEDIK > Subject: 386 windows > Date: Wed, 5 Apr 89 14:46:13 CDT > > Does anyone know if Windows 386 will work on a Hercules video > card or not? Second question, what are the relative advantages of Windows 386 > vs. 386 to the Max, vs Deskview? > Mike Benedik > MJB0363@venus.tamu.edu or MJB0363@tamvenus.bitnet I can answer the second question, at least the Windows/386 vs. DESQview part. Windows 386: - Graphical interface with scroll bars, icons, etc. - Needs LOTS of memory (I have 2 Meg; it's barely enough to do anything) - Applications can share a clipboard for text/graphics cut-and-paste - May be "standard interface of the future" (or may not); lots of new applications written to run under Windows. - Phone support is the typical Microsoft: sometimes good, sometimes not. DESQview: - Interface not as slick or pretty as Windows/386, but it works fast. No icons; all menus. Can use mouse to drag/size/scroll TEXT windows. - Not as much of a memory hog. I get a lot out of 2 Meg. - Cut/paste is for text only. If your application uses graphics, you can't do a whole lot besides just run it. - Has some very nice scripting/key-definition stuff. DESQview has some very very nice stuff in this department. - Telephone tech support is HORRIBLE... LONG waits, not much help. I ended up using both. I use Windows for the Windows-based applications like drawing and graphics. I use DESQview for everyday text editing and times that I want to have several things running at once. --Jerry Peek; Syracuse University Academic Computing Services; Syracuse, NY jdpeek@rodan.acs.syr.edu, jdpeek@suvm.bitnet +1 315 443-3995 ------------------------------ From: James Van Artsdalen Subject: Re: 80386 mailing list, vol 4 #24 Date: Sun, 16 Apr 89 16:34:38 CST In Volume 4 #24, htc@m10ux.ATT.COM (Hyun-Taek Chang-- MHx ) wrote: > I recently upgraded harddisk from Miniscribe 6053 MFM disk to CDC > Wren III 150MB ESDI disk. The Wren-III-182 drive is the best drive I've ever used. The WD1007/WA2 makes a great controller for it. > I have a fairly long story about this problem. Actually, new disk > come with Western Digital's WD1007A-WA2 controller with no on board > BIOS ROM. Eek! What happened to the ROMs? You should have told the dealer to put them back in. Everything probably would have worked at that point. > After I installed the DTC controller, I encountered another problem, > "optional ROM checksum error". After I talked with technical support > person in DTC, I found out that the problem was caused by my Video 7 > VRAM VGA card. I set the VGA card's ROM access mode as 8-bit mode and > I switched BIOS address in DTC controller to D800h. This is a fairly common problem. In general, any card trying to address its ROM or RAM in 16 bit mode needs the entire 128K block. For example, the VRAM needs all of A and B block for video memory to do 16 bit accesses, and all of C and D blocks for 16 bit ROM. Since the hard disk controller ROM resides at C800:0 (with some RAM a little further on), there is a conflict with the V/RAM in 16 bit ROM mode. Once you put the video card in 8 bit ROM mode there's no need to move the DTC ROM to D800:0. My suggestion is to go back to the WD1007/WA2 *with* ROMs and see if that works. -- James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die" DCC Corporation 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759 512-338-8789 ------------------------------ From: Steven List Subject: Re: 386 Windows Date: Mon, 17 Apr 89 17:24:16 PDT > > From: BENEDIK > Subject: 386 windows > Date: Wed, 5 Apr 89 14:46:13 CDT > > Does anyone know if Windows 386 will work on a Hercules video > card or not? Second question, what are the relative advantages of Windows 386 > vs. 386 to the Max, vs Deskview? > Mike Benedik > MJB0363@venus.tamu.edu or MJB0363@tamvenus.bitnet > I have purchased, for my own curiosity, Windows 386, DesqView, and QEMM-386 from QuarterDeck (the makers of DesqView). Windows 386, as you know, is a windowing, multi-tasking (sort of) environment. DesqView is pretty much the same thing, but with a different approach. QEMM-386 is an Expanded Memory Manager (including Expanded Memory emulation for Extended AT Memory) much along the lines of 386 to the Max (I tried to buy the latter, but could not find it anywhere). Windows is great IFF you're using Windows-compatible software that takes advantage of the environment. It tends to be somewhat slow, and is really pretty useless if you're working with non-Windows software. It doesn't take advantage of EMS or EEMS as far as I could determine. UNLESS your software is Windows compatible. Get the picture? My general feeling is that it's not the way to go if you're running a lot of stuff that is NOT Windows compatible (I use Managing Your Money, a couple of terminal emulators/communications packages, Ventura Publisher, and some games). DesqView is somewhat more flexible, but without the visual pizzazz. That is, it WILL do windows, and can handle most non-windowed applications inside windows. Not by sizing but by cropping. I've had a few little problems with the system locking up at mysterious times, but mostly been quite happy with it. In combination with QEMM-386, it DOES take advantage of EMS on my machine (I have 4MB of Extended Memory), and allows you to have several LARGE processes in memory simultaneously. All process will continue concurrently, but with a certain amount of performance degradation. It's setup for each process is similar to the Windows PIF's, and takes some getting used to. QEMM-386 is a general purpose Extended Memory Manager. It allows you to place TSR's in high memory in the first Meg, and also allows RAM disks, caching, and the rest. Very worthwhile. Overall, between my experimentation and reading, it seems that you need to be able to play with each of these environments (VM-386 sounds pretty nifty, too). Each offers advantages and disadvantages. There was an issue of PC Magazine this year (I don't remember which one) that reviewed 5 of these environments. It was a GOOD article/review. If you live in my geographical area, I'd be happy to lend you my stuff to evaluate. Just holler. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ : Steven List @ Transact Software, Inc. :^>~ : : Chairman, Unify User Group of Northern California : : {apple,coherent,limbo,mips,pyramid,ubvax}!mrspoc!guinan!itkin : : Voice: (415) 961-6112 : +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: JOHN MARKETON Subject: AT Questions Date: Wed, 12 Apr 89 11:20 EST This is the second time I am posting this message, so if some of have seen it before, sorry. I am working on a program that will be making use of the protected mode on an AT type computer. I have several questions about the protected mode, and the books I have don't answer those questions. If you have any info, please email it to me ASAP. Thanks in advance. 1 - When in protected mode, where happens to the video memory? I need to know what happens to HGC, MDA, CGA, EGA, and VGA. 2 - There appears to be a conflict between BIOS INT 10 (the video interrupt) and the NPX's INT 10 (NPX fault). Can I still use the BIOS video services provided through INT 10? If both the video services and the NPX share INT 10, how can I service NPX faults, but pass video services to the BIOS? 3 - Is it possible to copy the BIOS routines into memory (regular or extended) to speed up BIOS operation? This assumes that shadow RAM isn't available, and that the copy is a movestring operation. 4 - How are the DMA chips used (both for memory-memory, memory-disk and disk-memory transfers)? 5 - What are the differences between the 8250 and the 16450 UARTS? Thanks, John Marketon MARKETON @ SUNRISE (Bitnet) SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Internet) 128.230.1.1 ( " ) ------------------------------ From: apn@Apple.COM (Alex Novickis) Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA Subject: Which 386 system to buy ? Sooooo many choices!! Date: 15 Apr 89 07:40:11 GMT I seem to require a 386 as I get larger and larger programs to compile. I am requesting information on what is already known to 386 owners, Whats the best system to buy? I am not looking for a complete integrated version like Compaq or Televideo or Everex... Not at all! Specifically does anyone have anything good or bad to say about these 386 motherboards: o Mylex - seems to be popular, but I've heard problems o Intel - I've heard it's the best, but $4k for a motherboard ? without a cache controller even ? to high!! o Abacus - I've heard good things so far, but they are new. o DTK - I have a 286 DTK card that has been VERY reliable for over 3 years... 386 ? also any discussion on the advantages of having the following: [ note: I already have a good idea of what these things do, i just want to hear about wether or not there is a significant improvement in performance for a particular issue or if there is some BUG ] o shadow rom ? o Any particular bios ? o supports user configuration of RAM ( mylex for example does not ) o types of ram used ? o 387 support ( Ok, here again, mylex 387 slot does not work 4/89 ) o 25 mhz or 20 mhz .. or should I wait till 33mhz comes out from DEL or compaq ? o use cache of 64K or 128K o cache with or without intel cache controller ? Enough questions ? Please MAIL me your responses, I will summarize/include to all that request after 3 weeks. thank you. Alex P. Novickis, Real Time systems demi-guru. (W) 408-370-4541 ALINK:alex.n (PAGE) 289-6678 UUCP:{amdahl,claris,pyramid,sun,decwrl,well,ubvax,ames}!apn@apple.com,apn@nonvon "I think... I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check"-Escher. ------------------------------ From: MAJ David McGuffey Subject: Zenith 386, Xenix 2.3.1, and VP/ix Date: Mon, 17 Apr 89 08:46 EDT This last weekend was the culmination of my efforts to bring up VP/ix on the following: Zenith 386, 16 mhz: 2 megs of 32 bit memory ST-241 40 meg drive as hd0 ST-4096 80 meg drive as hd1 Z-549 VGA/EGA/CGA/HGA/MGA 16 bit video card Everex AT serial card as /dev/tty2 (com2) SCO Xenix: Xenix 2.3.1 Development package Text processing package VP/ix 1.1 The installation for VP/ix (and all of the SCO products) was smooth. A slight wrinkle was that SCO Xenix 2.3.1 will not install on a console with a CGA monitor -- thus it forced me to upgrade monitors. I opted for one of the new Zenith ZMM 149-P VGA page white monitors -- a very good choice. After that Xenix, and the other three packages installed easily. After reading the VP/ix manual cover-to-cover, I installed a VP/ix user and immediately ran into two problems. The first was that VP/ix 1.1 cannot address two floppies on the same floppy disk controller -- SCO informed me that 1.1.1 fixes this and promised to send me the upgrade. The second was that VP/ix would not run on the console. It ran without a hitch on a serial terminal (Zenith 181 laptop, running kermit emulating a VT102) for all of the DOS character based programs I could throw at it. However, I could not get it to work on the Z-449 video card that came installed in the machine. After several calls to ZDS and SCO and searching the manual, I came to the conclusion that the 449 card was not quite compatible with EGA. Zenith helped me swap it out for one of the newer 549 cards (16 bit and full VGA). Xenix now identifies the console as vga during boot, and VP/ix has run Multiplan version 3.02, WordPerfect 4.2, and a graphics based Bible text/concordance program called Biblesoft. [note: Make sure that you haven't set the kbmode to at when entering VP/ix -- it expects a standard PC keyboard. I had been running "/etc/kbmode at" in .profile, but have since commented this line out.] The true test came last night when my wife was on the console running WordPerfect, and I was on the serial terminal (mentioned above) logged into /dev/tty2a, and running kermit out to a mainframe on /dev/tty1A. The terminal was running at 9600 baud and the modem was running at 1200 baud. Neither one of us noticed any slowdown or lost characters -- I'm fairly impressed. All in all, my goals have been reached -- the ability to keep my investment in DOS software and a large quantity of data files, without buying *very* expensive unix/xenix versions of equivalent software. Question. Since the machine only has 2 meg of memory, I expected to see some swapping going on, but "ps -e" reports that swapper consumes no time. Is this a valid report? Xenix takes a little over a meg and VP/ix takes 1 meg -- a second shell and kermit should have exceeded real memory capacity and forced some swapping. Since the 386 has paging in hardware, would paging be invisible to Xenix and thus cause swapper to never run? Am I asking for the wrong data -- is there another utility which will give me a true picture of what is happening? If anyone has any guidance on this subject, I would appreciate hearing about it. dcm I do not have any connection with SCO or Zenith -- I'm just a satisfied customer. DoD does not acknowledge that I have any opinions and will not confirm or deny that they have any either -- I'm on my own and the Secretary will disavow that I exist. ------------------------------ From: Paul Thiessen Subject: FiveStar or CPU?? Info wanted. Date: Fri, 21 Apr 89 8:36:46 PDT Hello. I'm going to buy a 25MHz 386 at the end of the summer. Right now, I'm looking at two machines in particular: the FiveStar and Computer Products United machines. They both have nice specs, and are within a reasonable price range. Obviously, I need all the info I can get. Could anyone out there who has one of these little toys write me a note telling me what good and bad experience you've had with the company (salespeople) and, more importantly, the machines themselves? Also, if you have another 25MHz 386 for < $3000 to recommend, please do so. Thanks in advance for any replies! - Paul +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAUL THIESSEN, Harvey Mudd College ...!uunet!jarthur!pthiesse pthiesse@jarthur.claremont.edu pthiessen@hmcvax.bitnet +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of 80386 M/L ****************