Msg: Re: XY4, vDos-lfn and expanded memory

Hi Paul,

In case you want a copy of EMSMagic 1.1 you can download it from the URL below. I noticed that the newer EMSMagic 2.1 might not work with vDos(-lfn); neither EMSMagic 1.1 nor EMSMagic 2.1 seem to work with vDosXy. So the best solution to provide EMS memory for Xy4 seems to load EMSMagic 1.1 before running Xy4's editor.exe with the /e parameter within vDos-lfn.

http://www.individual.utoronto.ca/wengier/old/EMSMAGIC.COM

Wengier

On Wednesday, June 29, 2016 5:02 PM, Wengier W wrote:

Hi Paul,

Good observation on the expanded memory (EMS) in vDos-lfn. I can get the effect as you said indicated by the X symbol in Xy4, but as I mentioned earlier there are two ways to provide EMS memory in vDos-lfn. The first way is to apply the setting (e.g. XMEM = 4 EMS) in config.txt, and the second way is to use EMSMagic within vDos-lfn. The two methods in fact work slightly differently in vDos-lfn. From the X symbol it appears that Xy4 only supports the EMS provided by the second method (i.e. EMSMagic; I am using version 1.1), but not the first method. From your post I think you only tested the EMS provided by the first method. However, if I load EMSMagic before running "editor /e1024" in vDos-lfn, then the X symbol will not appear if I load the file that is 800KB in size, and if I change "editor /e1024" to "editor /e2048", then the X symbol will also not appear if I load the file of double this size. The conclusion is that XyWrite seems to be more compatible with the EMS memory provided by EMSMagic than the native setting in config.txt.

Wengier

On Wednesday, June 29, 2016 11:15 AM, Paul Breeze wrote:

Dear Wengier

I have the latest version of vDos-lfn working on my system now and it
operates very smoothly, with easy switching between programs when in
full screen. Thanks for that.

Now that everything looks stable, I have been trying once again to
explore the memory issue we have been discussing, with a version of XY4
under Windows XP that does have access to expanded memory. First,
according to the manual XY4 will access up to 4M of expanded memory by
default if it is available so no switch is actually necessary. It
appears to use this to store large files as well and large dictionaries.

I have tested it with the /e1024 switch to limit the expanded memory
available. If I load a file that is 800kb in size, it is stored in
memory. However if I load a file of double this size, it has to swap
part of it to disc. This is indicated by an X that appears in the upper
right hand corner above the line for the larger file. With XY4 under
vDos-lfn, the X appears with both these files, as it does when I try to
carry out a spell-check with the UK dictionary, whatever the size of the
file.

This seems to me to indicate that the Expanded memory on offer in vDos
and vDos-lfn cannot be accessed by XY4. Do you know if anybody has been
able to verify that any other program that is capable of using expanded
memory has access to it under vDos-lfn? That might help indicate
whether this is just an XY4 problem or something more general.

Best wishes

Paul