MS-DOS 6.22 only 589824 bytes conventional memory. Why?

[Rex]

Before you start reading. I know DOS is obsolete and I may call it a wonder a 30 years old OS is running in the first place on modern hardware.

Anyway, everything is working fine. Even QEMM 7.2 and 8.0 are running... Somehow. Desqview is running. Windows 3.11 runs. But like the title says, there is memory missing. How do I fix this? I need every kB. And about 60kB less, is a lot! (hear me talking with a machine with 64GB RAM and 32TB storage )

Brings me to problem 2:

Nothing is loading high. So everything is running is conventional memory. Something I do not understand either. Already killed the networkdrivers. But I can't live withouyt the CD-drivers. Stealth isn't working but I can understand that as far as I understand DOS memory + tricks and glitches...


Thanks in advance.

 

[leesteken]

Nothing is loading high.

It does work with FreeDOS out of the box (VM with pentium3 and SPICE), but that's probably not what you are after.

 

[Rex]

It does work with FreeDOS out of the box (VM with pentium3 and SPICE), but that's probably not what you are after.

I don't have any experience with freeDOS but if it's 100% compatible with M$-DOS, I'm interested.

Thanks reply.

 

[gfngfn256]

I don't have any experience with freeDOS but if it's 100% compatible with M$-DOS, I'm interested.

Nor do I. However I read somewhere that FreeDOS is supposed to be compatible with MS-DOS.

I seem to remember that you must use IDE & no Virtio (makes logical sense).

Edit: found this.

 

[louie1961]

What do you autoexec.bat and config.sys files look like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFfQjnlGJi4

 

[Rex]

What do you autoexec.bat and config.sys files look like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFfQjnlGJi4

Thanks reply.

Them both are of non importance for the amount of hardware memory. Which still is ~580kB and no 640kB.

 

[Rex]

Nor do I. However I read somewhere that FreeDOS is supposed to be compatible with MS-DOS.

I seem to remember that you must use IDE & no Virtio (makes logical sense).

Edit: found this.

It's running the way I like it now with FreeDOS. Everything is loading hi. Plenty of RAM now. Thanks!

 

[Rex]

For those who like to know:

 

[louie1961]

Thanks reply.

Them both are of non importance for the amount of hardware memory. Which still is ~580kB and no 640kB.

If you alter your config.sys you can get DOS to load itself in high memory and get your missing lower memory back. Which BTW is exactly what Freedos did

 

[Rex]

If you alter your config.sys you can get DOS to load itself in high memory and get your missing lower memory back. Which BTW is exactly what Freedos did

You are looking for DOS=HIGH I assume?



Everything is still running in low memory. No way to get it up. Even Himem seems to do nothing. Tried to shift things in startup sequence. Nothing works.

But I notice a thing. Under Himem, the hardware reports the full 640k. So, I stand humbly corrected about that. Anyway, like you can see, this isn't working either. Besides, I need expanded memory for some things. Windows 3.11 for instance...

 

[louie1961]

It looks like you are using quarterdeck software? I might ditch that and just try the following:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM=OFF
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CD1.SYS /D :CDROM
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20
LASTDRIVE=Z

For your autoexec.bat, use the "LH" option for your driver
LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D :CDROM

 

[Rex]

It looks like you are using quarterdeck software? I might ditch that and just try the following:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM=OFF
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CD1.SYS /D :CDROM
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20
LASTDRIVE=Z

For your autoexec.bat, use the "LH" option for your driver
LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D :CDROM

Oh my. Memmaker <> QEMM wars in 2024 mhoeahaha!

I left Proxmox for this. Everything is working nice now. With my favorite QEMM of course.

So, I have Desqview running. Windows 3.11 is running in Desqview. Now I know it's rock stable.

In a couple of weeks I have my ZL1BBS back online. \o/ 25GB DOS games. Wish I had this back in the days.

 

[LnxBil]

I often run multiple hypervisors on each other, so having QEMU/KVM VM in PVE with nesting enabled, then VirtualBox inside of that for virtualizing supported MS-DOS and OS/2 in there. Maybe that could also work for you?

 

[Rex]

I often run multiple hypervisors on each other, so having QEMU/KVM VM in PVE with nesting enabled, then VirtualBox inside of that for virtualizing supported MS-DOS and OS/2 in there. Maybe that could also work for you?

LOL! Looks like a challenge. I'll look into that next time. For now it's running bare metal on an old laptop. Which is running like lightning of course.

 

[gfngfn256]

For now it's running bare metal on an old laptop. Which is running like lightning of course.

Once/if you get it running virtualized, I believe it will run at a similar speed to bare metal. On such an old OS, it is unlikely to make any difference. I have Windows XP (much "newer" than yours!), that run virtualized as good as (& sometimes better) as bare-metal.

 

[ThoSo]

I have testet it with an MS-DOS 7.1 Installation, and after

Setting the follow Options:
KVM Hardware Virtualisation : deaktivate
ACPI Support DEACTIVATE
it works with UpperMemory