Re: [ProgSoc] MS-DOS bootdisk

["gleNN!" <glennw@nospam.vma.tabnsw.com.au>]

JAY@nospam.mailbox.tabnsw.com.au wrote:

> Hulo all,
>
> I want to create a MS-DOS bootdisk so that I can play dos games on my
> win95 pc. I have a couple of question regarding this.

Umm .. you dont need to use a bootdisk fer Win95. Any ShortCut to aMS-DOS
program will have it's own little set of properties that allow
you to personalise it's AUTOEXEC and CONFIG.

> 1. How do I maximise the amount of free convential memory (ie the stuff
> under 640k)? You may assume that no drivers need to be loaded (ie
> autoexec.bat and config.sys are currently empty). From memory, there is
> about 580k free. I'm pretty sure this can be improved, but I don't know
> how.

Umm .. load DOS in High Memory .. (Uper Memory Blocks)

DOS=HIGH,UMB

FILES=10 .. or whatever the minimum that the program needs to run.

Also try limiting the amount on memory to STACKS and BUFFERS ..
see what works and doesnt work ...

Or maybe I'm going too far back .. like back to DOS 6.0 =)


> 2. Can I install the normal ide cdrom driver (MSCDEX or something) on
> the boot disk? If so how, using as little conventional memory as
> possible?

Umm ..as far as I know .. CD extensions have to be loaded into
conventionalRAM .. someone prove me wrong on this ...

Also ... (I'm just guesing again) ... but doesnt MSCDEX just borrow the
driver
put into memory by your CD-ROM device driver? That is, your CD driver is
loaded into memory under a particular device name .. say IDECD001, and
then MSCDEX uses this reference to actually use the cD-ROM?

> Thanks,
>
> j.
>
> ps - I'm actually doing this for my little brother. But I knew if I said
> that, someone would reply with "yeah, sure it's for your little brother"
> ;)

Yeah sure Jay .. you dont even _have_ a little brother ...

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