Hi Michael,
you wrote on 13.01.00 to "Re: load EPPPD high":
MLD> Thanks. I wondered what the "reserved" section was.
You're welcome... I forgot to mention that newer versions of MS-DOS
have a system diagnosis tool "onboard" called MSD.EXE. You should try
it (if it exists in your DOS version) - it will give you a memory
map with different symbols for free and used UMB', for shadowed ROM
parts in the UMB's etc., when you choose the "memory" option in the
start screen of MSD.
MLD> I even had
MLD> that on a machine with no windows at all, just dos. I did manage to
MLD> get EPPPD loaded high, but on three machines, if I do that,
MLD> Arachne says, "Undefined IP address" and refuses to surf..
MLD> So, I either let EPPPD remain in conventional memory, or use
MLD> my Netdial 1.3 + Arachne setup. In that, the EPPPD can be loaded
MLD> high, (It's under control of Netdial 1.3), and I get more
MLD> conventional memory for Arachne. Usually showing 148 K rather than 80
MLD> K. in Arachne. For me, anyway, on the three machines I have running
MLD> now, getting EPPPD loaded high does not insure complete success
MLD> in getting a connection with Arachne. I'm using DOS 6.22 on all.
To be honest, I never understood how this should work, i.e. loading
EPPPD.EXE high and hoping to get it to work properly. As far as I
know, the packet driver must be located in the conventional memory,
if he should function correctly. I think it was Guenter Bietzig
who pointed out recently that EPPPD can only install itself within
a certain *valid* range of vectors (= pointers to the memory address).
He probably cited this from "dospppd.txt" which can be found in the
main Arachne directory, here's the part concerning the options of
PPPD again:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
PPPD for DOS 0.6 beta
[...]
FREQUENTLY USED OPTIONS
[...]
pktvec <interrupt number>
Specifies the interrupt vector number to be hooked
by the packet driver interface. The valid range is
from 0x60-0x66, 0x68-0x6F and 0x78-0x7E. If this
option is not used, the driver searches for the
first free vector in this range (usually 0x60).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think this means that EPPPD has to be located in the conventional
memory in order to work, because he is able to search for free
vectors there. But perhaps I didn't understand it well enough...
Why your setup with Netdial works, is a mystery to me - but I surely
prefer to believe in miracles myself... ;-)
And I'm still not convinced that you really need so much free lower
memory to surf with Arachne. As some members of this list have
already stated, it is possible to get it going with even 520k+ free
conventional memory. For example, I call Arachne from my newsreader
as an external application, so that a part of CrossPoint will stay
in lower 640k (most of it will swap into XMS, of course), but that
doesn't seem to disturb Arachne. Typing mem/c in that situation shows
560k of free conventional memory. But I have to admit that I surf
without "auto-download of images" most of the time, only reloaded some
or all images, if I can't navigate on a specific website without them.
Hans-Juergen
--
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