Uploaded to ftp://ftp.devoresoftware.com/downloads/emm386 are the files
emmx206.zip, EMM386/HIMEM mostly executable package, and emms206.zip,
EMM386/HIMEM mostly source package.
This release of EMM386 has modifications attempting to reduce conflicts
with SCSI and VDS, along with minor internal tweaks. Version 2.06 fixes a
problem with the NOVDS option; corrects a problem with applications,
specifically PKUNZIP, that query EMS when the NOEMS option is not present;
and allows an expanded range with the I= option for gaining more upper
memory. If you don't have problems with 2.05 and don't want the new stuff,
you don't need to update to 2.06.
Going down the list...
The NOVDS option was broken, as previously announced. Fixed.
The post-initialization patching out of the device driver entry point for
EMM386 was broken and caused crashing problems with PKUNZIP and other
EMS-querying applications via IOCTL functions unless the NOEMS option was
specified, also as previously announced. Fixed.
In an attempt to clear up some problems with VDS, the VDS function
dispatcher is more forgiving. If a VDS function is specified which is
reserved, but unused, the VDS dispatcher will pass the call along to the
original interrupt handler unchanged. Will this make computers with VDS
conflicts work better? No idea, it's just an attempt to allow SCSI
commands which do not directly intersect with VDS commands go their way
unhindered. There may be -- and likely are -- conflicts that cannot be
resolved in this manner, but hopefully it helps out some people. And for
all I know, there may remain a bug in a VDS function that only certain
computers encounter. Untested do to lack of a problem machine, hope it works.
The allowed I= ranges for EMM386 have been expanded to F000-F7FF. You may
re-use this area at your own risk. Some BIOS's are tolerant of it. I
myself re-used F000-F1FF here to load a mouse driver with no immediate ill
effect (it looks like the computer stored the BIOS setup screens and code
there). However, your computer may well crash, act weird, or otherwise
deviate from expectations when including anything in the new ROM BIOS
range, depending on what lives there.
The default MAX setting of EMM386 was lowered, yet again, to 120M. Seems
that TDUMP is unhappy with VCPI free amounts greater than 127M. TASM
works, TD works, TLINK works, not TDUMP. It coughs up a rolling error
message about ignoring and losing VCPI pages. Bogus, near as I can tell,
as VCPI allocations and free were stress tested for failures up to 156M
here, besides the other Borland utilities working fine. But I give up. It
wants less VCPI, it gets less VCPI. You can always manually increase it to
a larger value if you want.
Finally, the VCPI shared client/server GDT mapping in the first 4M was
reduced from 2M to 1.75M. Because I can, because somebody wanted it
smaller, and because nobody else really cares. Apparently some drivers,
like the well-documented (here) as stupid SoundBlaster, fight over the
lower 4M address space and this change gives them a larger ring to fight
in. That's about as low as it's going to go though, so device drivers, go
nuts with that extra 256K. Win one for the FreeDOS fish flipper.
-------------------------------------------------------
SF.Net email is sponsored by:
Tame your development challenges with Apache's Geronimo App Server.
Download it for free - -and be entered to win a 42" plasma tv or your very
own Sony(tm)PSP. Click here to play: http://sourceforge.net/geronimo.php
_______________________________________________
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
