Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: BIOS Shadowing / Memory usage???
Message-ID: <45900251@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 16 Jul 89 13:31:00 GMT
References: <6541@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Lines: 19
Nf-ID: #R:athertn.Atherton.COM:6541:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:45900251:000:993
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Jul 16 08:31:00 1989


>I recently bought a PC with AMI bios that supports bios memory shadowing.
>The system was sold as a 1 Mb system.  When I boot, the machine goes
>through a memory check of 1Mb.  However, when I use Norton SI, it can
>only find 640Kb of memory.  I contacted the company I bought the system
>from and they said the other 384Kb is used by the system for system stuff
>like bios shadowing, etc.  My question is this: is this a reasonable 
>explaination?  Does bios shadowing actually capture main memory and make
>it transparent to DOS?  What other system features use main memory this
>way?  Seems to me that I didn't get a 1Mb machine, but rather a 640Kb
>machine.

I got bit by the same syndrome, on a Dell 310. Yes, you really got
only a 640K machine, and yes, they should not advertise them 
as 1 meg systems. Nor the 4meg-384K systems as 4 meg systems.
If they advertise them as 4 meg systems, and I have a program that 
REQUIRES 4 whole megs (as I do), they are in trouble.

Doug McDonald