Path: utzoo!yunexus!maccs!cs4g6ag
From: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 640KB + 3072KB = 4 MB?
Message-ID: <251419E0.1024@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
Date: 17 Sep 89 22:25:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: maccs.251419E0.1024
References: <8909170749.AA26779@euler.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn)
Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Lines: 27

In article <8909170749.AA26779@euler.Berkeley.EDU> ndeng@EULER.BERKELEY.EDU (Nan Deng) writes:
$Recently I have seen a number of 386 motherboards all using PHEONIX BIOS.
$(MICRONICS, GENE, etc.) All boards have 4MB memory chips installed. All
$boards reported 640KB of base memory and 3072KB extended memory when boot up.

$My question is: where is the additional 384KB?

   My guess is that it's between 640K and 1M.  Some programs (and the BIOS is
a program) will say this is extended memory, and some won't.  In general, I
believe, most won't.

   A sort-of related thought:  over the summer, I was using a lot of PS/2
machines, mostly model 30 286s.  In almost all cases, these machines were
reported by DOS to have 639K of memory (?!)  Such utilities as PCTools and
Norton's SI reported similar to the following:

DOS reports 639K conventional memory
I find 640K

   This occured on virtually all of the PS/2s (running DOS 3.30 or 4.01).
Any ideas why?

-- 
Stephen M. Dunn                              cs4g6ag@maccs.McMaster.CA
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"VM is like an orgasm:  the less you have to fake, the better." - S.C.