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From: swh@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Steve Harrold)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: HELP! Using DOS print
Message-ID: <-286529971@hpcupt1.HP.COM>
Date: 29 Nov 89 16:15:20 GMT
References: <6534@brspyr1.BRS.Com>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 19

Re: Using PRINT from within a program

I haven't tried your particular program setup, but I suspect you may be
overlooking the fact that, although PRINT is not a TSR in the usual sense,
it does grab memory for its buffers and some code, and never ever again
lets go of it.  This is necessary because PRINT operates in the background
while you do additional work.  When control comes back from PRINT, it has
not yet completed its operation.  Since the memory is not freed, you end
up with fragmented memory; DOS does not handle this well, satisfying all
of subsequent memory requests from only one free memory hole.

The only thing you can do to get around this is to start PRINT once BEFORE
to run your program.  In this way, the PRINT memory is assigned at the top
of memory (or is it at the bottom? At any rate, memory fragmentation is
avoided). 

A good place to do this is in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Hope this helps.