Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!ucsd!ucbvax!PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU!GTHEALL From: GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU (George A. Theall) Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec.micro Subject: Rainbow EchoMail Digest Message-ID: <9010041251.AA19012@remote.dccs.upenn.edu> Date: 4 Oct 90 13:53:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 235 Rainbow EchoMail Digest Oct 4, 1990 In this issue: RE: PAGEMAKER 3.0 RE: ZMODEM ON RAINBOW RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ON A (5 messages) RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ONA RE: RD-53 Articles posted to either INFO-DEC-MICRO or comp.sys.dec.micro are currently gatewayed to the Rainbow Echo on FidoNet. You do not need to take special action to respond to articles in these digests. Please send reports of problems or suggestions for improvement of this digest to GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU (Internet). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 09-30-90 (10:29) To: GEOFF REED Subject: RE: PAGEMAKER 3.0 From: FRANK MALLORY GR> I'm running it under windows/286 on a "stock" 100+ with a 20 meg GR> drive and 896K ram. it can be a little slow at times, but mostly when GR> accessing the disk, which would be better if I had a faster drive than GR> an old st-225 that I haven't optimized in a while. I'm going to try Ventura Publisher first, altho I have the impression that PM is easier to use and superior in some respects. I got WordPerfect 5.0 working on my 'bow, under CB. It works pretty well, except I wasted a lot of time trying to get it to download fonts to my LaserJet before giving up and loading them separately. Also, can't get the PTR program to work as well as I would like. I have the text of a book originally composed in Bonner Labs RUNOFF for the VAX. Converted it to straight ASCII using SEDT, then input to WP using TEXT IN. A little tricky getting everything right so that the soft CRs and hard CRs would be where I wanted them, but finally figured it out. The edit capability of SEDT is far superior to that of WordPerfect. So altho it's a bit cumbersome, I think my best course for future work will be to use SEDT for original composition, then import into WP, VP, PM or whatever for final formatting and output. - --- msged 1.99L MSC * Origin: Silver Bullet - Silver Spring, Md. - 301-622-2247 (1:109/417) ------------------------------ Date: 09-30-90 (14:50) To: GEORGE THEALL Subject: RE: ZMODEM ON RAINBOW From: CHRIS RYAN > CR> Some months ago I had some troubles with Zmodem transfers on my > CR>Rainbow (using Binkley) & a clone (using DSZ). A question to Chuck > CR>Forsberg got the following response: > CR> ".....I also don't have access to a Rainbow computer,....A unique > CR>situation such as yours requires some serious consulting > to the Rainbow. You might find an older version on a local > board; you definitely get it when you register DSZ. On > one hand, I'd bet Chuck would be more amenable to questions > such as yours from a registered user. On the other, there's Funny you should say that, the first apenthesis (....) was a reference to not being familiar with the version of Zmodem used in BinkleyTerm. The second apenthesis covered an observation of his that I was not a registered user of DSZ. Hmmmmm. > little reason for someone to register DSZ for use on a Rainbow > with only the hope that Chuck will get it working there. True enough. As a FYI, BinkleyTerm only functions on the Rainbow because the TRIO has a Rainbow (Supplied by Bill Bird, a local sysop) to test it on. Although registration of DSZ is no big hairy deal, sending him a Rainbow to work with IS. With our non-8250 compatible UART, I can't think of any other way he could do the porting to the Rainbow. Anybody else have any observations to add? (or possibly a spare Rainbow to donate to the cause???? 8^) ). Chris - --- * Origin: Long_Island RB (Opus 1:102/138) ------------------------------ Date: 10-01-90 (13:17) To: DAVID MAROUN Subject: RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ON A From: PAUL OLSON Last I heard, the extra memory space on the SS RAMBOW was simply unusable. As Always, Paul - --- Opus-CBCS 1.12 * Origin: Silver Bullet - Silver Spring, Md - 301-622-2247 (1:109/417.0) ------------------------------ Date: 10-01-90 (13:21) To: GEORGE THEALL Subject: RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ON A From: PAUL OLSON George, I thought the 8088 was able to address 2Mb of memory. At least that is what the CP/M-86/80 manual states. As Always, Paul - --- Opus-CBCS 1.12 * Origin: Silver Bullet - Silver Spring, Md - 301-622-2247 (1:109/417.0) ------------------------------ Date: 10-01-90 (23:59) To: PAUL OLSON Subject: RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ON A From: CARL HOUSEMAN re: 8088... able to address 2 mb of memory. AT least that's what the CPM 86/80 manual states. If it says that, it couldn't be more wrong. The 8086, 8088, 80186 and 80188 are *by themselves* limited to 1 mb addressability. Of course you can add hardware to increase the accessible memory - the way an EMS memory board can make 2-4 mb and more memory available to an 8088 PC, but if you're talking about the processor only, that doesn't count. - --- Opus-CBCS 1.12 * Origin: Silver Bullet - Silver Spring, Md - 301-622-2247 (1:109/417.0) ------------------------------ Date: 10-02-90 (07:20) To: CARL HOUSEMAN Subject: RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ON A From: PAUL OLSON Carl, No, what I'm making a reference to was a passage in the CP/M programmers manual which said that the operating system had an addressing scheme which would allow 2Mb to be addressed. To be honest, I've never figured out how much memory the 8088 could address. I just figured I was limited to 896Kb, and if the processor could address it, that was enough. If you'd like, I can look up the passage in the manual, not that it makes much difference. Just a point of confusion! ;-) As Always, Paul - --- Opus-CBCS 1.12 * Origin: Silver Bullet - Silver Spring, Md - 301-622-2247 (1:109/417.0) ------------------------------ Date: 09-30-90 (17:55) To: DAVID MAROUN Subject: RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ONA From: ALAN CONROY Well, you're right and you're not right. Based on my discussions with Suitable solutions when I bought my 286 card, the extra memory on the board is actually a copy of the standard Rainbow ROM, with some modifications to make the ROM BIOS work with the 80286 processor. When in Turbow mode, this is writable (but you need to be sure not to over-write any of the code of the ROM BIOS routines that you will be using). When not in Turbow mode, those addresses are routed to the ROM, and you cannot change the memory. This is how, in fact, you can tell if the 286 is in turbow mode or not (save data from some location and write something new. If the new data "sticks" then you are in turbow mode - then be sure to restore the old value). So it is not like extended memory on a PC, but if you know what you are doing, you can use some of it. - --- Opus-CBCS 1.12 * Origin: Glacier Peak Rainbow, Bellevue, WA - 206/644-8431 (1:343/3.0) ------------------------------ Date: 10-02-90 (08:52) To: ALL Subject: RE: RD-53 From: CHRIS RYAN General question (I'll sit back & watch for flying fur): Recently, a formerly active Rainbow user offered me a RD-53 for a reasonable price (not the issue). In the conversation he made a comment that intrigues me. He stated that there is an UNDOCUMENTED feature in FORD-DOS (otherwise referred to as 3.xx), that allows a user to format an RD-53 with 3 partitions. His meaning was that the first 2 partitions were 32Meg, with the third one being the remainder of the disk space. This seems to be counter to Suitable's (Jerry Miller) list published in Rainbow News. Since Suitable did the upgrade of FORD-DOS into the releaseable 3.10A, I would have thought that this would become documented, (if it exists). Has anybody else heard of this? Is it possible that the 3rd partition is CPM? Chris - --- * Origin: Long_Island RB (Opus 1:102/138) ------------------------------ Date: 10-04-90 (08:30) To: PAUL OLSON Subject: RE: EXTENDED MEMORY ON A From: GEORGE THEALL PO>I thought the 8088 was able to address 2Mb of memory. At least that is PO>what the CP/M-86/80 manual states. Paul, because of their segmented architecture, Intel's 8086/8088 processors use a total of 20 bits to address memory. Two registers are needed for this - one to represent the "segment", or 64K block of memory, and another to represent the offset within that segment. As such the highest location in memory which can be directly addressed is 2^20, or 1024*1024 = 1MB. This is a "feature" of the processor itself, not the operating system being used. As Carl points out, schemes have been developed for handling more than 1MB of memory with machines equipped with these processors, but they require memory beyond the 1MB boundary be swapped into a special area before it can be used. Moreover, this page frame, as it is known, does indeed lie within the first meg of memory. George ------------------------------