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From: rfutscher@pbs.org
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms,comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Re: PageMaker (and other) Divide By Zero and...
Message-ID: <1990Dec31.113405.11183@pbs.org>
Date: 31 Dec 90 16:34:05 GMT
References: <1990Dec30.002357.24614@mrspoc.Transact.COM>
Organization: PBS:Public Broadcasting Service, Alexandria, VA
Lines: 31

In article <1990Dec30.002357.24614@mrspoc.Transact.COM>, itkin@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Steven M. List) writes:
> I've just installed PageMaker, and am frustrated and confused.  It works
> wonderfully MOST of the time.  But sometimes...

   (TEXT DELEATED)
> 
> Anyway, the problem seems to be that sometimes (without any apparent 
> external symptoms) I get "Application Violated..." messages or "Divide
> by Zero" messages and get bombed out.  Of course, at this point I must
> reboot to be able to run ANYthing successfully.
> 
>
     I am haveing a simular problem. I just ordered a new BIOS hopeing that it 
will fix the problem.  I don't think that it will.  I think that my system
has the 386 page mode bug. You need all the following three conditions:

         80386 protected/32-bit mode operation
         80386 running in page mode
         Operation of an 80387 or 80287 coprocessor

     I understand that the DX 386s do not have this problem. I also
understand that changes were made to most mother boards to fix the problem.
I have an old mother board that was made before the problem was found
and does not have the changes.
     The problemsalways show up for mee when windows is in the 386 mode and
I run a DOS app. that uses the coprocessor. When I shrink the dos
app (i.e. a 287 test program) to an ICON and then restart it, it
usually crashes or has a floating point error. The DOS app won't even
start if I try to multitask.
      
                   Robert Futscher   rfutscher@pbs.org