Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helps!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Question: only 639K available to DOS?
Message-ID: <54861@bigtex.cactus.org>
Date: 20 Feb 91 01:22:18 GMT
References: <15893.27bbb43e@levels.sait.edu.au>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen)
Organization: Institute of Applied Cosmology, Austin TX
Lines: 19

In <15893.27bbb43e@levels.sait.edu.au>, xaandrews@levels.sait.edu.au wrote:

> Anybody come across the problem of only having 639K available to
> DOS?  The DOS MEM command reports only 654 366 bytes available instead
> of 655 360.

Do you have a PS/2 compatible mouse?  1k of RAM is usually reserved
for mouse tracking in designs that use a PS/2 compatible mouse.  That
leaves 639k for DOS.

Some systems put DPBs for user programmable drive types in that 1k too
(where you specified the drive geometry).

PS. Be very careful of QEMM or anything claims to give more than 640k
    of RAM in any system that has that 1k area reserved.  I am not yet
    convinced QEMM will avoid disaster.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen          james@bigtex.cactus.org   "Live Free or Die"
Dell Computer Co    9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759         512-338-8789