Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!canterbury!elec!tomlinson From: tomlinson@elec.canterbury.ac.nz Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations Subject: Re: IBeM (Was: PD Emulators...) Message-ID: <1991May14.110301.1@elec.canterbury.ac.nz> Date: 13 May 91 23:03:01 GMT References: <53238@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991May13.005311.46707@vaxb.acs.unt.edu> Organization: Electrical Engineering, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Lines: 71 Nntp-Posting-Host: elec.canterbury.ac.nz In article <1991May13.005311.46707@vaxb.acs.unt.edu>, wright@etsuv2.etsu.edu (BRIAN WRIGHT) writes: > Well, since it looks like someone has some knowledge of the IBeM system, maybe > you can help me with a problem. I have an A3000 and can't get the IBeM > emulator running on my configuration. The thing I am perplexed about is that I > have 4 megs, 2 chip and 2 fast. Once Kickstart is loaded I only have 1.5 fast > and real close to 2 megs of chip. IBeM still does not seem to run, even on a > completely blank system (the initial CLI and nothing else). Does IBeM require > 2 megs of FAST ram free or just 2 megs of memory (ANY type) free? Whenever I IBeM requires one whole meg of contiguous free memory plus other small bits. It does not require 2M of fast memory, and will actually run on an A3000 with 2M chip and only 1M fast. The requirement of 2M was only to ensure that there was 1M of contiguous memory. > try to run it and have the system disk in the drive, the screen goes black and > the drive light comes for small amount of time and then it just quits. No If the screen goes black, all memory has been allocated at this stage. The drive light going on is when IBeM tries to boot MS-DOS. You must have a bootable MS-DOS disk in the IBMA: drive at this point! Some MS-DOS disks also did not boot under the demo version. These bugs have been fixed now and I hope to get a new demo version out shortly. I know that MS-DOS 3.2, 3.3 and 4.01 all work. (Laptop DOS's had problems). > errors, no gurus, nothing. Just comes back to what I was doing. It doesn't > tell me anything. This version is the Demo version from ab20. Also, I am not > using MSH, rather I own CrossDOS and thought that would do just as well. > Should I get MSH and try it or is that a waste of time. I do prefer CrossDOS > and would rather use it. CrossDOS does work fine. I have tried it myself to prove that it would work. > On the same subject, I have a comment about IBeM. I still can't see why an IBM > emulator requires 2 megs of ANY TYPE of RAM to run a system that can't use any > more than 640k (other than paging). It makes NO sense to me whatsoever. I am It only requires one complete meg of ram. Since some bytes are always lost before you start, you need more than one meg of memory in your machine before you start. Anyway, IBeM does actually give you 704K of memory (+ screen mem and ROM BIOS). If you like, you can write software to make use of the extra segments of memory between the screen and the start of BIOS (if that makes you feel better about not wasting memory). > sorry to say, that if a demo version that is supposed to run on my system > doesn't I can't really see purchasing the full version as who knows if it will > even run. If anyone can provide me with some insight to this problem, please > do. I'd love to see this run on my 3000. It should run - its just that the demo was picky on DOS versions. The new version is much improved, and even includes error messages! > > Does this new version of IBeM require less memory? The even newer version (avail RSN) will work with any amount of memory (you tell it what size mem space you want). I have seen it running on a 1M chip only A500 (yes, this is the 68000 version). > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > Brian Wright > wright%etsuvax2@ricevm1.rice.edu or wright@etsuvax2.bitnet > -------------------------------------------------------------- > Standard Disclaimer... not my words and all that jazz. - Mark Tomlinson Reply to: tomlinson@elec.canterbury.ac.nz Disclaimer: I only wrote the thing - I don't understand how it works!