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From: pshuang@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Re: DPMI -- What will it buy me?
Message-ID: <9106091922.AA03223@w20-575-105.MIT.EDU>
Date: 9 Jun 91 19:22:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 25

In article <6146@mindlink.bc.ca> Mischa_Sandberg@mindlink.bc.ca (Mischa Sandberg) writes:

   Does anyone know what kind of products or applications will be able
   to make use of the DPMI? Is it nothing more than an ANSI Standard DesqView

XMS = API (API: Application Programmer Interface) advocated by Microsoft
to allocate extended memory as well as memory which is in the 640-1024Kb
address range a.k.a. UMB's (Upper Memory Blocks), with special treatment
for the HMA (High Memory Area), which is the first 64Kb of extended
memory that can actually be accessed as conventional memory due to
special design-oddity in post-8088 Intel chips for backward compatibility.

VCPI & DMPI = API's which permit applications which wish to use the
special hardware capabilities of 386-class processors to be able to do
so without stepping on one another.  VCPI has been around for several
years and has wide support.  DMPI is relatively new but with Microsoft
pushing this new and supposedly broader, more capable standard, DMPI
may very well replace or subsume the VCPI standard.

VCPI and DMPI are currently incompatible.  XMS-compatibility does not
necessarily imply VCPI or DMPI compatability, or vice versa.

Singing off,
UNIX:/etc/ping instantiated (Ping Huang).