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From: donc@microsoft.UUCP (Don CORBITT)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms,comp.windows.ms.programmer
Subject: Re: Over 16 Meg
Keywords: win3 16mb qemm himem
Message-ID: <72763@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jun 91 16:29:03 GMT
References: <1991May30.000945.12529@xanadu.com> <1991May30.174414.19047@midway.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: donc@microsoft.UUCP (Don CORBITT)
Followup-To: comp.windows.ms.programmer
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 31

In article <1991May30.174414.19047@midway.uchicago.edu> lair@ellis.uchicago.edu (Scott A. Laird) writes:
>In article <1991May30.000945.12529@xanadu.com> ravi@xanadu.com (Ravi Pandya) writes:
>>Has anyone had any success at all trying to get Windows 3.0 Enhanced
>>Mode to recognize the existence of over 16 Mb of RAM? I have 32 Mb of
>
>Windows is still more or less a 286 app, with segments and 24-bit addressing,
>and shouldn't be able to directly access 32 Mb of RAM.  

[continued discussion on why win 3.0 can't use features of 386]

This is a very good argument, unfortunately it turns out to be incorrect.
Win 3.0 in Enchanted mode allows the creation of 32 bit apps, or 16 bit
apps using 32 bit registers and addresses.

I have no specific information about the 16 MB limit on 3.0.  However,
there is nothing in Windows 3.x design to enforce such a limit.  It is
very possible to allocate 8MB, and use the 386 32 bit registers to directly
access any byte in that block of memory.

In fact, there are already 32 bit applications shipping on windows 3.0.
It turns out that a complete 32 bit app requires a mapping layer for the
API calls, so we don't advertise Win3 as a 32 bit operating system.  But
if you want to fiddle with a rrreeeaaallllyyy bbbbiiiiigggg chunk of memory,
and you have the RAM (or disk space), you can do it today with minimal
effort.

(This minimal effort includes a compiler that knows about 32 bit addressing,
or writing 80386 assembly language.  But that's the case in any OS.)
--
Don Corbitt, uunet!microsoft!donc, MSWinDev
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