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From: dwebster@cs.arizona.edu (Dave E. Webster, Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: MSDOS 5.0 compatible with 4DOS?
Message-ID: <1572@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 91 00:58:17 GMT
References: <1991Jun13.084814.24491@agate.berkeley.edu> <23446@shlump.lkg.dec.com> <31291@hydra.gatech.EDU> <1568@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> <jcmorris.676913714@mwunix.mitre.org>
Distribution: usa
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 22

jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes:

>dwebster@cs.arizona.edu (Dave E. Webster, Jr.) writes:
>
>>   I have one question:  Why did you upgrade to DOS 5.0?  What do you gain
>>   over DOS 3.3 (I refuse to consider DOS 4.x as an intermediate version ;-})?
>
>One answer: on my testbed machine, 46 KB additional memory below the 640K line
>without having to buy an additional software product.

    How much free memory is that?  I have 613k free at the (4)DOS 
prompt with PC-Cache (1.5 meg), VDISK (1.5 meg), pctools' mirror, keystack,
a mouse driver, and nansi.sys loaded, files=40, environment space = 1000,
and this using QEMM-386, 4dos, and DOS 3.3. I am not using the VGA memory,
and when a program is launched, the 4DOS shell leaves only a small (.5k)
loader resident, leaving my programs with almost the entire 640k space.

    Will DOS 5.0 add significantly to this total (+10k or more)?  If not,
then the  only advantage I can see is the ability to create larger disk 
partitions, but I am quite content with several 32mb partitions.  It just
adds another level to the directory structure which I don't find the least 
bit bothersome.