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From: nromy@ihlpg.UUCP (Romy)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Ramdisks in high memory
Message-ID: <1911@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-May-86 16:52:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1911
Posted: Tue May 13 16:52:33 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 16-May-86 02:11:52 EDT
References: <1893@ihlpg.UUCP> <1897@ihlpg.UUCP> <2104@cbosgd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 38

In response to my note regarding Ramdisks in high memory, in article
<2104@cbosgd.UUCP> mark@cbosgd.UUCP writes:
> I just looked in my DOS manual for the 6300 plus.  There is nothing
> called VDISK.  There is something called RAMDISK, documented in
> appendix H.  But no /E option or anything comparable.
> 
> Perhaps VDISK comes from some other source?  If so, where can we get it?
> It's silly to have a third of a MB sitting there wasted while I eat up
> my precious 640K with a RAM DISK.
> 
> 	Mark

Well, it looks like I got caught in the "We're IBM, you're the rest of the
world" trap.  After reading Mark Horton's note, I realized that the file
VDISK.SYS (for Virtual DISK) is a feature of **IBM's PC-DOS**, but not of
**Microsoft's MS-DOS**.  In other words, VDISK.SYS is an IBM software
product (that they throw in with DOS), not a Microsoft product.

What I described (using the /E option with the program called VDISK.SYS) is
a *PC-DOS* 3.[012] feature which, very nicely I might add, allows you to
use the extended memory of an enhanced PC (or a PC-AT, which uses the 80286
processor) as a (possibly very large) RAM disk.  Unfortunately, Microsoft
does not always parallel IBM (or is it vice-versa?), and so with Microsoft's
*MS-DOS* 3.x, there is instead a program called RAMDISK.DEV, which does
NOT have the /E feature.

Sorry for getting people's hopes up.  Not too long ago, I had been working
with an IBM PC-AT that I set up with a 512K RAM disk in high memory, which
is a nice feature when you're working with programs that use a minimum of
450K and can have some very large temporary files.  Of course, when the
words "RAM disk" and "extended memory" were mentioned...  I guess after a
while, you sometimes just don't realize that the world isn't always as
homogeneous as you think.
-- 
				Neil Romy
				AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
				...ihnp4!ihlpg!nromy
				(312) 979-4524