Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!uokmax!normanl
From: normanl@uokmax.uucp (Norman Lin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Atari 65xe help
Message-ID: <1990Feb7.055106.26617@uokmax.uucp>
Date: 7 Feb 90 05:51:06 GMT
References: <9800001@silver>
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
Lines: 22

In article <9800001@silver> sl195089@silver.ucs.indiana.edu writes:
>
>My name is Karl and I recently got a atari 65xe.  The owners manual
>says that it has a 64 K memory but that only certain software uses
>it.  Is there a way that I can access the extra 16 K that is not
>normally available?  
>
>Karl Poorbaugh
>sl195089@silver.ucs.indiana.edu

The 16K is actually 'underneath' the operating system.  Thus, accessing
it is a tricky business, since you must mask all interrupts while you
do so.  Furthermore, there is a gap from $D000 to $D800 (it may be larger,
but I don't think so) right in the middle of the 16K, so you actually
have only 14K free.  If you just want to use the extra 16K for programming
or word processing directly, it cannot be done because it is bank-switched.
I have seen a few ramdisk programs that take advantage of the 14K so that
you can, for instance, store DUP.SYS and MEM.SAV in the ramdrive to have
DOS load up instantly from BASIC/Assembler/Editor.  I have not seen many
other uses of the memory.
-- 
Norman Lin / normanl@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu