Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!tmsoft!masnet!canremote!bradley.grigor
From: bradley.grigor@canremote.uucp (BRADLEY GRIGOR)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: QEMM Options Documented!
Message-ID: <90030820225320@masnet.uucp>
Date: 25 Feb 90 12:05:00 GMT
Organization: Canada Remote Systems Limited, Mississauga, ON, Canada
Lines: 61

mlord@bnr-rsc.UUCP (Mark Lord) writes:

mP>In the course of tracking down another problem, I ran 'strings' on
mP>QEMM.SYS, and, Lo and Behold, it has several undocumented
mP>command-line options.

mP>Does anybody KNOW what these actually do?  (My 90-day warranty is up,
mP>so I'm not supposed to bother Quarterdeck with such questions).

mP>Option          Abbreviation
mP>----------------------------
mP>IGNOREA20       IA
mP>NOXBDA          NXY
mP>VGA             VG
mP>NOROM           NR
mP>TASKS           TA

mP>These are NOT in the documents for my version (v4.23) of QEMM.

mP>Does anybody KNOW what these are for?

Paraphrasing (NOT copying of course!) from the QEMM-386 V5.00
manual:

OPTION       ABBR  FUNCTION
----------   ----  --------
IGNOREA20    IA    disables trapping of the 8042 ports, which
                   QEMM.SYS does by default to detect programs
                   that attempt to manipulate the state of the
                   A20 line in order to access extended memory
                   and which sometimes causes keyboard
                   problems.  IA disables support of HIMEM.SYS
                   for example, but may also eliminate certain
                   keyboard related problems.  Besides, with
                   QEMM-386 loaded, who needs HIMEM.SYS?

NOXBDA       NX    do not move the eXtended BIOS Data Area. On
                   machines that have one, the XBDA presents an
                   obstacle to proper memory management, so
                   QEMM moves it.  However, some software might
                   become confused to not find the XBDA at the
                   default 639K address, so NX disables the
                   relocation.  Appropriate on PS/2 model 80.

VGA          ???   ???

NOROM        NR    disables the remapping of the reboot page of
                   the system ROM, which QEMM normally (but
                   needlessly) does to detect reboots.  Using
                   NR saves 4KB of memory.

TASKS=n      TA=n  sets the number of internal data structures
                   used by QEMM.SYS to handle interrupts out of
                   protected mode. There are 16 by default,
                   each of which requires 384 bytes of extended
                   memory.

bradley.grigor@canremote.uucp  :  ALEX is coming to Toronto in April.
Newmarket, Ontario, Canada     :  TelePoker will be there - will YOU?
---
 ~ DeLuxe 1.11 #4613  Boy, I wouldn't want to be in my shoes right now!