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AST RESEARCH TECHNICAL BULLETIN TB-0028 7-13-84
BASIC'S AVAILABLE MEMORY DISCREPANCY
When using the IBM PC BASIC Interpreter, at initialization, it
displays the version, release, and copyright information. In
addition it displays the amount of memory available to the user
and their program. It is displayed as 'xxxxx Bytes free', where
xxxxx is a decimal value from 0 to 65536. BASIC is limited to
64kb regardless of total memory in system.
After installing an AST board with one or more serial
(asynchronous) port(s), one may notice that available memory has
changed. The reason being that when invoking Disk or Advanced
BASIC, BASIC determines if there are serial ports in the system;
and if so keeps an internal driver resident for each port found.
This means less available memory to the user. This driver is 436
bytes in length.
This data was gathered from tests using Disk and Advanced BASIC,
of releases 1.10, 2.00, 2.10. Be aware that the Disk BASIC is the
BASIC.COM and Advanced BASIC is the BASICA.COM on your DOS disk.