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Using Stacker and QEMM
Quarterdeck Technical Note #214
By: Robert Ngan
I. Hardware considerations:
The AT/16 coprocessor card and the MC/16 microchannel card tested were
found to work with QEMM 6 without the need to exclude any High RAM
addresses.
The XT coprocessor card needs an exclude and this address is normally at
CC00-CFFF but is changeable during the Stacker install process. This is
an 8 bit card designed for use on XTs, although one can also use it on
AT machines. QEMM will need an EXCLUDE for this RANGE.
For example: if the card uses CC00-CFFF, then add X=CC00-CFFF to the
QEMM device line in the config.sys
I. Using STACKER 2 with EMS memory and QEMM's Stealth:
a) When installing STACKER 2 on a machine with QEMM already
present. The STACKER Install program will ask whether or not you
wish to use EMS. Selecting yes would add the /EMS switch to the
Stacker device line. If you want to use EMS with STACKER 2 and
QEMM's Stealth option, make sure to add DBF=2 to the QEMM device
line before installing STACKER 2. Otherwise the machine will just
reboot and go into a loop saying that you need to add DBF=2. DBF is
needed because STACKER 2 is accessing the disk via the page frame,
and this is not allowed when using Stealth.
The only way out of this loop is to REBOOT, then hold down the ALT
key after you hear a beep. You will be prompted to press the
Escape key to unload qemm. Press escape, then edit the config.sys
(on the uncompressed drive) and add DBF=2 to the QEMM386.sys device
line,
Device=c:\qemm\qemm386.sys dbf=2
IMPORTANT: This change should be done on the uncompressed drive.
b) When installing QEMM 6 on a machine with STACKER 2 already
installed, if you plan to let STACKER 2 use EMS provided by QEMM
6, make sure to edit the config.sys and add the DBF=2 parameter to
the QEMM device line in the config.sys. At the same time, you
could add /EMS to the Stacker device line to allow it to use EMS.
II. Running OPTIMIZE with STACKER 2
a) How can I make OPTIMIZE work with STACKER?
Optimize fails because of the SSWAP.COM driver in the config.sys.
SSWAP's line in config.sys typically looks like:
DEVICE=C:\STACKER\SSWAP.COM C: D: /SYNC
SSWAP.COM is the non-resident program that switches the drive
letters. In the example above, drive C: becomes drive D: and drive
D: becomes drive C:. Optimize reboots your machine a few times and
writes data to the disk during this process. SSWAP.COM will make
Optimize think it is writing to C when in fact it was writing to D.
1. When running Optimize, this device line needs to be either
remarked or removed temporarily from the CONFIG.SYS. Also,
your AUTOEXEC.BAT (and some lines in the config.sys that came
after SSWAP.COM) probably contains references to drive C:. All
these references (except for references to files that you know
exist on both the compressed and uncompressed drive) need to be
changed to drive D:. Conversely, all references to drive D:
should be changed to drive C:. This is necessary since Optimize
requires that the CONFIG.SYS and the AUTOEXEC.BAT reside on
drive C:.
2. When installing STACKER 2 on a machine with QEMM already
installed, STACKER2 will automatically copy most of the files
Optimize needs to the \QEMM subdirectory of the boot
(uncompressed) drive. As of the date of this writing, the
STACKER2 install program did not copy TESTBIOS.COM (needed for
STEALTH testing) and WINSTLTH.VXD (needed for Windows enhanced
mode if using STEALTH). This means that you have to copy the
TESTBIOS.COM and WINSTLTH.VXD from the compressed drive to the
uncompressed \QEMM subdirectory. Go to step 4...
3. When installing QEMM on an existing STACKER drive, create a
QEMM sub-directory on the uncompressed drive. (That is C: since
we already REMOVED SSWAP.COM in step 1.) Some files need to be
in the QEMM sub-directory in order to run Optimize properly:
QEMM386.SYS, OPTIMIZE.COM, LOADHI.SYS, TESTBIOS.COM,
LOADHI.COM, BUFFERS.COM, RSTRCFG.SYS, MCA.ADL (if
you are running on a microchannel machine), WINHIRAM.VXD and
WINSTLTH.VXD (if using Windows 3 enhanced mode)
4. Once you have done this, you should reboot before running
Optimize so that the drives are set up correctly. Now you
should be able to run Optimize normally. After Optimize has
run, you should edit your CONFIG.SYS and restore the SSWAP.COM
line. Also, you should edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT to restore the
drive specifications to what they were before; e.g. change all
references to drive D: to drive C: and all references to drive
C: to drive D:. Reboot again. You are now getting the most
out of your conventional memory.
Copyright (C) 1991 by Quarterdeck Office Systems
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