Re: UMB and 386/486 --> status of FreeDOS emm386 etc.

> FreeDOS himem: max. 64 MB, written mostly in C, by Tom.
> FreeDOS fdxms: max. 64 MB, written mostly in ASM, by Martin.
wrong. 
himem and fdxms are basically 95% identical (allthough nearky
impossible to see if using diff).
I just lifted command line parsing and similar stuff from
ASM to C.


> FreeDOS emm386 only runs with FreeDOS himem. It -should- work with
> FDxms286 and FDxms as well, 

there was a time, when changing a single statement in FDXMS would
have made it compatible to EMM386 (this was tested). 

As martin openly refused to add this statement to FDXMS (for about 
six months - so much about 'alive and kicking), HIMEM was (re)born.

now FDXMS has this single stement fixed, it doesn't run - for a different
reason.
so I would say, FDXMS is incompatible to EMM386, not the other way round.


> It is usually hard for Tom and Martin to work together on one project,
> but over the time, their 2 XMS manager families inherit each others
> features.
they were, and basically still are - the same.

> I think it should be possible to fix the unknown incompatibilities in
> either FDxms286 or FDxms, so that it can work together with FreeDOS
> emm386. I know, Tom would say: Why use FDxms, my Himem does the same!
> But for the records: If it does the same, I would prefer to be able
> to use all two/three...
tom would say:
the only usable XMS handler with EMM386 will have a feature set like
eiher FDXMS or HIMEM. scince this feature set is 100% identical 
(except that FDXMS is incompatible to SoftICE - by design), there is 
no need to have 2 different XMS handlers.


> I know that neither Tom nor Martin would be willing to abandon their
> versions of XMS managers

sure. I need something that is compatible to SoftICE (else all you guys
wouldn't even have FreeDOS HMA). FDXMS isn't. end of story.

> Toms version is optimized for FreeDOS emm386 compatibility.
it's not 'optimized'. there was a bug fixed, nothing else.

> I hope I could clarify a few points :-).
Hope, me too.

> PS: FDxms is supposed to auto-fallback to using the BIOS (in 386 style),
which
> should make it FreeDOS emm386 compatible. 
and that's a) something I found and fixed (while testing with Softice),
and b) it's obviously in HIMEM, too.

tom