Apparently-To: john.smith@gravis.com GUS Daily Digest Sun, 7 Nov 93 007 Volume 8: Issue 7 Today's Topics: DOSMAX - the real story GUS Stuff Manuals or not manuals? Megem timelimit REMOVED misc. replies oops! Shopper GUS Review that's odd... Where to buy GUS cheaply? Standard Info: - Meta-info about the GUS can be found at the end of the Digest. - Before you ask a question, please READ THE FAQ. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 11:45:39 -0800 (PST) From: mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor) Subject: Re: DOSMAX - the real story Not the GUS Server once wrote... $ $ ------------------------- $ $ Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 06:14:00 BST $ From: b.williams44@genie.geis.com $ Subject: DosMax?? Where is it?? $ $ Dear Paolo Colombo, $ Since I don't know where you're logging in from? I'll try to tell you $ a little more more about the program and straighten out my post for you. $ Some people appear to be confused about the UMB situation and UltraMID. DOSMAX cannot possibly help create more UMB space for UltraMID. It is a USER of UMB space, so after installing it, you will have LESS, not more. It's advantage is that is moves DOS Resources into a UMB, out of conventional memory, giving you more room for your applications. But you have to have the space in the UMB areas for the DOS Resources it loads high. $ DOSMAX.EXE is a Device Driver which will Maximize the use of low Memory $ by moving MS-DOS 3.1 or above, system data to upper memory block (UMB) $ provided by your upper memory manager.(Since I use Dos 6.0 I don't know $ what you are using and MemMaker is very helpful) $ $ DOSMAX.EXE also can move a portion of COMMAND.COM into a UMB instead of $ the High Memory Area (HMA). This feature recovers space in low memory which $ is available when DOS is in the HMA. HMA == 1st 64K of extended memory above 1Mb. In other words, the HMA is 1024K to 1088K. DOSMAX doesn't move command.com there. It stops the DOS kernel from going into the HMA, diverting it into a UMB instead. This allows you get the benefits of DOS=HIGH, but leaves the HMA available for other programs to use. The HMA can only be used by one program at a time. DOS=HIGH will use about 40K of the 64K available, wasting the rest. DESQview or DESQview/X will use all 64K, so it's better to let them use it. If you don't use DV or DV/X, it's probably best to just let DOS=HIGH and buffers=35 take up the HMA. Command.com is only 3K, by the way. $ As to where I got it, I stated that I had downloaded it off a Local BBS. $ And though that it probably was on Internet or Epas, since it is a Shareware The late Simtel20 had it. All of its mirrors still do. The current version is 2.0, and you need this version to be fully compatible with DOS 6.0. Earlier versions will work, but may be unreliable, especially if you use Dblspace. There will be no other versions in the future. $ I average around 618k Conventional memory ,have Mouse, Sbosdrv and $ Smartdrive loaded high in UMB. Also it loads around 272k of COMMAND.COM MEM /C is confused by DOSMAX. This is just an unavoidable side effect. DOS does NOT take 272K in any part of memory. You can trust what is says about conventional memory, but with DOSMAX or QEMM or 386MAX around, it reports nonsense info about the UMB areas. $ high into UMB.I use a statement in EMM386 line after my Expanded memory $ #number.It's I=B000-B7FF this uses the system UMB that is set aside for $ the SVGA and Monocrome Monitor, and adds several UMB's to system.Acually I've $ ran my SVGA while this was being used for UMB's and I had no problems with $ the video. $ On most clone PCs, you can also add I=E000-EFFF (DOS 6 does this automatically - DOS 5 does not). This area is not available on PS/2 type machines. Most clones will also let you I=F000-F7FF. The first 32K of the System BIOS is almost always not used after the machine has started the boot process, so you can recover 32K of UMB space there. It is best to force the page frame to some 64K free spot below E000 when you do this. Most people can do FRAME=C800, and get a huge 128K UMB after the page frame, from D800-F7FF. SCSI Disk ROMs, or other adapters may require you to put the page frame elsewhere. Or you can do FRAME=NONE, and lose Expanded Memory to gain another 64K UMB space. $ This is my MEM/C statement from Dos prompt. $ $ Total = Conventional + Upper Memory Blocks $ $ MSDOS 15277 (15k) 15277 (15k) 0 (0k) $ HIMEM 1168 (1k) 1168 (1k) 0 (0k) $ EMM386 3120 (3k) 3120 (3k) 0 (0k) $ COMMAND 2976 (3k) 2704 (3k) 272 (0k) $ DOSMAX 288 (0k) 0 (0k) 288 (0k) $ SMARTDRV 27280 (27k) 0 (0k) 27280 (27k) $ MOUSE 17088 (17k) 0 (0k) 17088 (17k) $ FREE 713936 (697k) 632848 (618k) 81088 (79k) Any memory manager beside EMM386 will do a better job than this. I get 634K free conventional (649,000 bytes), and have more High RAM as well, using QEMM v7. Plenty of room for UltraMID, or whatever else. DOS 6 memory management is about as sophisticated as QEMM version 5.1, which is four years old. $ DOSMAX17.ZIP 58,512 This is how it was listed on Local BBS $ DosMax.exe Version 1.7 Copyright(1992) by Philip B. Gardner $ Philip B. Gardner $ 10461 Lever St. $ Circle Pines, MN 55014 $ (612) 785-9439 $ $ Registration fee is $15.00 Phil Gardner no longer lives in Minnesota. He has been hired by Quarterdeck Office Systems, and he has incorportated DOSMAX technology into QEMM v7's DOS-UP feature, which loads even MORE pieces of DOS high than DOSMAX 2.0. He now resides in the Los Angeles area. Nice guy, too! He also thinks the GUS is a Qool sound card. :) You should really get 2.0 to use with DOS 6. It's on the Quarterdeck BBS at 310-314-3227, filename DOSMAX20.ZIP. I hope my ramblings have helped someone understand memory management better. Sorry about the off-topic post. $ ------------------------------ $ $ Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 11:47:12 -0500 $ From: Brennan Stephens $ Subject: FYI $ $ Attention all you GUS types! $ $ I just thought some of you might be interested in $ this little tidbit. The Computer Science department $ at UNC-Chapel Hill, which boasts the fastest graphics $ computer in the world, and is a world leader in $ Virtual Reality Research (paraphrased from "Computer $ Graphics World", March 1993) has just decided to set $ up a PC at every Head-Mounted Display to act as a $ dedicated sound server. The GUS will be the card $ used in these machines. The decision to use the GUS $ was made primarily because of the 3D capabilities, $ and the fact that most other cards offering 3D sound $ were 10-20 times more expensive than the GUS. $ $ I thought this was a pretty impressive notch in the $ GUS belt. The GUS also finds a more mundane role at Quarterdeck, where the music on hold is provided by - Ultrasound! Our phone guy has sampled a lot of CDs, and is even looking into getting an ASCAP license so that more songs will be available to us. 11Khz mono sounds absolutely fabulous over a phone line. :) I'm trying to convince him to mix some MIDI and MOD files in with the sampled music. If you've got some good ones, drop me a line. -- Mike Batchelor | mikebat@netcom.com | This space for rent mikebat@qdeck.com | ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 12:01:14 -0500 (EST) From: Phat H Tran Subject: GUS Stuff > Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1993 02:37:26 -0800 (PST) > From: Ganja farmer > Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V8 #5 > > Hey all! With all this talk about 2nd Reality demo and Terminator > Rampage, I was gnawing at the bit to try them myself. However, I have > been unable to find either of them, and I don't know their filenames, so The Rampage and 2nd Reality demos can be found on archive.epas.utoronto.ca (/pub/pc/ultrasound). Look first in the submit directory. Ramdem.zip should be there, but 2nd Reality might have been moved. > Date: Sat, 06 Nov 93 00:34:50 EST > From: BGUZ000 > Subject: where is mega-h.zip > > I read in the digest that there was a time extender for > Mega-em located at epas. For some reason I can not find it. > Could someone please tell me exactly where it is located. Mega-h.zip is no longer on Epas. I'll assume that somebody had a good reason for removing, so I don't think I'll be re-uploading it. BTW, I didn't write the hack, nor did I initially upload it. I just found it there and thought that since Mega-Em will be free to GUS owners eventually, and since registrations aren't being accepted, that it would be okay to point people to that hack so that they wouldn't have to put up with the time limit any longer. But, despair not. The new Mega-Em will be released very shortly. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 22:34:34 +0200 (EET) From: tnikkane@clinet.fi (Toni Nikkanen) Subject: Manuals or not manuals? Megem timelimit REMOVED Do the printed manuals for PowerChords and Midisoft Recording Session exist, or are we supposed to do on our own? I did not receive any manuals for these softwares with my Ultrasound board, although I did receive manuals for everything else. I mailed gravis sales support some weeks ago but did not get any reply. Another thing: Now that's it's announced MegaEm will be free for all GUS users, I will announce my little secret: The GUSMIX program I uploaded and announced some weeks ago (gusmix10.arj, and if i've already uploaded it, gusmix11.arj), can be used to completely crack MegaEm. When it shuts up, just re-enable voice output with gusmix! I didn't notice this even myself before, and when I did, I kept it as a secret.. but there's no longer reason to keep it as a secret, so enjoy. I know there's a patch (slow.com, 6? bytes), but it hangs my machine, and maybe others, too. Hope we get Roland+SB-megaem soon! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 93 05:46:00 BST From: f.graham@genie.geis.com Subject: misc. replies Phat H Tran, > Do you think you can post some of the good news to the Newsgroup.. Hey, I'm lucky to make it _this_ far (to the Digest)! I only have email access here from Genie, don't even know where the Newsgroup is. If I can reach it, point me the way, and I'll be glad to post GUS news from Genie! Otherwise, anyone should feel free to pass it on. And yeh, Thomas Dolby himself, eh?! Take _THAT_, naysayers! Gravis and Jayeson, Congrats on the bonding! Power to the Mastermind principle! Ride the GUS Wave! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 19:50:30 -0800 (PST) From: Ganja farmer Subject: oops! I had saved the message listing all of the companies supporting the GUS, but I accidently just deleted it. Could anyone _please_ privately e-mail me the list? I'm trying to convince someone that the GUS does have a lot of support, with a lot more coming, but it's hard to prove it without the names of the companies/titles. Thanks in advance, and thanks again to all who helped with the location/names of Terminator Rampage and 2nd Reality... chris yaga@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 13:43:57 GMT From: "R.A.Kelly" Subject: Shopper GUS Review For those people who haven't seen it, Computer Shopper (UK edition) has a fairly large soundcard review. The GUS is in, naturally, and gets a pretty good write up. The review says the midi sound is "certainly superior" to the Orchid SoundWave 32, and comparable to the sound from a Roland or Yamaha external unit. Overall, the GUS wins a "Best Buy" award for midi and general digitised sound Quality. PC Format over here also seems to have taken a liking to the GUS. Apart from the interview with Brad Craig, there seemed to be a large number of plugs in the last issue. Carry On Gussin' !! Ned. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 93 12:10:41 EST From: dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu Subject: that's odd... That's odd... I got TWO digests today. One is a few lines longer than the other. --Michael-- << dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu >> ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 17:05:28 -0600 (CST) From: nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) Subject: Where to buy GUS cheaply? Hello to all GUS users, I don't have a GUS yet. But I've decided to buy one, sort of as an early Christmas present. Being a poor college student, I'd like to save as much money as possible. So I'd appreciate it if you could tell me any place that sells the GUS cheaply. Preferably with a phone-number along with it. Thanks. -- Nan Zou | Bitnet : nan@ksuvm Dept. of EECE | Internet : nan@math.ksu.edu Kansas State University | nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu #include | "Linux -- The choice of a GNU generation" ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V8 #7 ****************************** To post to tomorrow's digest: To (un)subscribe or get help: To contact a human (last resort): FTP sites: archive.epas.utoronto.ca /pub/pc/ultrasound wuarchive.wustl.edu /systems/msdos/ultrasound archive.orst.edu /pub/packages/gravis theoris.rz.uni-konstanz.de /pub/sound/gus FTP mail server: mail-server@nike.rz.uni-konstanz.de Hints: - Get the FAQ from the FTP sites or the request server. - Mail to for info about other GUS related mailing lists (programmers, musicians, etc.).