From: Michael Geary (Mike_at_Geary.com)
Date: Mon Mar 27 2000 - 14:57:11 EST
> Some of this code dates back to Windows 1.0. Remember the 286?
> That's true... I wonder why Win9x never increased the System
> Resources limit or made it variable depending on how much physical memory
> you had since a 286 only can handle about 1 meg of RAM while machines
> these days can handle up to 4 gig.
Because it's still 286 code! 16-bit, not 32-bit. Win9x has quite a mix of
the two.
> The thing is during the Windows 3.0 days, there weren't many Win
> apps so most of the stuff was still DOS based. Even in Windows/286 and
> Windows/386 v2.0, there weren't any Windows apps except for a few and
> mostly DOS apps. That was the reason people ran DesqView. Does something
> like Agent 95, RAM Doubler still exist? I know SoftRAM was a Hoax but I
> thought all the ones you mentioned were really supposed to be just virtual
> memory products and not resource limit hacks.
RAM Doubler started out as a Mac product which primarily did RAM compression
as an alternative to swapping memory to disk. Connectix (www.connectix.com)
still sells the Mac version, but the Windows version and Agent 95 are no
longer on the market. RAM Doubler for Windows did some RAM compression, but
since Win31 had decent virtual memory already, its main focus was relieving
the 64K system resource limits, using a variety of VxD tricks to do this.
Agent 95 was a follow-on for Windows 95. It did some of the system resource
stuff, but that wasn't needed as much for Windows 95--back then people were
delighted to have 32Mb in a machine, so with the modest system resource
improvements that Win95 had on its own, you would tend to run out of system
resources about the same time you ran out of memory.
But now you've got what, 320K on your ThinkPad? Oops! Like I went on and on
about in my other message, it's definitely Win2K and VMware for you... <g>
-Mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Thu Jan 23 2003 - 09:55:54 EST