Comments on: The Problem with RAM… http://www.worldstart.com/the-problem-with-ram/ Everyone, no matter how good you are, needs computer help every now and then. That's where Worldstart comes in. Tue, 21 May 2013 03:34:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Matthewhttp://www.worldstart.com/the-problem-with-ram/comment-page-1/#comment-92771 Matthew Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:55:14 +0000 http://www.worldstart.com/?p=22599#comment-92771 There's a Microsoft KB about it, if anyone's interested: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257405 There’s a Microsoft KB about it, if anyone’s interested:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257405

]]> By: Matthewhttp://www.worldstart.com/the-problem-with-ram/comment-page-1/#comment-92770 Matthew Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:54:11 +0000 http://www.worldstart.com/?p=22599#comment-92770 The program was called RAMDisk, and it first appeared with DOS 2.0. It was a device file that was loaded in the autoexec.bat or config.sys (anybody here remember those?) and would configure a chunk of RAM to act as a virtual fixed drive. I used to have one set up and would copy my Wing Commander executables to it to make the game really fly. The program was called RAMDisk, and it first appeared with DOS 2.0. It was a device file that was loaded in the autoexec.bat or config.sys (anybody here remember those?) and would configure a chunk of RAM to act as a virtual fixed drive. I used to have one set up and would copy my Wing Commander executables to it to make the game really fly.

]]> By: randalhttp://www.worldstart.com/the-problem-with-ram/comment-page-1/#comment-92621 randal Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:23:55 +0000 http://www.worldstart.com/?p=22599#comment-92621 Thanks for your comments, Neil and John. I was interpreting Peter's question as being a way that you could do this so that the program could always run faster. It didn't occur to me that he might be asking for a session by session basis. Great catch on that.Randal Thanks for your comments, Neil and John. I was interpreting Peter’s question as being a way that you could do this so that the program could always run faster. It didn’t occur to me that he might be asking for a session by session basis. Great catch on that.

Randal

]]> By: Neil Ragonehttp://www.worldstart.com/the-problem-with-ram/comment-page-1/#comment-92406 Neil Ragone Thu, 05 Apr 2012 01:41:09 +0000 http://www.worldstart.com/?p=22599#comment-92406 What John is talking is called creating a RAM Drive. Back when you used a Config.sys file to lot drivers and such at bootup, there was a command you could put in there to create a RAM drive, that is take part of your computers memory and configure it to emulate a hard drive. When you ran Windows Explorer or Windows manager it would show up like a drive, usually "D" if you had only one hard drive. If you were in DOS mode, you just typed D: at the DOS prompt to switch to it. You could install a program to it in the same way you would install it to a hard drive,and as you said, when the computer was turned off, the drive was gone. What John is talking is called creating a RAM Drive. Back when you used a Config.sys file to lot drivers and such at bootup, there was a command you could put in there to create a RAM drive, that is take part of your computers memory and configure it to emulate a hard drive. When you ran Windows Explorer or Windows manager it would show up like a drive, usually “D” if you had only one hard drive. If you were in DOS mode, you just typed D: at the DOS prompt to switch to it. You could install a program to it in the same way you would install it to a hard drive,and as you said, when the computer was turned off, the drive was gone.

]]> By: John Pritchardhttp://www.worldstart.com/the-problem-with-ram/comment-page-1/#comment-92156 John Pritchard Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:27:08 +0000 http://www.worldstart.com/?p=22599#comment-92156 In DOS, you could create a virtual drive to load the program on (in RAM) to get the speed needed to run the program with out the timeouts for the drive to seek. You were also able to do this in Windows 3.11 and later using programs to do so on Windows 95. It was just a matter of allocating a few meg of Ram space to be used for the virtual disk and copying the program to it. True it was volatile memory but it was the only way to speed a program at the time. In the speed of the modern processors with high amounts of memory this option is really not needed. In DOS, you could create a virtual drive to load the program on (in RAM) to get the speed needed to run the program with out the timeouts for the drive to seek. You were also able to do this in Windows 3.11 and later using programs to do so on Windows 95. It was just a matter of allocating a few meg of Ram space to be used for the virtual disk and copying the program to it. True it was volatile memory but it was the only way to speed a program at the time. In the speed of the modern processors with high amounts of memory this option is really not needed.

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