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Open 386MAX 8.55

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@geosone geosone released this 14 Oct 16:31
· 131 commits to main since this release
v8.55
bdb0141

Open 386MAX 8.55, English (US) and German (GR).

FreeDOS and Enhanced DR-DOS

This release makes Open 386MAX work on the FreeDOS kernel (FreeDOS 1.4) and improves it on the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel (also used by SvarDOS). Installation and Maximize now run through on both.

  • 386LOAD.SYS hung the FreeDOS kernel after CONFIG.SYS as soon as a driver was loaded through it (what Maximize does). FreeDOS reserves a driver's memory only at the last header of the driver file; 386LOAD's own header was overwritten and the driver chain broke.
  • After a warm boot (Ctrl+Alt+Del) the FreeDOS kernel could not use the HMA under 386MAX ("HMA can't be enabled"). The kernel leaves a dummy VDISK record in the HMA, and 386MAX took it for a real RAM disk. A VDISK now counts only if INT 19h points to it as well.
  • FreeDOS with DOS=UMB: 386MAX and the kernel both reserved a paragraph for the link to upper memory, which left a gap in the memory chain ("UMB Corruption"). 386MAX now leaves the link to the kernel there, as on MS-DOS with DOS=UMB.
  • Maximize on DR DOS kernels does what ExtraDOS does on MS-DOS with the kernel's own statements: HIFILES=, HIBUFFERS=, HIFCBS=, HILASTDRIVE=, HISTACKS=, DOSDATA=UMB and DDSCS=HIGH,UMB (measured after Maximize on SvarDOS: 582 KB free instead of 576 KB). On FreeDOS it uses 386LOAD only: the kernel's FILESHIGH= etc. need DOS=UMB, which takes all upper memory.
  • EXTRADOS.MAX no longer stops the boot on these kernels with "Unrecognized version of DOS. Press any key"; it notes that the kernel does this job itself.

All systems

  • Maximize could abort in phase 3 with "Memory allocation error in get_mem for 0 bytes" and restore the old configuration (a leftover of the move to OpenWatcom, whose malloc(0) returns no memory).

Tested in QEMU with complete installations and Maximize: MS-DOS 6.22, MS-DOS 7.1, Enhanced DR-DOS, FreeDOS 1.4 (with CD driver, SHSUCDX and DOSLFN loaded high), Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and Windows 98 SE.

Files: per language a 1.44 MB floppy set (disk1, disk2), a 32 MB USB image, an ISO and a ZIP; SHA256SUMS.

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