Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pacbell!pmt1!news
From: news@pmt1.UUCP (Usenet news)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Question about ALL Chargecard
Summary: RE: Question about all chargecard
Message-ID: <431@pmt1.UUCP>
Date: 19 Aug 88 06:27:04 GMT
References: <8808171456.AA12331@explorer.dgp.toronto.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Pacific Micro Tech, El Cerrito, CA
Lines: 60

In article <8808171456.AA12331@explorer.dgp.toronto.edu>, carsontr@dgp.toronto.edu ("Carson T. Schutze") writes:
> 
> 	There was a fair bit of discussion a while back about the ALL
> ChargeCard, especially since DesqView is now mentioning it in their ads.
> In case you missed it, it's a little module which plugs into the motherboard
> and which the CPU on an AT or higher plugs into, allowing > 640K for DOS,
> converting extended to expanded memory, etc. by remapping the RAM in your
> machine.
> 
> The one hesitation I have about buying it is a possible speed degradation.
> What exactly is the performance penatly for interposing more address-decoding
> logic between the CPU and the memory?  Is there anyone out there who has
> used this product and can relate their experience?
> 
I tried the all chargecard about 6 weeks ago.  It appears to map memory
very quickly from one dos region to the next.  On the order of 50 nanoseconds if
I recall correctly.  I didn't do any heavy duty benchmarking, but didn't
notice any speed degredation on a 10mhz PS/2 model 50 either.

I was able to expand the DOS memory partition up to 960K when running plain
DOS, with the balance of the first meg for video buffer area which is remapped.

It also helped me squeeze a bit more memory out of Dos for existing
application packages.  Running with a VGA monitor I was able to expand
DOS up to the base of the VGA video buffer which is believe was at 736K.
Beyond that if the application writes to a hard coded address for video
memory you run into conflicts.  EGA, CGA, Mono have different video addresses
so mileage may vary depending on the monitor used.

The all chargecard comes with instructions to help you locate the hardcoded
writes to video memory in stubborn applicaitons.  For some releases of
popular application packages there is a database of these patches which
comes with the package.  There are also tools to help you automate this
process.  For some releases and packages you will have to do your own
patching with the help of the instructions in the user manual.

We found that for some of the IBM systems software our customer would
not accept such patching.  So for one package we were limited to 736K
dos partitions.  For a second which was smarter about isolating itself
from relocating the video buffer we could reclaim more of the 1 mb
Dos partition.  But when running the IBM token ring lan, parts of the
lan software (network administration menus) it too was using a
workarea above the 640K line.  So even though one application could
run with a 960K partition on its own, the lan software caused
additional conflicts.  You can dynamically change the dos partition size
from a bat file using software which accompanies the all chargecard.
So when using the Lan menus we downsized the Dos partiton before starting
and increased the Dos partition size after ending the lan menus.

I was unable to get the accompanying ram disk to function at all on
an IBM PS/2 model 50.  And the distributor finally admitted there was
a problem, but no fix was provided.

The all chargecard seems useful for 286 machines, but the size of the
memory expansion varies with the particulars.  On 386 machines
it appears that the all chargecard is not needed - Quarterdeck appears
to supply a driver with uses the 386 in a way that duplicates the
benefites of the All Chargecard.

It was expensive ($400+) from the dealer in New York.  If you want Desqview,
Quarterdeck appears to offer a much more attactive bundled package.