Using a 2MB Lotek EMS board in a 1000SL/E

[acadiel]

I was thinking about getting one of these - but this was from my days when I was using my Commodore Amiga (after my Tandy 1000 days)....

I know EMS is more limited with program types, you can't do DOS HIGH like with XMS (and DOS 6), but what else can you do with one of these things on my Tandy? What supports them?

I'm specifically looking for:
* Is there any way I can get any drivers, etc, to use that upper RAM? DOS usage? I'm reading RAMDisk, but I don't see much other talk about what I can do with DOS and EMS
* What other benefits allowing 8-bit EMS memory on an XT are there besides the below programs. Can it be used like XMS to get more conventional RAM?

It looks like so far, I've collected the following as capable of using EMS:
* DesqView
* Windows 2
* Lotus 1-2-3
* The huge list here: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...t-make-good-use-of-EMS-3-2-hardware-on-an-XT/ (This is probably the best thread on the matter so far)

Please dump your experiences below. I just want something new to play with

 

[keenerb]

Geoworks runs very well with a lot of expanded memory.

DOSSHELL can also do basic task-switching very well with expanded memory.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

GeoWorks is actually kind of impressive on my highly-modded 1000 HX with a VGA card, but I have reservations recommending it with the standard CGA driver. It's not easy to look at. I don't *think* there's a Tandy-specific driver that would at least give you more colors, but I could just not be good at finding it.

I posted a ramble-y video a couple weeks ago on Youtube that in passing mentions some of the things I've used EMS for on my 1000, but mostly it's about the hacking to free up more upper addressing so I could fit EMS, UMBs (for loading DOS and drivers high) and a VGA card into a machine that had Tandy's embedded DOS and Deskmate in ROM sucking up so much space.

Straight page-frame EMS as supported by the lo-tech card isn't really much use for loading DOS or drivers high to free conventional RAM. I did write a little enabler dingus so if you have one of those cards and want to use it to supply a 64k upper memory block to load stuff high in when running software that doesn't benefit from EMS you can save a few K of memory statically switching it into "UMB mode" instead of loading the EMS driver and using a UMB provider that seizes the page frame through said driver.

 

[keenerb]

I used Geoworks extensively on a CGA machine way back when. It's definitely usable. Not pretty though that's for sure...