Category : Utilities for DOS and Windows Machines
Archive   : HILOAD.ZIP
Filename : HILOAD.DOC

A UTILITY FOR LOADING TSR'S SOMEPLACE ELSE


HILOAD is a utility program designed to load your normal TSR
(Terminate-and-Stay-Resident) programs somewhere else in memory.
Usually this is a place outside the normal DOS region; that is, outside
the first 640K of system memory.

At this time, it does not include either extended or expanded
memory.



BACKGROUND


The 8088 used in the PC-XT is capable of addressing up to 1024K
of memory. The designers of the PC and DOS decided that only the first
640K would be used by the operating system, DOS, and the rest was reserved
for other uses.

Because of the way the 8088 forms addresses, it is customary to
refer to addresses by a segment:offset combination. The 'actual' final
address is formed by multiplying the segment value by 16 (i.e., shifting
it left 4 places) and adding the result to the offset address.

Thus, the very first address in the machine is called 0000:0000.
An address 1024 bytes from this start (hex 400) may be variously
indentified as 0000:0400, 0040:0000, 0020:0200, 0038:0080, etc.

For convenience, we may speak of the various segments as:

0000:0000 to 0000:FFFF Block 0
1000:0000 to 1000:FFFF Block 1

and so on

E000:0000 to E000:FFFF Block E
F000:0000 to F000:FFFF Block F

It is easy to see that there are 16 contiguous segments of 64K
each, yielding (16 X 64 =) 1024K, or one megabyte, and that DOS can
only use the first 10 segments, or blocks 0 through 9.

What is in the other 6 segments? Is that 384K of potential
memory just sitting there idle?


WHO'S USING WHAT?


Well, actually not. Some of these blocks have been set aside,
and are probably being used, for specific purposes.

Block F is where the ROM BIOS lives and, if you have a true-
blue IBM PC, where the ROM BASIC lives. So the F block is pretty well
spoken for.

Block B is where the memory for the video sits. If you have
a Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA), it uses 4K of memory at addresses
B000:0000 to B000:1000, and the remainder of the B block, 60K, is
unused. In fact, if you have a straight monochrome card like IBM
supplies, that's all the memory you have available.

If you have a Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), it occupies
memory from B800:0000 to B800:7FFF (or equivalently B000:8000 to B000:FFFF).
Like the MDA, when the CGA is in text mode it only uses the first 4K of
this memory, but it can support up to 8 'pages' of 4K each; when in
graphics mode, all 32K are in use. Like the MDA, true-blue CGA cards, and
most clone CGA cards, have only that 32K available.

Enhanced Graphics Adapters (EGA) are even bigger consumers of
memory, at maximum using the A block and part of the C block!

If you have a hard disk, its BIOS is normally located on the
hard disk controller card, and is ususlly resident at C000:8000, or
as it is commonly referred to, C800:0000.


SO WHAT?


Astute observers will notice that the D and E blocks were pretty
much left out of the above description. It is believed that these areas
of memory were set aside by IBM for program cartridges, but few, if any,
of these were actually produced, and this area is normally wide open and
available for use.

If you are like most PC users, you have only a monochrome or CGA
display, and the A block is available to you also.


DOWN TO BUSINESS


The '640K barrier' people talk about is caused by two reasons:
programs are getting more sophisticated and user-friendly, meaning they
take up more memory. Secondly, there has been a proliferation of many
handy programs that reside in memory (TSR's) which 'pop up' with useful
information at the touch of a key or perform some other action. Examples
are SideKick from Borland International, various printer buffers which are
almost a necessity, and so on. It is not too unusual to have half one's
DOS memory taken up with various TSR's.

While there's little we can do about fat programs, we can move
these TSR's out of the way. This was the driving force behind the
development of HILOAD.


WHERE DO I GET THIS MEMORY?



Some PC clone makers map their memory into the D and E blocks;
Kaypro for one does, others may also. Constructing a board to fill in
these holes is not difficult, especially if static RAMS (SRAM) are used;
these are now available in 32K X 8 sizes at attractive prices.

An old trick is to use commercial memory cards (now obsolete
but available) that allow themselves to be mapped into the desired
regions.

Finally, users of Hercules Graphics cards and their clones usually
have the full 64K in the B block available, but only 4K is used in text
mode. That 60K looks mighty attractive, as does the 'spare' memory on
a CGA card...BUT...because one may easily forget there are programs in
that space, switching to Herc graphics, or simulating a CGA, or using
a CGA in graphics mode will really screw up the works, so this technique
is not recommended. It may be used to test out the program, though, and
see if it's worth the small trouble to get memory for the 'safe' areas.


HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS


HILOAD grabs the program you want, as well as any command tail
required, and loads it into the memory area you specify. After loading
the candidate TSR program, it revectors several DOS interrupts and then
executes the TSR program in the new location. When the TSR program
attempts to 'go resident', HILOAD traps that request, either from INT 27H
or function 31H of INT 21H, resets the appropriate interrupt vectors,
examines the interrupt vector table to see which ones point to the new
program, and then terminates normally.

Thus, when HILOAD exits, zero DOS memory is used up, and the
TSR is snugly nestled in another part of memory, acting just like it
normally does.


HOW TO SPECIFY VARIOUS THINGS


HILOAD requires various pieces of information to operate properly.

Addresses - HILOAD requires a starting address for placing TSR's.
After it places the first one, it keeps track of where
it should place the next one by using the Intra-application
Communication Area (ICA) at 0040:00F0 through 0040:00FF.
It checks this area and computes an address from the
information there, so the initial starting address has
to be specified only once (until you change blocks).
As long as the loading area is contiguous, the starting
address need not be re-specified.

The starting address is specified by an environment
variable, which is discussed below.

Program names - The program name to be loaded must be specified
with the full path name. Sorry about this, but it
wasn't worth the effort to program the logic to chase
down the paths to find the programs. This is not
considered (by me, anyhow) to be a serious objection,
as the typical use of this program is in your AUTOEXEC
file where it is only typed in once.

Starting off - Executing HILOAD without any program specified
causes it to zero out the ICA. This is the easiest
way to begin a loading sequence after changing the
start address.


SPECIFYING A START ADDRESS (ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)


When DOS loads a program, it also provides that program with a
copy of what it calls the Environment. To see what the contents of
your environment are, do the following:

At the DOS prompt (e.g., C:\>), type SET

The response will be a list of things, starting with COMSPEC and continuing
with your PATH and PROMPT values (if you have any). After these values, you
may or may not have additional entries. If you do, they will be of
the form:

name=value

To add a value to the environment, type:

set abc=ABCabc

and then type

set

Notice that a new environment variable has been added. Notice also
that the name, abc, has been capitalized as ABC, but the value remains as
it was typed in, i.e., ABCabc.

To change an environment value, type

set name=NewValue

and NewValue will replace the old value.

To delete an environment variable, type

set name=

and the value will disappear from the environment.

HILOAD requires an environment variable with a name the same as the
program name. The value is the hex starting address.

So, if the program is named HILOAD, as it is on this disk, and
the desired starting value is A000, then you would set the environment
variable by typing:

set hiload=A000

This can also be done as an entry in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

It is poorly documented, but DOS provides the name of the program
it loads, and where it came from, right after the environment. I have
used this quirk of DOS to determine the name of the environment variable.
If you change the program name to, say, SHIFTSR.COM, then you would set
the environment variable as:

set shiftsr=A000

This feature (?) allows you to have multiple copies of the program
under different names, each with its own environment variable, if you should
so desire.

NOTE: As far as I can tell, this feature is only available in DOS 3.X. The
program determines the DOS version in use and, if less than 3.0, it uses a
default program name of HILOAD. This is what the name of the environment
variable would have to be, no matter what you rename the program to.


INITIALIZING THE PROCESS


As stated above, the program must first initialize the ICA. It
does this by being invoked with no parameters. The 'standard' starting
sequence is therefore:

SET HILOAD=A000
HILOAD

etc.


SPECIFYING PROGRAMS TO LOAD


Also as stated above, full path names must be given. Suppose you
have four TSR's you wish to load, as follows:


NAME SIZE PARAMETERS (TSR command tail)

TSR1 14K none
TSR2 22K /X /U /M=22
TSR3 1.4K none
TSR4 26K 'text string'

Adding them up, we see that they will occupy less than 64K, so
they can all be loaded in one block. Suppose also we have the A block
available for use. The series of commands in the AUTOEXEC file to
perform the desired action might be:


SET HILOAD=A000 starting address
HILOAD initialize
HILOAD \DOS\TSR1 load first tsr
HILOAD \SUB1\SUB2\TSR2 /X /U /M=22 load next tsr
HILOAD \TSR3 load next tsr
HILOAD \UTILITY\TSR4 'text string' load last tsr

It is assumed the directories shown are the complete path names
to the various TSR's.

Suppose now you have another TSR you want loaded, but it's too
big to fit in the A block; you have memory available in D block.

You would follow the above sequence with:

SET HILOAD=D000 reset start address
HILOAD re-initialize
HILOAD \SUB3\SUB4\TSR5 load it


PROGRAM OUTPUT


HILOAD issues various progress and error messages as it chugs along.
It tells you the starting address it uses, the name of the program it is
loading, what it found for a command tail to the TSR, and the amount of
memory the TSR has reserved for itself.

It also lists the interrupts the TSR has captured, along with
their new addresses. This can be handy for debugging purposes or
just finding out who captures what. Many TSRs do not go through Int 21H
functions 35H and 25H to get and set the interrupt vectors; they directly
manipulate the DOS interrupt table at the bottom of memory. This is not
a recommended technique but many do so. HILOAD will capture these villians
(SideKick being the most prominent one) and show what they trap.

Incidentally, it appears that SideKick traps interrupt 21H for
itself, and any TSR loaded after it, who attempts to grab Int 9H, is
pushed down the list by SideKick so he (SideKick) still has first grab
at the keyboard. Very clever programming; a pain in the kazoo when you're
groping around to figure out what's actually happening!

The above comments are based on an older version of SideKick (1.56)
which I have been using. Later versions may act in a more civilized manner.


KEEPING THE OUTPUT

Since the information from HILOAD can whiz off the screen before
you have a chance to read it, it is a good idea to redirect the output to
a file instead of the screen. The program output can then be perused at
your leisure. The following sequence is an example of how to do this:


DEL TSRLIST.LST delete old file
SET HILOAD=A000 set start address
HILOAD >>TSRLST.LST initialize
HILOAD \TSR1 >>TSRLST.LST load first tsr
HILOAD \SUB1\TSR2 /X /Z >>TSRLST.LST load next tsr
SET HILOAD=D000 reset start address
HILOAD >>TSRLST.LST initialize
HILOAD \UTILITY\BIGTSR /PARMS >>TSRLST.LST load big tsr

After everything is loaded, the file TSRLST.LST may be
browsed to see what went on, get addresses, check vectors, etc.

Of course, the output may also be redirected to the printer
by putting a >PRN instead of >>filename.ext


ERROR MESSAGES


If something doesn't go right, the program tries to tell you
and exit safely. The error messages are:

No address given ... ABORTING Something's wrong with the
environment variable. Check
spelling of variable name and
make sure it agrees with the
program name.
The value given must be 4 hex
digits, upper or lower case.

Can't find file PROGNAME ... ABORTING HILOAD was unable to locate
the specified program. Check to
see that the path is correct.
Also, only .COM files can be
loaded this way; .EXE files
will bomb!

Requires DOS 2.0 ... ABORTING Program requires DOS version
2.0 or above.

The program also issues a message when it initializes the ICA.


DISCLAIMER


TSRs are tricky things; SideKick is notorious for being sensitive
to the order in which other TSR's are loaded. Experiment with loading
your TSRs in the 'normal' fashion until you get a loading sequence that
works. Use that order to HILOAD them and all should be well.


LEGAL STUFF


This program is being placed in the public domain. It may be copied
and distributed freely for non-commercial uses. Both this file and the
executable code must be distributed together and unmodified.

Contents of both files are copyright 1989 by the author.

Any brand names mentioned are copyright by their respective owners.


SHEEPISH ADMISSION


This program was developed over a period of time as I was learning
about TSRs and revectoring interrupts, etc. Also, though the objective of
the program remained firm, the little niggly details kept changing on me
as I thought of alternate ways to accomplish things and more frills were
added.

Consequently, the source code is comprehensible to me but I'm sure
looks like a real mess to the 'seasoned professional'. I am thus a little
ashamed to release it for public scrutiny and scorn.

However, it is included and commented as best as I can recall what
each little piece does. Don't bother to tell me there are 'dead code' areas
and unused variables.

Anybody who wants can modify it to their hearts' content, but please
take note of the distributon restriction noted above.


Larry Shannon
5615 Truscott Terrace
Lakeview, NY 14085

April l989