Hi ppl, here is a lightweight question for those who are in summer holidays and have therefore a lot of time for MSX investigation.
It is about how the memory is used in the BASIC environment when disk interface is present. MSX2 Technical Handbook says that it is as follows: - Up to HIMEM (&HFC4A), normal BASIC memory. - From BLDCHK+1 (&HF377+1), BLOAD/BSAVE routines, 25 bytes. This variable points to the same address as HIMEM. - From FCBBASE (&HF353), space for disk FCBs of disk files opened by BASIC (this area is 37*7 bytes, so a maximum of MAXFILES=6 can be used, FCB 0 is used for BLOAD/BSAVE). Note that this is not the same as the FCBs area in the normal BASIC memory (267 bytes * (MAXFILES+1)) - From HIMSAV (&HF349), the general disk work area starts. This area exists also in DOS mode. I have seen that this scheme is followed exactly in this way in DOS 1. However in DOS 2 it is different: - Up to HIMEM (&HFC4A), normal BASIC memory. - From HIMEM to HIMSAV there is an apparently unused area of 525 bytes. - From HIMSAV, the general disk work area starts. BLDCHK+1 and FCBSAVE point to somewhere into this area. And the question is: what is this 525 bytes "ghost" area for? May it be reused for BASIC programs (doing a CLEAR up to the address pointed by HIMSAV) safely? 525 bytes is really much memory when using the BASIC environment. OK, so go for it, the first person replying this question will earn 100 points! *** XXIV MSX USERS MEETING IN BARCELONA: DECEMBER ??th 2003 *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konami Man - AKA Nestor Soriano (^^)v http://www.konamiman.com - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ#: 18281450 Itoshii hito no tame ni Ima nani ga dekiru ka na? Kanawanai yume wa nai yo! Massugu ni shinjiteru ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx