37-534: In DOS memory management , expanded memory is a system of bank switching that provided additional memory to DOS programs beyond the limit of conventional memory (640 KiB). Expanded memory is an umbrella term for several incompatible technology variants. The most widely used variant was the Expanded Memory Specification ( EMS ), which was developed jointly by Lotus Software , Intel , and Microsoft , so that this specification
74-505: A kludge ! … But we're going to do it". The companies planned to launch the standard at the Spring 1985 COMDEX , with many expansion-card and software companies announcing their support. The first public version of the EMS standard, called EMS 3.0 was released in 1985; EMS 3.0, however, saw almost no hardware implementations before being superseded by EMS 3.2. EMS 3.2 used a 64 KiB region in
111-521: A XMA2EMS.SYS driver provided EMS emulation for XMA boards. XMA boards were first introduced for the 1986 (revamped) models of the 3270 PC . This insertion of a memory window into the peripheral address space could originally be accomplished only through specific expansion boards, plugged into the ISA expansion bus of the computer. Famous 1980s expanded memory boards were AST RAMpage, IBM PS/2 80286 Memory Expansion Option, AT&T Expanded Memory Adapter and
148-509: A hardware peripheral, needed a software device driver , which exported its services. Such a device driver was called expanded-memory manager . Its name was variable; the previously mentioned boards used REMM.SYS (AST), PS2EMM.SYS (IBM), AEMM.SYS (AT&T) and EMM.SYS (Intel) respectively. Later, the expression became associated with software-only solutions requiring the Intel 80386 processor, for example Quarterdeck 's QEMM , Qualitas ' 386 or
185-489: A launch platform for key technologies. Bluetooth and USB had conference programming and associated exhibition floor pavilions to help these technologies and start up companies be seen in such a large event and marketplace. In 1982, Microsoft founder Bill Gates attended the conference and saw a demonstration of VisiCorp 's Visi On , a GUI software suite for IBM PC compatible computers. The development of Windows 1.0 began soon thereafter. In 1999, Linus Torvalds attended
222-445: A major technical convention , with the industry making major product announcements and releases there. Numerous small companies from around the world rose to prominence following appearance at COMDEX, and industry leaders sought opportunities to make keynote addresses. They discussed the computer industry, history, trends and future potential. The first COMDEX Conference, attracted 4000 paying attendees and grew to over 100,000, becoming
259-753: A short time, e.g. Gothenburg and São Paulo 2004 and the last in Athens in November 2005. The decline occurred globally: the 2000 show in Basel with 1400 exhibitors drew 79000 attendees, but 2001 17% less. Following COMDEX Fall 1999 (in Las Vegas), organizers made major changes to their criteria for admission of mass media , adjusting criteria to accommodate bloggers with significant market reach, but also restricting simple and open access to anyone declaring themselves 'media'. It offered regular public attendance for
296-542: A spin-off of Ziff Davis . After entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2003, Key3Media resurfaced as Medialive International with a cash infusion from Thomas Weisel Capital Partners, which had previously invested in the company. In November 2006, Forbes magazine reported that United Business Media PLC had purchased the events assets of MediaLive International Inc. Personal Computer Faire in San Francisco,
333-819: A utility for the Compaq Deskpro 386 . A popular and well-featured commercial solution was Quarterdeck's QEMM. A contender was Qualitas' 386 . Functionality was later incorporated into MS-DOS 4.01 in 1989 and into DR DOS 5.0 in 1990, as EMM386 . Software expanded-memory managers in general offered additional, but closely related functionality. Notably, they allowed using parts of the upper memory area (UMA) (the upper 384 KiB of real-mode address space) called upper memory blocks (UMBs) and provided tools for loading small programs, typically terminate-and-stay-resident programs inside ("LOADHI" or "LOADHIGH"). Interaction between extended memory , expanded-memory emulation and DOS extenders ended up being regulated by
370-678: The Intel Above Board . Given the price of RAM during the period, up to several hundred dollars per MiB, and the quality and reputation of the above brand names, an expanded memory board was very expensive. Later, some motherboard chipsets of Intel 80286 -based computers implemented an expanded memory scheme that did not require add-on boards, notably the NEAT chipset . Typically, software switches determined how much memory should be used as expanded memory and how much should be used as extended memory . An expanded-memory board, being
407-732: The Intel 8086 . The designers of the PC allocated the lower 640 KiB ( 655 360 bytes) of address space for read-write program memory (RAM), called conventional memory , and the remaining 384 KiB of memory space was reserved for uses such as the system BIOS , video memory, and memory on expansion peripheral boards. Even though the IBM PC AT , introduced in 1984, used the 80286 chip that could address up to 16 MiB of RAM as extended memory , it could only do so in protected mode . The scarcity of software compatible with protected mode (no standard DOS applications could run in it) meant that
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#1732772436512444-586: The 386 supported 32-bit addresses, or 4 gigabytes (2) of RAM – 4096 times the addressable space of the original 8086. DOS itself did not directly support protected mode, but Microsoft eventually developed DPMI , and several DOS extenders were published based on it. DOS programs like Doom could use extenders like DOS/4G to run in protected mode while still using the DOS API . In the early 1990s new operating systems like Linux , Windows 9x , Windows NT , OS/2 , and BSD/OS supported protected mode "out of
481-763: The Northeast Computer Faire in Boston, and Southern California Computer Faire were presented by Computer Faire Inc., Newton, Mass., a subsidiary of Prentice-Hall. Northeast Computer Faire 1988 was presented by The Interface Group and Boston Computer Society in Boston. COMDEX was initially restricted to those directly involved in the computer industry. It was the one show where all levels of manufacturers and developers of computers, peripherals , software , components, and accessories met with distributors, retailers, consultants and their competitors. Colloquially known as " Geek Week", COMDEX evolved into
518-458: The XMS, Virtual Control Program Interface (VCPI), DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI) and DOS Protected Mode Services (DPMS) specifications. Certain emulation programs, colloquially known as LIMulators, did not rely on motherboard or 80386 features at all. Instead, they reserved 64 KiB of the base RAM for the expanded memory window, where they copied data to and from either extended memory or
555-725: The box". These and similar developments rendered Expanded Memory an obsolete concept. Other platforms have implemented the same basic concept – additional memory outside of the main address space – but in technically incompatible ways: DOS memory management Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 539912476 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:40:36 GMT COMDEX COMDEX (an abbreviation of COMputer Dealers' EXhibition )
592-855: The dealers to support those products. . The broadening of audience criteria came about as IT departments decentralized and purchasing of technology products shifted from a central corporate IT budget to departments and company divisions, mirroring the shift from mainframes to decentralized networks and local area networking, and later the Internet as the corporate backbone. After the Spring 1981 show in New York City and 1982 in Atlantic City , COMDEX began regular spring shows in Atlanta, Georgia from 1983 through 1988. Then alternated sites between Atlanta and Chicago . The final Atlanta Spring COMDEX
629-526: The default EMM386 in MS-DOS, PC DOS and DR-DOS. Beginning in 1986, the built-in memory management features of Intel 80386 processor freely modeled the address space when running legacy real-mode software, making hardware solutions unnecessary. Expanded memory could be simulated in software. The first software expanded-memory management (emulation) program was CEMM , available in September 1986 as
666-569: The exhibition to talk about the Linux family of operating system . A Linux conference and exhibition hall was a co-located event, helping elevate the open source products. In the late 1980s, COMDEX was opened to the general public, causing an explosion in attendance, but diluting COMDEX's wholesale industry focus. Retailers and consultants complained that 'leading edge' customers, upon whom they relied for early adoption of new technology, were buying products at 'show specials' and then expecting
703-448: The expanded memory. A first attempt to use a bank switching technique was made by Tall Tree Systems with their JRAM boards, but these did not catch on. (Tall Tree Systems later made EMS-based boards using the same JRAM brand.) Lotus Development , Intel , and Microsoft cooperated to develop the EMS standard (aka LIM EMS). The first publicly available version of EMS, version 3.0 allowed access of up to 4 MiB of expanded memory. This
740-457: The general public. In 2000, major companies such as IBM , Apple , and Compaq (now merged with Hewlett-Packard ) decided to discontinue their involvement with COMDEX to allocate resources more efficiently, usually through their own corporate events or other direct-to-consumer selling (Apple Stores), and the bursting of the dot-com bubble caused a decline on the IT market. To reduce costs following
777-504: The hard disk when application programs requested page switches. This was programmatically easy to implement, but performance was low. This technique was offered by AboveDisk from Above Software and by several shareware programs. It is also possible to emulate EMS by using XMS memory on 286 CPUs using 3rd party utilities like EMM286 (.SYS driver). Expanded Memory usage declined in the 1990s. The IBM AT Intel 80286 supported 24 bits of address space (16 MiB) in protected mode , and
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#1732772436512814-451: The late 1980s through the mid-1990s, but its use declined as users switched from DOS to protected-mode operating systems such as Linux , IBM OS/2 , and Microsoft Windows . The 8088 processor of the IBM PC and IBM PC/XT could address one megabyte (MiB, or 2 bytes) of memory. It inherited this limit from the 20-bit external address bus (and overall memory addressing architecture) of
851-450: The market downturns after the 9/11 attacks many would-be exhibitors stopped renting out or scaled back official COMDEX booths on the convention center floors, and set up invitation-only suites in various Las Vegas hotels. This also allowed exhibitors to concentrate their efforts on industry attendees rather than the general public. COMDEX/Fall 2001 organizers at Los Angeles-based Key3Media Group Inc. said they expected attendance to fall from
888-527: The market was still open for another solution. To make more memory accessible, a bank switching scheme was devised, where only selected parts of the additional memory would be accessible at any given time. Originally, a single 64 KiB (2 bytes) window of memory, called a page frame , was used; later this was made more flexible. Programs had to be written in a specific way to access expanded memory. The window between conventional memory and expanded memory could be adjusted to access different locations within
925-561: The personal computer had become a commodity item priced at levels individual departments and consumers overall could buy without needing much corporate oversight, so "computers" became just one of many products in the consumer electronics channels and the Consumer Electronics Show. A COMDEX event originally designed to exist only on the internet without a physical meeting location. It was announced to commence during November 16–17, 2010. The COMDEX website (www.comdex.com)
962-564: The presence of an installed expanded memory manager (EMM) by checking for a device driver with the device name EMMXXXX0 . IBM developed their own memory standard called Expanded Memory Adapter (XMA); the IBM DOS driver for it was XMAEM.SYS. Unlike EMS, the IBM expansion boards could be addressed both using an expanded memory model and as extended memory . The expanded memory hardware interface used by XMA boards is, however, incompatible with EMS, but
999-588: The previous year's 200,000 to 150,000. They also expected the number of exhibitors to decline from 2,350 to 2,000 and the square footage of exhibitor space to slide from just over 1 million to 750,000. The last Las Vegas show in November 2003 attracted only 500 exhibitors and 40,000 visitors. In June 2004, COMDEX cancelled the 2004 exhibition in Las Vegas, effectively making the Consumer Electronics Show its replacement in Las Vegas. By 2004
1036-404: The upper 384 KiB ( upper memory area) divided into four 16 KiB pages, which could be used to map portions of the expanded memory. In turn, EMS 3.2 was improved upon by a group of three other companies: AST Research, Quadram and Ashton-Tate, which created their own Enhanced EMS (EEMS) standard. EEMS allowed any 16 KiB region in lower RAM to be mapped to expanded memory, as long as it
1073-537: Was a computer expo trade show held in the Las Vegas Valley of Nevada , United States , each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT , and one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector. COMDEX exhibitions were held in many other countries from 1982 to 2005, with 185 shows altogether. The first COMDEX
1110-499: Was developed by AST Research , Quadram and Ashton-Tate ("AQA"); it could map any area of the lower 1 MiB. EEMS ultimately was incorporated in LIM EMS 4.0, which supported up to 32 MiB of expanded memory and provided some support for DOS multitasking as well. IBM, however, created its own expanded-memory standard called XMA . The use of expanded memory became common with games and business programs such as Lotus 1-2-3 in
1147-516: Was held in 1979 at the MGM Grand (now Horseshoe ), with 167 exhibitors and 3904 attendees. In 1981, the first COMDEX/Spring was held in New York City . COMDEX was started by The Interface Group , whose organizers included Sheldon Adelson , and Richard Katzeff. In 1995, they sold the show to the Japanese technology conglomerate Softbank Corp . In 2001, Softbank sold the show to Key3Media,
Expanded memory - Misplaced Pages Continue
1184-573: Was held in 1997; the last Spring COMDEX was planned for Chicago in April 2003 but cancelled. The first COMDEX show outside the US was held in Amsterdam 1982. In the record years 1998 and 2000, 21 exhibitions were arranged yearly all over the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and other parts of America. 69% of the 185 shows took place outside the US. Even when the US shows were cancelled, they kept on for
1221-419: Was increased to 8 MiB with version 3.2 of the specification. The final version of EMS, version 4.0 increased the maximum amount of expanded memory to 32 MiB and supported additional functionality. Microsoft thought that bank switching was an inelegant and temporary, but necessary stopgap measure. Slamming his fist on the table during an interview Bill Gates said of expanded memory, "It's garbage! It's
1258-429: Was not associated with interrupts or dedicated I/O memory such as network or video cards. Thus, entire programs could be switched in and out of the extra RAM. EEMS also added support for two sets of mapping registers. These features were used by early DOS multitasker software such as DESQview . Released in 1987, the LIM EMS 4.0 specification incorporated practically all features of EEMS. A new feature added in LIM EMS 4.0
1295-551: Was operated by TechWeb , a United Business Media company. Everything Channel and sister company UBM studios (both United Business Media Companies) partnered to deliver COMDEXvirtual (www.comdexvirtual.com) to the global IT channel community in November 2010. Nearly 5,000 attended the event over the course of the two days, making COMDEXvirtual the largest independent virtual tradeshow in the IT industry. The agenda featured more than 100 speakers and nearly 50 sessions on topics ranging from cloud to mobility and virtualization, to address
1332-411: Was sometimes referred to as " LIM EMS ". LIM EMS had three versions: 3.0, 3.2, and 4.0. The first widely implemented version was EMS 3.2, which supported up to 8 MiB of expanded memory and uses parts of the address space normally dedicated to communication with peripherals ( upper memory ) to map portions of the expanded memory. EEMS , an expanded-memory management standard competing with LIM EMS 3.x,
1369-529: Was that EMS boards could have multiple sets of page-mapping registers (up to 64 sets). This allowed a primitive form of DOS multitasking . The caveat was, however, that the standard did not specify how many register sets a board should have, so there was great variability between hardware implementations in this respect. The Expanded Memory Specification (EMS) is the specification describing the use of expanded memory. EMS functions are accessible through software interrupt 67h. Programs using EMS must first establish
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