BUFFERSHIGH yields an error message "Invalid number of buffers"

[mateuszviste]

Adding BUFFERSHIGH=8 in CONFIG.SYS makes the EDR kernel display the message Invalid number of buffers at boot. I tried different values (2, 4, 8, 16, 24..), same result. The same CONFIG.SYS works with FreeDOS (or at least - no error message is displayed).

Changing "BUFFERSHIGH=8" to "BUFFERS=8" makes the error message go away.

Maybe the message means that the number of buffers will not fit into HMA (or is it UMB?), but if so then it should probably be worded differently.

[boeckmann]

I think there is only a HIBUFFERS command, no BUFFERSHIGH.

[mateuszviste]

I think there is only a HIBUFFERS command, no BUFFERSHIGH.

Then the error message is still misleading, as it suggests the command is somewhat understood but failed to be applied (talks specifically about "buffers"). Bad parsing?

[mateuszviste]

bad (lazy) parsing bug confirmed:

[boeckmann]

yes lazy parsing. it finds BUFFERS as a command end then tries to skip spaces (none there) and tests for = or ?. But it does not complain, because the = is optional. it then tries to parse the rest of the line as a number.

[boeckmann]

scan is the subroutine that deals with it: https://github.com/SvarDOS/edrdos/blob/83b66305d6498cad55c585ede6a6a639cbc3fdc1/drbio/genercfg.asm#L2681-L2722

[mateuszviste]

maybe an easy compromise would be to register BUFFERSHIGH as an alias to BUFFERS? BUFFERSHIGH is a valid MSDOS directive and it is also supported by FreeDOS, hence it is possible some users migrating from the FreeDOS kernels would have it in CONFIG.SYS (was my case).

[boeckmann]

Ok, will implement it.

[boeckmann]

Should be fixed by https://github.com/SvarDOS/edrdos/commit/8b1c69ca12c500af2e54dda6d94e242a3da2abf3

[mateuszviste]

I confirm - no more error message. Thank you! :) (closing the issue)

A question, if you don't mind: with BUFFERS=10 (or BUFFERSHIGH=10, does not matter), the kernel shows a message about "1 in TPA":

It's two questions, actually:

1. What is "TPA" ?
2. Why does it says it allocated "1", while I asked for 10? (message is the same also for 20 or 50)

[boeckmann]

TPA stands for "transient program area". It is basically the memory available for DOS programs below the BIOS region or end of memory, whatever comes first. So typically the memory below 640K. Are you sure this message comes from the kernel? I did not find this message in the kernel source.

[mateuszviste]

Thanks for the TPA explanation, I've never heard this acronym before.

Are you sure this message comes from the kernel?

It does not, stupid user should have his glasses on. :) This TPA message comes from the DISPLAY driver. The kernel does not emit any message at all about buffers. Thanks again (and sorry for the noise).

[boeckmann]

No problem. Could have been my question :D