What about "slowdown.sys" ?

[Gregoris]

Dear sir,

I have seen that you didn't do any forecast to initialize "slowdown.sys"
within config.sys file, so that I would like to become the Microsoft
Windows9x and the MsDos 7.10 both with capability of running correctly on
fast and new machines at the speed about 100MHZ. But I need your help to
improve the source code so that your utility can be started with no problems
from a "DEVICE" command from within a comfig.sys file, after running "IO.sys",
"command.com" and "Himem.sys", and before running "emm386.exe", and so that
it becomes itself TSR!

The main advantage of this is that, I only would need to compile up to
tree programs, instead of several programs which initializes from within a
system configuration file(config.sys), to fix(update) their source code,
whether some of them don't run at all (they "blow up" -- the computer either
totally locks up, or you get a "Run-time Error" of some sort), or they run in
such a way that you can't use them!

To reach my aim, if you prefer, I'd pay for it. Thus, I could adjust the
speed of processor with one of the following options:

DEVICE?=slowdown.sys /MHZ=100 /D
DEVICE?=slowdown.sys /MHZ:0 /D

I hope you can help me. In case you prefer, I'd pay for it. Thanks.


Gregoris Christoforou .
------------------------

[Bret]

I think you're headed in absolutely the wrong direction. You should be moving things out of CONFIG.SYS, not into it. TSR's have so many advantages over Device Drivers that Device Drivers are not worth the trouble except in rare circumstances, IMHO.

If you're creating new programs which are speed-dependent, you really should be redesigning them so that they aren't speed-dependent rather than depending on external utilities, even though it may be more work for you. There's really no reason to design a speed-dependent program with today's technology. If you actually have a version of EMM386 that is speed-dependent (which is implied because you want to slow down the computer before loading EMM386), you need to use a different version of EMM386 (or JEMM or something similar).

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That being said, there are a few things you can try before trying to create a SLOWDOWN.SYS.

Trying using CONFIG.SYS's INSTALL option to install a TSR (SLOWDOWN.COM) in CONFIG.SYS. I don't know if that will work or not, but suspect not. When CONFIG.SYS is being processed, DOS is not actually loaded yet, and most of the DOS services are not yet available (including such mundane things as writing status or error messages to the screen). Since SLOWDOWN tries to use these DOS services, it may crash. You may also try to use INSTALL with a program like THROTTLE, which doesn't actually use any resources (it's not a TSR), and then using THROTTLE again after CONFIG.SYS is processed to speed the computer back up again (if that's appropriate).

You can also use DEVLOAD, DDL. or some other similar program, to install the Device Drivers as TSR's (after SLOWDOWN is installed as a TSR).

You can also try to get into the BIOS and slow the computer down -- many BIOS's will let you disable the CPU caches or control the CPU clock rate or control wait states or other things that will slow your computer down enough that you may not need SLOWDOWN at all. You can even try disabling the CPU caches in the BIOS and then re-enabling them again with CPUCACHE after CONFIG.SYS has been processed. Of course, that will only work if the programs only have problems with the speed when they are initializing and not when they are actually running (and this includes a LOT of programs).

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If none of those things work, you can take SLOWDOWN and try to turn it into a combination Device Driver/Executable. I'm aware of one program called DRVEXCH (one of the FreeDOS utilities) that is a combination Device Driver and .COM executable (rather than a .EXE executable like most combination programs are). You can use the DRVEXCH source code as a guideline to turn SLOWDOWN into a combination file.

I won't help you do this, however, because I think it is a very bad idea.