EddyHawk's Info List
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STANDARD
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-VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) VBE (Video Bios Extension)
 by: VESA
 V1.2
 V2.0
  linear frame buffer access
  pm banking
  svga
   double-buffering
   virtual screens
  hi-color modes
   (32/64)kb / 16.7m color
  320x200 to 1600x1200 resolution for 16/256 color
 V3.0

-EICAR Standard AntiVirus Test File
 note: to test avsoft correct installation

-CRC (Cyclic Redundacy Check)
 16bit
 32bit
 note:
  to detect transmission error
  for faster check, usually use pre-computed table
  different polynomial is possible (but choose good poly is black art)
  several versions exist: PKZIP's, Xmodem's , Zmodem's, European X.25's
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Extended Memory Interface
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-XMS (eXtended Memory Specification)
 by: LIM (Lotus, Intel, Microsoft)
 V3.0 [1991?]
 note:
  can alloc up to 64Mb RAM
  there are superset of XMS functions which allow alloc > 64Mb RAM
  code run at CPL 0

-EMS (Expanded Memory Specification)
 by: LIM (Lotus, Intel, Microsoft)
 V4.0
 note: can alloc up to 32Mb RAM

-VCPI (Virtual Control Programming Interface)
 V1.0
 note:
  used together with EMS
  can alloc more than 64Mb RAM, with certain limitations

-DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface)
 V0.9
 V1.0
  return error codes
  more functions
 note:
  actually defined for 80286
  code run at CPL 3
  V0.9 is after V1.0

-DPMS (DOS Protected Mode Services)
 by: Novell

-(Clean/Raw/Int15h) Extended Memory
 note:
  can alloc up to 64Mb RAM
  code run at CPL 0
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Hardware Interface
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-AGP (Accelerated Graphic Port)
 by: Intel?
 32bit or 4 byte wide
 1x : 4b x 66Mhz      = 266Mb/sec
 2x : 4b x 2 x 66 Mhz = 533Mb/sec
 4x : 4b x 4 x 66 Mhz = 1066Mb/sec
 4x + Fast Write (connect CPU & video card mem directly w/o through sys mem)

-PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect)
 by: Intel
 type: bus
 frequency: 25-66Mhz
 V2.00
  32bit wide x 33Mhz = 133Mb/sec
 V2.10
  64bit wide x 66Mhz = 533Mb/sec

-ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
 type: bus
 8Mhz

-VLB (VL-Bus, VESA Local Bus)
 type: bus
 40Mhz

-FireWire
 by: Apple

-Hyper Transport
 by: AMD
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Software Interface
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-OpenGL (Open Graphic Library)
 by: Silicon Graphics
 type: low-level.gfx.API
 V1.1

-DirectX
 by: Microsoft
 type: hi-level.API
 year: 1994-2000
 V6 [1998]
 V7 [30 Nov 1999]
  supports hw transform & lighting
 V8 [2000]
  (Vertex & Pixel) Shader, Point Sprites
 note: includes Direct(Draw/3D/Play/Input/Sound/Show/Music)
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MISC
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Naresh Kumar: Even if > 64Mb RAM is available, dos extender won't know it
 because of BIOS limitation (backward compatibility)

Aleksandras Surna (author of YAC archiver):
 EMS driver allows to map memory to the first megabyte, while XMS driver can
 only copy the memory. When you need to access memory, it is much faster to
 map it, instead of copying, modifying, then copying back.

Thomas Pytel (author of PMODE & PMODE/W):
 V86 mode is actually protected mode running at CPL 3