Winbasp on Mac - test notes

by David Simpson

I got Winbasp downloaded and installed..., and took a few minutes for some unstructured exploration. The installation procedure went smoothly, no problems at all.
I also put the Displa feature of Winbasp through its paces in order to determine the amount of memory required to display a given map in .bmp format.
My own interest in this venture has been to test my version of SoftWindows as well as learn something about Winbasp. For me it has been a success. I hope it is of some help to others as well.

(Softwindows is a product of Insignia Solutions. See the company's announcement and the review in the MacUser-Magazine for further information.)

Relevant specifications for my Mac:

• Power Macintosh 8200
• Power PC 601 RISC processor
• integrated co-processor and 32 kB buffer
• 120 MHZ
• 32 MB ram
• 256 kB level 2 cache buffer (I think this is correct, I will have to check what is actually installed)
• 1 MB VRAM
• 16 inch Apple monitor (832x624, 16 bit colour)
• System 7.5.3

Note that this is likely the last Mac to be produced with the old 601 processor. I have read that the 603e processor of the current generation is twice as fast as the 603, that is, with both running at the same clock frequency. I imagine that the improvement of these over my old 601 would be vast.

Mac memory allocation:

1. states an amount of ram that the manufacturer suggests the program should be allocated,
2. allows the user to enter a minimum value of ram that the application will take and use, and
3. a preferred value that it will take if that much ram is available (older versions of the operating system do not provide the preferred option).

In addition, on Macs with PowerPC processors, certain programs also state in the Get Info dialogue box that memory requirements for the application will decrease by 1 MB if Mac virtual memory is turned on, or that requirements will increase by 1 MB if Mac virtual memory is turned off. Turning on or off virtual memory will automatically adjust the minimum allocated value for these programs in the Get Info dialogue box. This is the case with for SoftWindows. Thus, if I turn on virtual memory, allocating the minimim configurable 1 MB of hard disk space, then SoftWindows and various other programs with this feature I may have running simultaneously will require 1 MB of ram less EACH. Very strange if you ask me, but thats how it seems to work.

SoftWindows and memory allocation

With regard to ram, during installation SoftWindows looks at the Mac system and makes recommendations regarding how much ram should be allocated to itself and how the user might best allocate that ram within SoftWindows. For example, upon first installation (if I remember correctly), Soft Windows suggested I devote 21 MB ram to SoftWindows, of which:

• 12 MB be used as PC extended memory
• 1 Mb for conventional memory and high memory
• 2 MB be used as SoftWindows' "DeltaCache"
• the remainder to be used by the program SoftWindows itself.

Mactests:

Listings of the config.sys and autoexec.bat follow:

config.sys

    DEVICE=C:\DOS\himem.sys /TESTMEM:OFF
    DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
    BUFFERS=30,0
    FILES=30
    DOS=UMB
    lastdrive=Z
    FCBS=4,0
    DEVICEHIGH /L:1,464 =C:\INSIGNIA\HOST.SYS
    REM - ISL2_START
    REM device=c:\insignia\cdrom.sys
    DEVICEHIGH /L:1,480 =C:\INSIGNIA\ASPIDOS.SYS
    DEVICEHIGH /L:1,13552 =C:\INSIGNIA\ASPIDISK.SYS /D
    DEVICEHIGH /L:1,29376 =C:\INSIGNIA\ASPICD.SYS /D:CDROM$$$ /NORST
    REM - ISL2_END
    DEVICEHIGH /L:1,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
    STACKS=9,256

autoexec.bat

    @echo off
    LH /L:0;1,43920 /S C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE C 1024,128
    path C:\windows;c:\insignia;c:\dos;c:\insignia\softnode\netbatch;
    c:\novell;c:\;e:\util
    set TEMP=C:\DOS
    c:\insignia\ckconfig
    c:\insignia\fsadrive e: g: h:
    LH /L:1,1136 c:\insignia\mouse.com
    mode com1:19200,n,8,1
    prompt $p$g
    REM - ISL2_START
    LH /L:1,55168 COMMAND /E:256 /Cc:\insignia\usecd.bat
    REM - ISL2_END
    ver
    keyb no,, c:\insignia\keyboard.sys
    doskey
    echo Type WIN and press RETURN to start Windows.

• In Windows, virtual memory was on (type=permanent 7,446 Kb) in all tests except the last 3 runs in which it was set to 0 Kb.
• All tests were run on the same 32 M c: drive (the minimum configurable size for a PC drive under SoftWindows 3.0). My Mac hard disk was defragged shortly before running the tests.
  
• All tests were run with SoftWindows configured to 12 M extended memory for the emulated PC.
• All tests were run with SoftWindows configured to "optimum performance" with regard to window size/placement and screen bit depth (set to the same on the Mac as in SoftWindows - in this case 8 bit).
  
• All tests were run with SoftWindows 487 emulator on (undocumented runs with the 487 emulator disabled required from 211.1 to 391.4 seconds, although the Mac screen saver came on when I was not watching and may have affected the latter). Note that the SoftWindows documentation reports that:
  "Due to differences in precision of the floating point unit, some programs may not function in the same way as on a PC when the 487 Co-processor is enabled. For example, rounding of decimal numbers may be incorrect or in the case of Lotus 1-2-3R4 for Dos, the Quickstart tutorial will display incorrect graphics. In such cases the 487 co-processor should be disabled. This is due to the difference in Floating point accuracy between a PC (80 bit) and a Macintosh (64 bit)"
• All tests were run under the standard installation of Winbasp (.dll files in c:/windows/system).

Test runs:

    Run     Ram     Mac     Mac     Allocation      Delta           .bmp    test
    #       Doubler virtual ram     to Soft         Cache           crash   time
                    memory*         Windows                         **      (sec)
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    1       on      off     64 M    31,123 Kb       11,190 Kb       no      58.8
    2       off     1 M     33 M    21,123 Kb       2,524 Kb        yes     37.1
    3       off     32 M    64 M    21,123 Kb       2,524 Kb        yes     36.8
    4       off     32 M    64 M    31,123 Kb       1,2524 Kb       no      39.8
    5       off     off     32 M    22,279 Kb       2,523 Kb        yes     35.0
    6       off     off     32 M    25,000 Kb       5,224 Kb        yes     37.0
    
    Establishing limits for .bmp crash:
    
    7       on      off     64 M                    6,524 Kb        yes
    8       on      off     64 M                    7,524 Kb        no
    9       on      off     64 M                    11,190 Kb       no
    
    Effect of Windows virtual memory (and general stability):
    (8,177 Kb Windows virtual memory)
    10      off     1 M     33 M    25,123 Kb       6,524 Kb                35.4
    11      off     1 M     33 M    25,123 Kb       6,524 Kb                36.1
    12      off     1 M     33 M    25,123 Kb       6,524 Kb                36.4
    (0 Kb Windows virtual memory)
    13      off     1 M     33 M    25,123 Kb       6,524 Kb                35.1
    14      off     1 M     33 M    25,123 Kb       6,524 Kb                34.9
    15      off     1 M     33 M    25,123 Kb       6,524 Kb                35.0

*  Note that larger amounts of Mac virtual memory (32 M) resulted in SoftWindows (and Windows once in the emulator) to take a very long time to load.

** Reflects success (or otherwise) of attempts to load a 708,670 byte .bmp map of Scandinavia in Winbasp's Displa feature.
On this topic, Irwin Scollar remarks:
"...the bmp file crash seems very memory dependent indeed. The physical disk size of the file probably does not reflect what Windows or its emulation may need when constructing it on the screen. I suspect that when it is expanded by the Windows API call, the machine may use 1 byte for every bit in the original which is a simple two-level map, but I am not sure. That would account for the need to have so much memory to display it."

     David Simpson            |     e-mail: david.simpson@bmu.uib.no
     Arkeologisk Institutt    |     tel:    +47-55-582933 (office)
     Universitetet i Bergen   |             +47-55-328967 (home)
     Haakon Sheteligs pl 3    |     fax:    +47-55-589178
     5007 Bergen, Norway      |             +47-55-589656 (alternative)