ID:QT Quarterdeck's QTEST utility
Quarterdeck Technical Note

                       The QTEST Program


What is QTEST?

The QTEST program is provided at no charge to anyone interested 
in finding out how QRAM 1.0, a product of Quarterdeck Office 
Systems, will react on different systems.  QRAM (pronounced 
"cram") is intended to help you get more available memory below 
640K by reducing DOS overhead, and by placing resident programs 
and drivers that normally run below 640K into the unused areas of 
memory between 640K and 1024K.


How is QTEST installed?

No installation is necessary; the file QTEST.COM may be run from 
any available drive; even the disk on which it is supplied.  QTEST 
can be given the parameter HELP if you want to know about the 
possible command line options.


Why is QTEST useful?

Unlike our other memory management products, QEMM-386 and 
QEMM-50/60, QRAM is not a memory manager.  It is instead, a 
program which USES expanded memory, video memory and/or shadow 
RAM which MAY exist on your system.  This memory is used by QRAM 
to load resident programs and drivers into memory beyond 640K.

In environments where QEMM-386 or QEMM-50/60 would be 
appropriate, these products provide ALL of the software support 
necessary for using High RAM and increasing the available memory 
below 640K.  By reading the hardware requirements on the back of 
our manuals, it is fairly easy to determine whether your system 
meets the hardware requirements required for success.

But on 8088 or non-PS/2, 80286 based systems, where QRAM might be 
appropriate, QRAM is dependant on both hardware and software 
which has been provided by third party vendors.  Given the right 
software/hardware combination, QRAM can:

1.  Load resident programs and drivers into EEMS or EMS 4.0 
memory beyond 640K to increase your available DOS memory.

2.  Load resident programs and drivers into Chips & Technology 
Shadow RAM if it exists on your system.
3.  Allow DOS to be extended into your EGA or VGA video card 
memory when running text based programs.

However, it may be difficult for the average user to determine the 
exact capabilities of the available hardware and software drivers.  
With respect to the use of EMS 4.0 memory even a sophisticated user 
may have difficulty determining exactly how QRAM will be able to 
use the memory on his machine.  This is due to the fact that EMS 
4.0 is a fairly "loose" specification and that some makers of EMS 
4.0 hardware and software do not implement all of the features of 
EMS 4.0 which are important to QRAM.  

It was with these concerns in mind that Quarterdeck created QTEST 
as a service to its prospective QRAM users.

QTEST will tell you what QRAM will be able to do on your system 
in its current configuration, and will tell you whether (or not) 
QRAM could be useful to you.


How do I get QTEST?

QTEST is available via modem at no charge (other than phone and 
system charges) on the following systems:

1.  Quarterdeck Bulletin Board, public files section, under the 
name QTEST.ZIP.  BBS phone number: (213) 396-3904.

2.  Quarterdeck's Compuserve Forum.  Type "GO PCVENB" from the 
system prompt.  QTEST is available in library #1 under the name 
"QTEST.ZIP".

3.  Quarterdeck's BIX Forum.  Type "Join DESQview" from the 
system prompt.  Select "Receive" from the forum menu.  The 
filename is "QTEST.ZIP".

4.  On various private bulletin boards which participate in the 
DESQview SmartNET or FIDOnet echo.  

QTEST is also included for no charge on our "Quarterdeck White 
Papers" diskette,  a collection of technical notes covering the 
use of Quarterdeck products.  The White Papers diskette is 
available direct from Quarterdeck for $25 and can be ordered by 
credit card by calling our orders department at (213) 392-9851.
Copyright considerations:

Although QTEST is a copyrighted program, Quarterdeck grants to 
you a limited license which permits you to distribute it to 
others, on disk or electronically, as long as the program and its 
documentation are not modified in any way, proper credit is given 
to Quarterdeck, and no fee is charged beyond the cost of 
matterials.

Documentation for The Technical Information Screen:

Most of the output of QTEST is in plain English and does not 
require documentation.  Some explaination of the "Technical 
Infomation" screen which is displayed after QTEST runs may be 
useful however.

After it runs, QTEST displays a screen similar to the one below.

Memory Map if QRAM 1.0 used

 x = 048C
Ax00 ????   H = High RAM
Bx00 ????   M = Memory Fill
Cx00 ????   v = Vidram Use
Dx00 ????   F = Page Frame
Ex00 ????   X = Unusable
Fx00 ????   - = Hide

Each question mark shown above represents a 16K section of high 
memory address space, in the range of 640K (A000 Hex) to just 
under 1 Megabyte (FFFF Hex), which may be available to QRAM or not, 
depending on the current configuration.

In your QTEST output, each question mark will be replaced by one 
of the characters from the table on the right, indicating the 
current status of that particular memory location.  Here's what 
the characters mean:

{H = High RAM} - Each H is a 16K block into which QRAM could load 
a resident program or driver.

{M = Memory Fill} - Each M is a 16K block into which QRAM could 
extend DOS to provide more memory for all programs.  This occurs 
when you have appropriate EEMS or EMS boards and CGA or 
Monochrome video cards.
{v = Vidram Use} - Each v is a 16K block into which QRAM's VIDRAM 
utility could extend DOS to provide more memory for text based 
programs.  This is only available on EGA and VGA cards and only 
when running text, as this same memory area is used for displaying 
graphics.

{F = Frame} -  Each F is a 16K block which is currently making up 
part of the EMS Page Frame.  The Page Frame is an area of memory 
addresses where expanded memory is accessed by most programs.  All 
of the expanded memory can only be seen a little at a time;  the 
Page Frame is a "porthole" through which the expanded memory is 
accessed.  Page Frame memory is not normally available to QRAM, 
but could be used if QRAM were loaded with the FRAMELENGTH=0 
parameter.  This disables expanded memory, but makes the 64K area 
available to QRAM.  On some EMS boards this may be your only 
option.

{X = Unusable} - Each X is a 16K block, which due to other 
installed hardware, or limitations of your hardware or software 
cannot be used at all by QRAM.

{- = Hide} - These are sections of your expanded memory which 
appear to have been made available by your expanded memory 
driver, but in which QRAM detects a conflict with other installed 
devices.  In these conditions, it hides the memory so that it 
will not be used by QRAM or other expanded memory utilities.  
This can be overridden by QRAM's INCLUDE parameter if it is 
determined that QRAM is incorrect about the conflict.  When 
overridden, these areas become HIGH RAM.


What QTEST cannot detect:

QTEST tests your system in its "current configuration".  It 
cannot determine how your system would react if set up 
differently.  If you have a system which you believe to have 
Chips & Technology shadow RAM and QTEST does not see the shadow 
RAM, be sure that your shadow RAM has been enabled.  If you 
are loading an expanded memory driver which might be using up 
this shadow RAM memory, try disabling it.  If it turns out you 
have usable shadow RAM, QRAM can be loaded before the expanded 
memory manager and both could be used.

If you have an expanded memory board you believe should support 
EMS 4.0 high memory areas in addition to the Page Frame, check 
your board's manual to see if there are any adjustments in 
software or hardware which must be made to enable this feature.
QTEST also cannot determine which of your memory resident programs, 
device drivers, or pieces of DOS can be loaded into High RAM.  
This is determined by QRAM's OPTIMIZE program.  You can get some 
idea of what might be loaded high, by comparing the resident size 
of your TSRs to the High RAM available.  However, such programs
often require MORE memory to get started then they take up after 
they have "squished" themselves into their final state.  Some 
could prove to be too large to load into high memory.

Therefore, it is difficult to tell exactly how much memory will 
be saved below 640K in your system.  Since QRAM's OPTIMIZE program 
usually CAN find something to load into High RAM, the most 
important thing to know is whether you can get High RAM.  This is 
what QTEST tells you.


               Copyright (C) 1990 by Quarterdeck Office Systems
                    * * *   E N D   O F   F I L E    * * *