Conventional memory
|
|
Conventional Memory is the first 640 kilobytes of an IBM PC's memory. Prior to extended memory such as EMS, XMS, and HMA, real mode applications could use only this part of the memory. Even when extended memory is present, real-mode applications have to be specially programmed to use it using a complex system of overlays; consequently, many applications continued to use only conventional memory.
As DOS applications grew larger and more complex in the late 1980s, it became common practice to free up as much conventional memory as possible by moving device drivers and TSRs into Upper Memory Blocks (UMBs). For more information on this, see the article on the Upper Memory Area.
With modern operating systems and 32-bit machines the distinction between conventional and extended memory is rarely relevant, since all memory can be accessed uniformly in protected mode, but for older real mode OSes such as MS-DOS it was often worthwhile to tune the system to load drivers and other system components into Upper Memory Blocks - chunks of extended memory remapped into the Upper Memory Area (UMA) - in order to leave as much conventional memory as possible free for running large applications. This is detailed in the article on the UMA.
- This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.