On Jun 04, 1998 10:38am, MARK LEWIS wrote to TOM TORFS:

 ML> the 64k limit is a very real limit and will remain so until such time
 ML> as there are no more 16bit real mode programs being created...

Mark, it depends on the memory model that the 16 bit compiler supports.
In general, most Intel 16 bit compilers support the following memory
models:

                   Number of 64K segments
         MODEL       CODE        DATA
         ---------------------------------
         SMALL        1          1
         MEDIUM       multple    1
         COMPACT      1          multiple
         LARGE        multiple   multiple

The difference is NEAR (16 bit) vs FAR (32 bit) pointers.

In C, you can create a LARGE or HUGE memory string (FAR) pointers. The C
memory manager will manage the memory segmentation issues for you.

In the old Turbo/Borland Pascal, the memory model is a MEDIUM MODEL.  Medium
models allows for LARGE code segments but SMALL data segments.  So the
compiler does not support larger than 64K arrays.

So it depends on the 16 bit real mode compiler.

In the 32 bit world, this is not the case any more.  There is no such
thing as a different "MEMORY MODELS" for compilation. Its all LARGE
model.  Its all FAR 32 bit size pointers.  No 16 bit pointers.

Of course, in the 16 bit real mode world, you can still ran out of memory
because the 16bit real mode appplication could only access the 1 meg of
memory.   So to get beyond the 1 meg, you had to use alternative memory
managers such as Expanded, Extended or move into Protected Mode.

Hector Santos/Santronics
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