(Excerpts from a message dated 12-12-99, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard to
Lee Aroner)

JP>The idea that "FCBs are faster" is only true when one uses DOS for
  >one's operating system.  But operating systems that are *not* based
  >upon DOS but on which one can run DOS 
  >programs, such as OS/2 and Windows NT, have been in 
  >widespread use for 5 to 8 years now.  The generality that "FCBs are
  >faster" is no longer true, and hasn't been for many years.  Even on
  >DOS-Windows 3.1 or DOS-Windows 95/98 with "32-bit file access"
  >enabled it isn't true.  It wasn't even true on DOS in the 1980s on
  >machines attached to LANs.

JP>So this "little trick" will go away because it is no longer useful
  >to DOS programmers, which is in turn because the premise that it is
  >based upon is not true for the large majority of systems where DOS
  >programs are run these days.

    "This little trick" may go away, but old DOS programs that used it
won't.  If you are still running "legacy" DOS programs (say, of
mid-1980s vintage) that you didn't write yourself, cutting out the FCB=
line in config.sys (or even cutting the default value from 16 down to 3
as someone recommended) to "save" the negligible amount of memory
involved is foolish.  IIRC, that is where this thread started :-).

    Regards,

        --Murray

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 * MR/2 2.25 #120 * Never get carried away by a flood of logic

--- Maximus/2 2.02