Msg: 6498 *Conference*

05-06-96 23:38:14

From: GARY WEBER

To : RON WIESEN

Subj: LAPTOP IDENTITY PROGRAM

Ron -

I just wanted to confirm to you that the identity code that you put together
does, indeed, properly identify my 8300 and 8201, as well as my own Tandy 100.
I do have a question about the IBM PC identification, however.

Due to the segmented memory architecture of an IBM PC (or compatibles), any
PEEK that you would do in memory would be entirely relative to whichever 64K
memory segment your program occupied.  How is it, then, that a peek of 31009
equaling 1 identifies an IBM PC?  You're PEEKing IBM's RAM here, not ROM.
About the only way I know if to perform an IBM PC identification would be to
look at the BIOS of the machine, which would require setting the SEGMENT
address to start at F000, and then the actual PEEK would be done within that
64K of ROM.

Just curious!

Gary.