Remember the days of squeezing TSRs into high memory?
C:\>mem
Memory Type Total Used Free
---------------- -------- -------- --------
Conventional 638K 59K 579K
Upper 0K 0K 0K
Reserved 386K 386K 0K
Extended (XMS) 3,627,654K 30,373K 3,597,281K
---------------- -------- -------- --------
Total memory 3,628,678K 30,818K 3,597,860K
Total under 1 MB 638K 59K 579K
Largest executable program size 578K (591,856 bytes)
FreeDOS is resident in the high memory area.
C:\>
If you want to access that 3GB of XMS, you’ll have to page it in and out in 64K chunks.
On a freshly delivered HP Compaq system, without Windows. Clearly they couldn’t ship it with no OS loaded at all, because that would be admitting that the person receiving it was pirating (or so the logic goes). So, they pre-loaded FreeDOS on it.