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Appendix A 85
Appendix A — Memory Conflicts
Contention for Memory Addresses
Many intelligent peripheral devices require a block of vacant memory addresses on the host computer’s bus for their
own use. These memory addresses may be used to access a dual-ported RAM on the peripheral device to facilitate
the transfer of large volumes of data between the host and the peripheral (memory-to-memory transfers are much
faster than I/O bus transfers), or they may point to a ROM BIOS (a firmware program used by the host computer to
control the peripheral device). In either case, the host computer sees this memory as its own, and can use the same
high-speed memory-referencing commands that it uses with its internal memory.
Figure 30 on the following page shows a map of the first megabyte of a host system’s memory bus. The shaded areas
represent the computer’s internal RAM (nearly always 640K, but can often be reduced to 512K—there is also
usually more RAM above the 1 Meg boundary). The area between the RAM and the 1 Meg boundary is used for the
host system’s BIOS, option ROMs and peripheral memory. The memory map shows the locations typically used by
some of the most common peripheral devices.
The memory map on the following page shows typical memory usage. To be certain of what ar-
eas are available in your system, you will need to consult the documentation for your computer
and peripheral devices.