Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3
The new Release 3.0 of Lotus 1-2-3 requires a 286 or 386 machine with a
minimum of 1MB of memory, with at least 384K available as Extended Memory. This 384K of
memory above the DOS 640K limitation is used by their '16M' DOS extended technology.
With most 80286 based machines this leaves about 400K available for
worksheets. It is advisable to have more than 1MB of memory to work with larger
spreadsheets, but it no longer has to be configured as Expanded Memory; Extended Memory
can be accessed directly.
Expanded memory boards are still supported, but Release 3.0 does
conflict with some Expanded Memory management software for 80386 based machines (e.g.
AEMM.SYS, AEMM386.SYS, etc.). Memory managers for 386 machines, which convert extended to
expanded memory, only work with Release 3.0 if they comply with the VCPI standard (e.g.
QEMM.SYS from Quarterdeck). Although 1-2-3 Release 3.0 does not require memory to be
configured as Expanded, if you need Expanded memory for other applications (e.g. a system
using Supercalc V which requires standard Expanded Memory) then set up all memory as
Expanded and Release 3.0 will only use this as Extended when it is running.
The need for the 384K to be accessible may clash with Apricot's BIOS
shadowing routine, which can be disabled on XEN-S and Qi machines but not on the older
XEN-i systems. Machines that will run 1-2-3 Release 3 are:
XEN-S, Qi 300, VX1000M, and VX FT machines.
All older XEN-i systems and Qi 600 machines will require more than the
standard 1MB of memory.
There are also memory issues if you are running Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3.0
on a VX-Net workstation. The 384K of memory between 640KB and 1MB is used by AMLOAD, so
the workstation will require more than 1MByte of memory.
Lotus 1-2-3 Release 2.2
For customers that have 8086/88 based machines or the older 286 machines
and do not want to upgrade their memory, Lotus are shipping 1-2-3 Release 2.2. Release
2.2's enhancements over 2.01 include: file linking, undo, improved graphics, and
spreadsheet publishing output. It does not have Release 3.0's 3D spreadsheets facility,
new macro commands and @ functions, or external database access features.
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