From: address@nospicedham.not.available   
      
   Martin,   
      
   > Nitpickly here but at least one of those other 65535 do contain a   
   > RET (or even two that contain INT 0x20), doesn't it.   
      
   Nope, not for an EXE style program.   CS points at the start of the program,   
   and a RET to CS:0000 would simply run whatever code is stored there - if   
   any.   
      
   But ... Some of those locations *should* contain some sort of a program   
   (even if just an AH=4Ch, INT 21h sequence), so you are still right ... in a   
   way. :-)   
      
   > OTOH perhaps you don't even have a DOS .COM   
      
   (looking upwards to the subjectline) No, I haven't ... :-p   
      
   Regards,   
   Rudy Wieser   
      
   P.s.   
   I've solved the problem (both the memory gobbling as well as the initial   
   stack location) by patching, after generating the executable, the relevant   
   fields in the EXE file header.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)