bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) (11/14/88)
I am running AT&T 386 UNIX with Simul-Task 386 (aka VP/ix) in a
no name clone with a CompuTone AT-4 smart serial card. All in
all I am pleased enough with VP/ix (that's easier to type than
Simul-Task!) and I am very impressed with how they were able
to graft PC oriented things onto a moderately stupid terminal.
I have even figured out how to make it work with a Televideo,
a Qume, and a Zenith
I have some anomalies that I can not explain for myself. If I
try to run DOS from a terminal on the smart serial card I get a
pregnant pause, a message
Cannot enable DOS mode for this device
a much longer pause and then my UNIX prompt back. I can log in with
my luggable in cu (onto a modem on COM1) and it works fine. If I try
to run DOS from a directly connected terminal on COM2 I get a very
prompt message
Error attempting to open serial device
Press Enter to continue
and then everything is OK. I don't get that message when logged in on
a modem or when I'm on the console (I suppose that's obvious). Perhaps
the brain trust can enlighten me.
I'm curious as to why it won't work on any smart card port. That's
probably a function of the driver and something the driver must do when
VP/ix wants to open it. I hope not because I'm getting ready to replace
the COM2 driver with one that takes advantage of the NS16550A UART and
CTS/RTS handshaking. Can anyone explain what a serial driver must do
in addition to work with VP/ix?
I'm equally curious as to why I get an open error on the COM2 device
but it recovers and proceeds normally. Finally, is there a repository
of VP/ix terminal files anywhere? I'd like to contribute a couple and
collect a couple more. They are a pain in the neck to write and test,
surely we can exchange them like we do termcap/terminfo's.
Whoops! I said "finally", I lied. Does anyone know why VP/ix must
dongle both floppies (A & B) before it will start? Mine are in an
outboard enclosure and are normally powered down. It takes just that
much longer for VP/ix to start up if there's nothing there. I might
add that VP/ix does a creditable job of shimming DOS to fit a serial
terminal. I tried three things I was certain would not work, DAC Easy
Accounting (ancient uSoft BASIC), the venerable szap from Software
Toolworks, and MKS vi. They are all very screen memory oriented and
szap is very function key oriented. They all worked! They even ran
OK on the DOS partition on drive 0. I was impressed. Thanks for any
thoughts, wisdom, steers.
--
Bill Kennedy usenet {killer,att,rutgers,sun!daver,uunet!bigtex}!ssbn!bill
internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COMclewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis) (11/17/88)
In article <240@ssbn.WLK.COM> bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes: >I am running AT&T 386 UNIX with Simul-Task 386 (aka VP/ix) in a >no name clone with a CompuTone AT-4 smart serial card.... > >I have some anomalies that I can not explain for myself. If I >try to run DOS from a terminal on the smart serial card I get a >pregnant pause, a message > >Cannot enable DOS mode for this device > How old is your AT-4? Some of the older AT-4's and Atvantage-X cards don't support VP/IX - it's largely a function of firmware and drivers - bug Computone for a new version. 386/ix contains some documentation in the supplements manual (can't remember the man page name, but heck, there's only 10 or so mans ...) on the facilities that a serial driver has to support in order to run VP/IX. Eg: an extra couple of ioctl's, and 8250 register emulation... Yup, 8250 emulation! How else do you think DOS programs change baud rates etc? >a much longer pause and then my UNIX prompt back. I can log in with >my luggable in cu (onto a modem on COM1) and it works fine. If I try >to run DOS from a directly connected terminal on COM2 I get a very >prompt message > >Error attempting to open serial device >Press Enter to continue > >and then everything is OK. I don't get that message when logged in on >a modem or when I'm on the console (I suppose that's obvious). Perhaps >the brain trust can enlighten me. This is likely something to do with modem control lines (or the lack of it). Try putting "CLOCAL" in the gettydefs entry (or use the ...H modtty settings). >I'm curious as to why it won't work on any smart card port. That's >probably a function of the driver and something the driver must do when >VP/ix wants to open it. I hope not because I'm getting ready to replace >the COM2 driver with one that takes advantage of the NS16550A UART and >CTS/RTS handshaking. Can anyone explain what a serial driver must do >in addition to work with VP/ix? A few things: - DOS flow control sometimes uses scan codes instead of X-ON/X-OFF - the UNIX driver has to schedule fake interrupts for the VP/ix handler and manage some of the other exception handling stuff. - VP/ix needs to be able to issue ioctl's to the device that are used to emulate a DOS program's peeks and pokes to a 8250. (eg: baudrate, stop bits etc.) >Whoops! I said "finally", I lied. Does anyone know why VP/ix must >dongle both floppies (A & B) before it will start? *Both* drives? That's a little unusual... Maybe that's just an artifact of your controller. Consider how PC's DOS/BIOS works: when booting the BIOS ALWAYS goes to the floppy first to see if it's there. If not, it sits there trying for a bit then gives up and boots from the hard disk. This is *exactly* what VP/ix is doing... Consider that VP/ix is actually providing a "virtual PC", *NOT* emulating the BIOS or DOS, and VP/ix can and will boot vanilla Microsoft DOS right from your floppy if one is there. >I tried three things I was certain would not work, DAC Easy >Accounting (ancient uSoft BASIC), the venerable szap from Software >Toolworks, and MKS vi. They are all very screen memory oriented and >szap is very function key oriented. They all worked! They even ran >OK on the DOS partition on drive 0. I was impressed. Try some harder ones like programs doing direct video ram writes, Microsoft Windows, Wordstar, WordPerfect, Lotus, Symphony and I have it from a relatively reliable source that a VP/ix session will now run NOVELL client with arbitrary ethernet cards! -- Chris Lewis {uunet!attcan,utgpu,yunexus,utzoo}!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis Ferret Mailing list: ...!lsuc!gate!eci386!ferret-request (or lsuc!gate!eci386!clewis or lsuc!clewis)