[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Background serial data collection for MSDOS

jfm@uncmed.med.unc.edu (John F. Miller) (12/14/89)

We would like to be able to collect serial port input to a disk file
in the background in an IBM PC AT compatible running MSDOS.  Does anyone
know of a commercial or free program to do this sort of thing?
Alternatively, is there some free source code for doing MS-DOS format 
file i/o from within an interrupt service routine?

The exact situation is that we want to use PCs to collect ASCII data
from scintillation counters and gas chromatographs over a period of
hours without having the data collection monopolize the systems.  While
data collection would be proceeding in the background, the foreground
would be used for word processing, spreadsheets, and such.  For
various reasons, we do not want to switch from MS-DOS to UNIX or OS/2,
and we'd rather not have to use Desqview or Windows to accomplish
this.  I have a terminal emulator TSR that can collect the serial input,
but I've been unable to implement the file i/o from within the interrupt
service routine (apparently due to DOS's non-reentrancy -- i.e., I
can't call DOS file i/o routines when in an interrupt service routine).

Any good ideas out there?



  John F. Miller
  Department of Pharmacology, UNC-CH School of Medicine
  1026A FLOB  (231H) CB#7365, Chapel Hill, NC  27599    Tel: (919) 966-6966