jafo@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Sean Reifschneider) (03/01/89)
Do any of you know of any problems with the RS-232 card for the Tandy 1000 EX? A friend of mine has one, and he has problems using QMODEM (term emulator) and PROCOMM. He is using it with a VEN-TEL 1200 baud modem and when he sets the attributes (baud, parity, bits, stop bits), they seem to not work very well. He's called me with his comm program at 1200,E,8,1 and mine was set at 1200,N,8,1, and everything worked Ok. Any ideas? Thanks Sean (hplabs!hpfcla!hpfcbmkh!jafo)
reyn@trsvax.UUCP (03/03/89)
I used a 1000 EX with the 25-1031 plus style RS-232 card for about a year without any problems. From what you describe, it sounds like your software is ignoring parity errors. The UART on the card is a standard Intel (or other) 8250, nothing exotic about it, and there's a pretty good description of how to program it in the manual. If you lost the manual, you can probably locate an Intel peripheral manual quite easily. Hope this in some way helps. John Reynolds DeskMate Type Programmer Tandy R&D in beautiful Ft. Wuth Standard Disclaimer, my employer isn't responsible for my ramblings, only my salary.
reyn@trsvax.UUCP (03/03/89)
P.S. to my previous reply, you do realize that the N you have specified means no parity checking? Sorry for the dumb question, but you've set up your machine to not care, as opposed to even or odd checking. Since your friend is looking for even parity, and you don't care, you might be sending even without realizing it. Just another dumb observation based on my vast experience at doing dumb things. John Reynolds Standard Disclaimer, my employer may be embarrassed by my dumb observations, but he is not responsible for them.
uhclem@trsvax.UUCP (03/04/89)
<> R1>The UART on the card is a standard Intel (or other) 8250, nothing exotic R1>about it, and there's a pretty good description of how to program it in R1>the manual. If you lost the manual, you can probably locate an Intel R1>peripheral manual quite easily. Sorry, but Tandy does not use plain-old 8250's. They use 8250A's, which have 10 significant problems fixed over the 8250" ". However, there was a lot of software written for "real" IBM PC/XTs that expect the presence of the bugs and won't work reliably if the bugs are fixed. At the same time, the BIOS drivers provided with the 1000 series expect the 8250A, so just replacing it with the 8250" " will break the BIOS. To make matters worse, some second-source vendors do not use the "blank", A or B designation on the 8250, since they never produced a "blank" part. So the part number alone may be insufficient to determine if this is the problem. A few years ago National Semi was real paranoid about Tandy ordering several zillion 8250A's when everyone else in the clone industry was buying 8250" "'s, and they went to great lengths to make sure that Tandy would not return the chips and want 8250" "'s when the differences were discovered. FYI, the 8250A and the 16450 are equivalent (have the same bugs fixed) as are the 8250 and the 8250B. Since you have an HX/EX, you are probably using a "real" Tandy serial adapter. If you have a third-party RS-232 board, make sure they used an 8250A or this may be your problem. Otherwise, I would say you have a terminal emulator that was coded to expect the 8250" " and not the 8250A. I have found this to be the case on many of these "free-ware" and "share-ware" terminal emulation programs. Most professional packages expect both since it could be run on an XT OR an AT-class system that has only had 16450's, which do not have the bugs. <This information is provided by an individual and is not nor should be construed as being provided by Radio Shack or Tandy Corp. Radio Shack/Tandy Corp has no obligation to support the information provided in any way. So there.> "Thank you, Uh Clem." Frank Durda IV @ <trsvax!uhclem> ...decvax!microsoft!trsvax!uhclem ...sys1!hal6000!trsvax!uhclem