mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) (04/25/91)
I tried CONEX60 on my XTurbo10 because I liked the idea of having a
graphics terminal emulator. For various reasons I have a mouse on
COM1 and a printer on COM2, so my 1200-baud modem is configured as
COM4. This works well with Boyan 4.0 as well as another terminal
emulator used at Bell Labs.
The first time I tried to configure CONEX for COM4, it told me COM4
wasn't installed. I fixed that by entering the port address of COM4
in the port table in the kernel, where DOS looks for port definitions.
After that, CONEX accepted the configuration, and dialed out when I
typed in the modem command to dial, and the modem established the
connection.
Then there was a more serious problem: I couldn't receive anything.
I noticed also that when the modem echoed the dialing command, each
character appeared on the screen only after I typed the following
character. After the connection was made, I got only odd single
isolated characters. If I stayed in command mode, without dialing,
and just gave the modem commands, the echo delay increased to two
characters, and then more.
I suspect that CONEX is not responding to interrupts and therefore
not reading received characters except when it sends one. But I
don't really understand how that works.
Has anybody had any better luck with CONEX on any port, but in
particular on COM4? And does anybody have any idea why I'm having
trouble or any suggestions on how to fix it?
--
Martin B. Brilliant hoqax!marty
(Winnertech Corporation) HO 2J-528
(908)949-1215valley@gsbsun.uchicago.edu (Doug Dougherty) (04/25/91)
mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >I tried CONEX60 on my XTurbo10 because I liked the idea of having a >graphics terminal emulator. For various reasons I have a mouse on >COM1 and a printer on COM2, so my 1200-baud modem is configured as >COM4. This works well with Boyan 4.0 as well as another terminal >emulator used at Bell Labs. I have this same sort of problem (too many serial devices). Basically, the problem is that by default COM3 shares its IRQ level with COM1 (As does COM4 with COM2), which means they share the same hardware interrupt (8 + IRQ level), which means that you can't be running two interrupt handlers on both of any pair of "joined" ports. My guess is that the other comm pgms you have used were either not as interrupt intensive (Omigosh! Tell me they don't use the BIOS serial routines!) *or* were better written than CONEX (Is that CONEX [like conehead] or COMEX?) and were able to deal with it. In any case, I have found that you cannot run an interrupt driven comm pgm on the same IRQ level as the $25 network. One or the other will fail... A solution, if you can do it, is to re-program your serial card so that the extra COM ports use different IRQs (e.g., IRQ5) Unfortunately, my cheapie serial card can't do this. The real question is, "Why did they do this to us in the first place?" (Anyone know?) -- (Another fine mess brought to you by valley@gsbsun.uchicago.edu)
mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) (04/29/91)
In article <1991Apr25.030426.11398@cbfsb.att.com> I wrote: >I tried CONEX60 on my XTurbo10 .... > I couldn't receive anything. >I noticed also that when the modem echoed the dialing command, each >character appeared on the screen only after I typed the following >character.... > >I suspect that CONEX is not responding to interrupts and therefore >not reading received characters except when it sends one.... I sent an email inquiry to the author (using the address in the doc file in the conex60 distribution) and received the following reply: : I expected that COM3 and COM4 might not work since I never had : any opportunity to test it. Originally I took interrupt 11 for : COM3 and 10 for COM4, the IO address is read from BIOS : communication area. : I send you CONEX with interrupt 4 for COM3 and interrupt 3 : for COM4, which you only need to decode. In future releases : this parameter will be configurable. Please tell me if you could : make it run. These are presumable IRQ4 and IRQ3, which seem to be conventional in most systems. The new version works, but only after I powered off the computer (and modem) to reset everything.