indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) (12/13/90)
I have used Terminal, WinQVT, UniCOM and Microphone II. They all drop
single characters randomly. Outside Windows, Qmodem 4.2b never drops any
characters.
I am running on an AST Premium/286 with 6Mb, upgraded NS16550 UART (not
that MSWin 3.0 uses it :-( ), Telebit Trailblazer Plus in 8n1.
Have others seen such consistent bad behavior? Anyone worked it out?
Workarounds? Anyone?
--
iNDRA | indra@amd.com or {ames apple uunet}!amd!indra
| (Indra Singhal) (408) 749-5445; Advanced Micro Devices
| MS 167; Box 3453; 901, Thompson Pl., Sunnyvale, CA 94088rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Kai-Uwe Rommel) (12/14/90)
In article <1990Dec13.062051.3478@amd.com> indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) writes: >I have used Terminal, WinQVT, UniCOM and Microphone II. They all drop >single characters randomly. Outside Windows, Qmodem 4.2b never drops any >characters. This is a problem of the COMM.DRV driver shipped with windows. >Have others seen such consistent bad behavior? Anyone worked it out? >Workarounds? Anyone? Wrote my own device driver (not a windows one, but a DOS TSR which is called via INT 2F by my appliation(s)). MS has to fix this. Kai Uwe Rommel -- /* Kai Uwe Rommel, Munich ----- rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de */ DOS ... is still a real mode only non-reentrant interrupt handler, and always will be. -Russell Williams (MS)
indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) (12/18/90)
rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Kai-Uwe Rommel) writes: >Earlier I wrote: >>I have used Terminal, WinQVT, UniCOM and Microphone II. They all drop >>single characters randomly. Outside Windows, Qmodem 4.2b never drops any >>characters. >This is a problem of the COMM.DRV driver shipped with windows. >>Have others seen such consistent bad behavior? Anyone worked it out? >>Workarounds? Anyone? >Wrote my own device driver (not a windows one, but a DOS TSR which is >called via INT 2F by my appliation(s)). >MS has to fix this. >/* Kai Uwe Rommel, Munich ----- rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de */ I am surprised I have not seen much discussion of such an obnoxious deficiency in comm.drv with Windows. Perhaps, not too many people are running at 19200. Does this problem show up at 9600? or 2400 baud? Is there a replacement comm.drv for windows available? Is anyone from Microsoft reading this? Does anyone have a definitive response on a real solution? Howcome all the comm. program developers and the media is quiet? Then again, perhaps not too many people use 19200 :-( -- iNDRA | indra@amd.com or {ames apple uunet}!amd!indra | (Indra Singhal) (408) 749-5445; Advanced Micro Devices | MS 167; Box 3453; 901, Thompson Pl., Sunnyvale, CA 94088
ej@kos.rci.dk (Erik W. Jeppesen) (12/18/90)
rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Kai-Uwe Rommel) writes: >Earlier I wrote: >>I have used Terminal, WinQVT, UniCOM and Microphone II. They all drop >>single characters randomly. Outside Windows, Qmodem 4.2b never drops any >>characters. >This is a problem of the COMM.DRV driver shipped with windows. We are experiencing dropped characters at 19200 baud also outside windows and have found that the DOS 3.30 keyboard driver (keyb.com) is the problem. Are characters dropped only when you use the keyboard, and have you tried not to load the keyboard driver? The reason that Qmodem and other comm programs don't drop characters is, I suspect, that they use their own keyboard interrupt routine in order to be able to remap the keyboard. I posted this problem to two other groups recently, but didn't get any reaction. I imagine that we haven't heard much of this problem because you don't have to load a keyboard driver in the US! Merry Christmas to you all, -- Erik W. Jeppesen ej@rci.dk +45 42 65 80 00 RC International, Lautrupbjerg 1, DK-2750 Ballerup, Denmark
indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) (12/21/90)
Eric (ej@rci.dk) writes: >rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Kai-Uwe Rommel) writes: > >>Earlier Indra Singhal wrote: >>>I have used Terminal, WinQVT, UniCOM and Microphone II. They all drop >>>single characters randomly. Outside Windows, Qmodem 4.2b never drops any >>>characters. > >>This is a problem of the COMM.DRV driver shipped with windows. > >We are experiencing dropped characters at 19200 baud also outside windows >and have found that the DOS 3.30 keyboard driver (keyb.com) is the problem. > >Are characters dropped only when you use the keyboard, and have you tried >not to load the keyboard driver? > >The reason that Qmodem and other comm programs don't drop characters is, I >suspect, that they use their own keyboard interrupt routine in order to be >able to remap the keyboard. In a separate posting, someone indicated that the dropped characters only occured in standard mode and not in real mode nor enhanced mode. I tried the s/w packages in real mode and found that while the frequencyr of dropped characters is lower, characters were dropped. There is yet another gentleman at att, who I was unable to send mail to, who has used terminal.exe without problems at 19200. I do not have any information about the h/w he isr using. [I have a 286, I cant verify enhanced mode operation :-(] The theory about the keyb.com, keyboard driver is one I need more information about. Does Windows 3 require the use of the keyboard driver? How would I disable it, if at all? I know I do not load it from my config.sys. I would like this issue to be settled by identifying where the problem is and if possible encouraging the vendor to fix or patch it. Some time back, there was someone surveying what we would pay for a decent comm driver... did anyone keep the address of the poster around? -- iNDRA | indra@amd.com or {ames apple uunet}!amd!indra | (Indra Singhal) (408) 749-5445; Advanced Micro Devices | MS 167; Box 3453; 901, Thompson Pl., Sunnyvale, CA 94088
dleach@dptspd.sat.datapoint.com (David Leach) (12/22/90)
In article <1138@kos.rci.dk> ej@kos.rci.dk (Erik W. Jeppesen) writes: > >We are experiencing dropped characters at 19200 baud also outside windows >and have found that the DOS 3.30 keyboard driver (keyb.com) is the problem. I work on a project that will use an async driver that someone else in my company wrote. We found that you can lose characters at 19.2 because of overruns on the comm port. The principle cause of the overruns was that other programs were spending too much time in timer interrupts or interrupt disabled code which would cause the async code to miss comm interrupts becuase they were at a lower priority. To fix this, an option was added to the async driver that would cause it to reprogram the PIC to make the COMM interrupt the highest priority interrupt in the system. With this in, the problem went away. -- David Leach disclaimer: "I speak for no one . . . just ask my wife!"
coffman@plains.NoDak.edu (Clark Coffman) (12/23/90)
In article <1990Dec17.180239.20713@amd.com> indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) writes: [rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Kai-Uwe Rommel) writes: [ [>Earlier I wrote: [>>I have used Terminal, WinQVT, UniCOM and Microphone II. They all drop [>>single characters randomly. Outside Windows, Qmodem 4.2b never drops any [>>characters. [ [>>Workarounds? Anyone? [ Actually, I ran into a similar problem with MSKermit and Windows trying to use com1 through bios1, after I had set kermit up and took my communications file I just reset the port to com1 again and everything worked fine. Now I just use a script that sets the port twice. You might see if you could do something similar. Hey, who else would you expect to be responsible for what I say? Clark Coffman -------(=- Dagda Mor -=)-------- CWC BITNET: coffman@plains.bitnet or nu116215@ndsuvm1.bitnet INTERNET: coffman@plains.NoDak.edu or nu116215@vm1.NoDak.edu UUCP: uunet!plains!coffman