kelpie@nwnexus.WA.COM (Anthony C. Garland) (10/24/90)
I am aware that this subject has probably been discussed to death on earlier postings, however I just tuned into this group and all the postings related to this topic have expired. Would someone be good enough to take a minute to describe how to clear this problem one more time? If its a dead horse on the newsgroup, please respond by mail. (This is the problem where you try to use Terminal to connect to your modem on a COM port (in my case COM4) only to be told that all COM ports are in use and that they must first be freed.) I've messed around with just about every COM-related entry in the *.ini files to no avail. o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o | Anthony C. Garland, P.E. Garland Consulting | | 1373 S. Bonanza Alley, (206) 387-6390 | | Camano Island, WA 98292 kelpie@nwnexus.WA.COM | o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
dsampson@x102a.harris-atd.com (sampson david 58163) (10/25/90)
In article <407@nwnexus.WA.COM> kelpie@nwnexus.WA.COM (Anthony C. Garland) writes: (This is the problem where you try to use Terminal to connect to your modem on a COM port (in my case COM4) only to be told that all COM ports are in use and that they must first be freed.) I've messed around with just about every COM-related entry in the *.ini files to no avail. According to the MS technical support people, when windows 3.0 tries to communicate through a com port it does so through the system BIOS. Programs like Procomm Plus avoid the bios and go straight for the port address and IRQ defined for the I/O you've configured. If your bios doesn't support com3 or com4, you can try a temporary solution (not guaranteed) or you can dog your PC manuafacturer for an updated bios. Here's how to test to see if your bios recognizes com3 or com4: 1) On the command line, type debug 2) When you get the - prompt, type d40:0 This displays the memory contents at that location. The 1st row is important. You'll see some sort of divider that divides the row into a left and right half. The left hand side contains the COM port addresses; the right hand side has the printer LPT addresses. 3) The address for COM 1 is F803, but you'll see it displayed in the Intel "reverse" notation as 03 F8 4) If you see 03 F8 02 F8 00 00 00 00, then your bios doesn't recoginize com3 and com4 (it has zeros for its addresses). 5) The temp solution (not guaranteed) is to use debug to poke the com3 & 4 addresses into that location. See the new issue of PC Mag V9 num 19. One of the help columns in the back talks about this. dfs -- I I n ------------------------ I I n ------------------------ I I n ------------------------ I I n ------------------------ It takes alot of patience to train a turtle. / I I n ------------------------ David Sampson Harris Corporation dsampson@x102a.ess.harris.com Gov't Aerospace Systems Divison uunet!x102a!dsampson Melbourne, Florida -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
otto@tukki.jyu.fi (Otto J. Makela) (10/26/90)
In article <DSAMPSON.90Oct25120335@x102a.harris-atd.com> dsampson@x102a.harris-atd.com (sampson david 58163) writes: [useful instructions on viewing the BIOS serial port vector with debug:] 1) On the command line, type debug 2) When you get the - prompt, type d40:0 3) The address for COM 1 is F803, but you'll see it displayed in the Intel "reverse" notation as 03 F8 4) If you see 03 F8 02 F8 00 00 00 00, then your bios doesn't recoginize com3 and com4 (it has zeros for its addresses). 5) The temp solution (not guaranteed) is to use debug to poke the com3 & 4 addresses into that location. See the new issue of PC Mag V9 num 19. One of the help columns in the back talks about this. I'm afraid you have this backwards. Make it read: 3) The address for COM1 is 03F8, but you'll see it displayed in the Intel "reverse" notation as F8 03; COM2 is 02F8. Standard COM3 should be 03E8 and COM4 02E8. 4) If the first line of the dump looks like: 0040:0000 F8 03 F8 02 00 00 00 00- COM1= COM2= COM3= COM4= (corresponds to ports) your BIOS doesn't recognize your COM3 and COM4 addresses (the addresses for them are zero). This can be due to either an old BIOS or a nonstandard serial card. 5) You can temporarily fix this if you know that your serial card is of the standard type by setting the 40:0 vector addresses appropriately (comments follow //, don't type them in): a 40:4 // "assemble" data to COM3 dw 3e8 // set COM3 address to standard dw 2e8 // set COM4 also // blank line to get rid of "assemble" q // to finish debug You can also give "dw 0" to set the address to zero, if you don't have either of these cards. You can also try hacking this if you know that your card generates the appropriate IRQs but is at the wrong address, but the results won't probably be as good... There are programs available for doing these things automatically, look at the anonymous ftp archives at wsmr-simtel20.army.mil 6) The "proper" solution is to get a BIOS which recognizes COM3/COM4 or change to a standard serial card. PS. I have hacked Windows to use a nonstandard COM port as the mouse port (I have my MicroS*t Mouse compatible trackball on a non-standard COM). I've already once posted instructions, if there is larger interest, I'll post again. -- /* * * Otto J. Makela <otto@jyu.fi> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */ /* Phone: +358 41 613 847, BBS: +358 41 211 562 (CCITT, Bell 24/12/300) */ /* Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE */ /* * * Computers Rule 01001111 01001011 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */