kmcvay@oneb (Ken McVay) (07/16/90)
I have ordered Windows 3.0 to see if I can run my FrontDoor email system inside it, background and foreground. Comments within the bbs community suggest that it won't work, because the comm driver can't handle the locked bus (locked @38400). The modem, an external USR HST 14.4, is driven through an NA16550 buffered UART. Has anyone had any experience with background communications under Win 3.0, or any communications at all? Anyone got a bbs running? The dos mail system runs on a 286/20MHz system with 2 megs of RAM, and it would be nice to be able to utilize all the memory...DV knows it is there, but won't make it available for anything but swaps, and that's just not good enough - will Win 3.0 recognize and permit me to _use_ the RAM between 1024k and 2048k?
strobl@gmdzi.UUCP (Wolfgang Strobl) (07/18/90)
kmcvay@oneb (Ken McVay) writes: >Has anyone had any experience with background communications under Win 3.0, >or any communications at all? Anyone got a bbs running? It is not a bbs (yet ;-), but I use MS-Kermit 3.01 under Win 3 in enhanced mode. I can run it in the background or in a window without problems. Wolfgang Strobl
msdos1@funic.funic.funet.fi (Petri Hartoma - Tut) (07/18/90)
Sorry, but I couldn't find the original article. ;-) > kmcvay@oneb (Ken McVay) writes: >Has anyone had any experience with background communications under Win 3.0, >or any communications at all? Anyone got a bbs running? I've tried Procomm+ with Windows 3.0 in 386 mode and it worked ok with 2MB RAM. Maybe today I could try Telemate (which is really corgeous communications program!) with it and report the results. -- (* Petri Hartoma - moderating MSDOS material in funic.funet.fi *) (* msdos1@funic.funet.fi,ph62303@tut.fi *)
dve@zooid.UUCP (system operator) (07/20/90)
kmcvay@oneb (Ken McVay) writes: > Has anyone had any experience with background communications under Win 3.0, > or any communications at all? Anyone got a bbs running? > > The dos mail system runs on a 286/20MHz system with 2 megs of RAM, and it > would be nice to be able to utilize all the memory...DV knows it is there, > but won't make it available for anything but swaps, and that's just not good > enough - will Win 3.0 recognize and permit me to _use_ the RAM between 1024k > and 2048k? Hi, in case no one else has replied... I run Waffle BBS on my 386 using Windows 3.0 as my multitasker. I can run other DOS or Windows programs at the same time with no problems or lost characters on the COM line. However,the BBS is only running at 2400 baud. At a higher baud rate there might be a problem, but there is a variable in, I think,WIN.INI that can be adjusted to give more time to DOS task serial timing. As for your second point.. WIN3.0 will use all 2 megabytes for Windows applications. If you had a 386, you could use the memory for multiple concurrent DOS sessions but with a 286,like Desqview, Windows can only use the extra memory for swapping DOS programs. If you can find a Windows application that does what you need then you are in good shape as Windows multitasks multiple Windows applications beautifully even on a 286. However I think it will be a while before we see really high quality comms software for Windows, even though the Windows environment would be great for a BBS or uucp mailer. Just in case I didn't mention it (likely) Windows is not an effective DOS multitasker if you are using a 286. It can only run one DOS task at a time. I hope this helps.
kmcvay@oneb (Ken McVay) (07/20/90)
>It is not a bbs (yet ;-), but I use MS-Kermit 3.01 under Win 3 >in enhanced mode. I can run it in the background or in a window >without problems. Many thanks for your comments, Wolfgang, but I'm still looking for a solution....alas, my Win3 hasn't arrived yet, so I can't fiddle on my own, but what little email I've seen (typical response: "Windows 3 communications sucks - let me know if you figure it out.") I've received has failed to offer any answers. In addition, after many discussions with sysops on the dos side (Fidonet, etc) with similar problems, I'm almost (but not quite) ready to give the idea up entirely without even trying, and stick with DESQview.....however, given the rave reviews Win3 is receiving, and the public clamour for the almighty GUI, I'm going to keep hoping.... Here's more information about the present setup - perhaps it will suggest something to someone out there (Microsoft has been silent about high speed background communications, unless I've missed something)... I run two systems - both run bulletin boards, one runs ms-dos 4.01. The dos system is a 286 (20MHz) with a USR HST 14.4 modem and 16550 UART - the modem routinely hits 1680+cps with other similar systems. The system uses a mailer called FrontDoor as the 'frontend' and a Canadian bbs (Maximus) for human callers. The buss is locked (via BNU 1.7) at 38,400 baud. The motherboard carries two megs of RAM. I can run DESQview 2.26 by changing the CMOS setup a tad and rebooting, but it doesn't leave me quite enough (about 100k) to do anything useful....and, as a consultant, I'd be better off replacing the motherboard with a 386 than adding a RAM card and more RAM to the 286..... I have ordered Win3 to familiarize myself with it (I already have Word for Windows) and to see if I could get the mailer (FrontDoor) to run under it, in the background. I usually do this with DESQview, but DV isn't all that friendly, and isn't as attractive as the GUI appears to be....since most of my clients are small businesses, being able to offer my product (the mailer, and wide-area networks) in the GUI environment would be an attractive plus. Except that I can't find anyone who has been able to do it, or even offer encouragement...and I can't believe, in this day and age, that a company with the resources Microsoft has would be unable to provide the functionality that Quarterdeck has built in to DV for years. I suppose I could wait patiently for someone to develop a bbs under Win3, or a mailer, but if it comes to that, Win3 will end up where 2.11 ended up - on the shelf, gathering dust....that would be a real shame, given the promise shown, don't you think? Did you have problems getting your setup working? How fast is your modem? What sort of environment does it run under? Would you be interested in getting a copy of FrontDoor to play with? (The non-commercial version is freely distributed) How high is up? A final note: I've been told that the comm driver supplied with Win3 needs to be replaced, and that there's a shareware version floating around that apparently helps with high speed modems.....anyone heard anything about that?
mussar@bcars53.uucp (G. Mussar) (07/20/90)
I've just installed a 16550 and tried to get windows to use it. If I turn the FIFO on before I invoke Win 386 Enh, then use their terminal program, the first char I type blows me back to the DOS prompt. If I have the FIFO disabled the enter Win 386 Enh mode, then invoke the DOS icon, I find that my programs to turn the FIFO on/off don't work. This seems to indicate that the virtualization software for the com ports doesn't recognize the additional capabilities of the 16550. Sigh. I would dearly love to get the appropriate drivers et. al. to get this to work. Does anyone out there have any idea on how to do this? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gary Mussar |Bitnet: mussar@bnr.ca | Phone: (613) 763-4937 BNR Ltd. | UUCP: ..uunet!bnrgate!bcars53!mussar | FAX: (613) 763-2626
strobl@gmdzi.UUCP (Wolfgang Strobl) (07/24/90)
kmcvay@oneb (Ken McVay) writes: >>It is not a bbs (yet ;-), but I use MS-Kermit 3.01 under Win 3 >>in enhanced mode. I can run it in the background or in a window >>without problems. >Many thanks for your comments, Wolfgang, but I'm still looking for a >solution....alas, my Win3 hasn't arrived yet, so I can't fiddle on my own, >but what little email I've seen (typical response: "Windows 3 communications >sucks - let me know if you figure it out.") I've received has failed to >offer any answers. In addition, after many discussions with sysops on the >dos side (Fidonet, etc) with similar problems, I'm almost (but not quite) >ready to give the idea up entirely without even trying, and stick with >DESQview.....however, given the rave reviews Win3 is receiving, and the >public clamour for the almighty GUI, I'm going to keep hoping.... The question is whether you like or need a GUI, or just have the need for a multitasking operating system. Windows is a new single user operating system on top of MSDOS, which inherits just the file system but not much else. It can run old MSDOS applications quite well, if you have a 386 and enough memory, but that's not its primary purpose. DESQview is a time slicing system on top of MSDOS, in the spirit of TowView. Its main purpose is to give you the ability to run more than one MSDOS application concurrently, whithout consuming too much CPU cycles. Then there is OS/2. It's a real OS with a much better resource management than DESQview, Windows or MSDOS. It's support for old MSDOS applications is nearly nonexistant - at least if compared to what DESQview or Win3 deliver. So you have to start from scratch. >Here's more information about the present setup - perhaps it will suggest >something to someone out there (Microsoft has been silent about high speed >background communications, unless I've missed something)... >I run two systems - both run bulletin boards, one runs ms-dos 4.01. The dos >system is a 286 (20MHz) with a USR HST 14.4 modem and 16550 UART - the modem >routinely hits 1680+cps with other similar systems. The system uses a mailer >called FrontDoor as the 'frontend' and a Canadian bbs (Maximus) for human >callers. The buss is locked (via BNU 1.7) at 38,400 baud. The motherboard >carries two megs of RAM. >I can run DESQview 2.26 by changing the CMOS setup a tad and rebooting, but >it doesn't leave me quite enough (about 100k) to do anything useful....and, >as a consultant, I'd be better off replacing the motherboard with a 386 than >adding a RAM card and more RAM to the 286..... It depends. If you use Windows applications and nothing else, a fast 286 with enough extended memory may be the cheapest and fastest solution... >I have ordered Win3 to familiarize myself with it (I already have Word for >Windows) and to see if I could get the mailer (FrontDoor) to run under it, >in the background. I usually do this with DESQview, but DV isn't all that >friendly, and isn't as attractive as the GUI appears to be....since most of >my clients are small businesses, being able to offer my product (the mailer, >and wide-area networks) in the GUI environment would be an attractive plus. "in the GUI environment". Just beeing able to run something in a window isn't enough. Most standard DOS applications need a major rewrite for running them under a GUI. This is mainly because old applications are data driven, whereas new applications are user driven. >Except that I can't find anyone who has been able to do it, or even offer >encouragement...and I can't believe, in this day and age, that a company >with the resources Microsoft has would be unable to provide the >functionality that Quarterdeck has built in to DV for years. >I suppose I could wait patiently for someone to develop a bbs under Win3, or >a mailer, but if it comes to that, Win3 will end up where 2.11 ended up - on >the shelf, gathering dust....that would be a real shame, given the promise >shown, don't you think? Hm, yes. But there is a difference. Windows V 2 had at about 300 K of free space for applications. Under Windows 3 you can use up to 16 MB of memory for your application, even if you don't own that much real memory. >Did you have problems getting your setup working? How fast is your modem? >What sort of environment does it run under? Would you be interested in >getting a copy of FrontDoor to play with? (The non-commercial version is >freely distributed) No, but this may be because I am using a slow (1200 baud) modem on my private machine (a 386/25 with 4MB and a 150MB Wren III). Someone in my PC group has a Trailblazer on a HP Vectra RS/25, so I tried Kermit (the old version 2.32/a, because it was installed there) under Windows 3.0 (German version). The Trailblazer communicates to the HP with 19200 baud. I created a PIF file for Kermit, which fixed Kermit in memory. Then I called one of our unix systems which is connected to an inhouse pad which has a few Trailblazer lines, using the Trailblazers PEP mode. I could not get an effective baud rate of more than about 4000 baud, either using long packets or using the Kermit support of the Trailblazer - perhaps the inhouse pad is to slow. I tried to slow down the Kermit file transfer by running PCTOOLS system info and a Basic program computing sin(x) in the foreground, but this didn't change anything - I got the same througput. >How high is up? >A final note: I've been told that the comm driver supplied with Win3 needs >to be replaced, and that there's a shareware version floating around that >apparently helps with high speed modems.....anyone heard anything about that? Are you sure that this isn't an information belonging to Windows V 2? Wolfgang Strobl #include <std.disclaimer.hpp>
altman@sbgrad12.cs.sunysb.edu (Jeff Altman) (07/24/90)
I tried to respond directly to this thread but the response bounced. BAsicly, the trick to running high speed trnasfers with Windows is to play with the PIF file and the SYSTEM.INI file. This only applies to Enhanced mode as there is no multitasking of DOS Telecommunication packages under real or standard modes. First, in the PIF file, memory for the Comm App must remain locked. Second, in the SYSTEM.INI file (described in SYSINI2.TXT) there are a number of settings which should be added. COMBoostTime COM?Buffer COM?Protocol These lines control the behavior of DOS Comm Apps under Windows. Win3 acts as the interrupt handler for the UART. When a character is received, Win3 places it into a buffer until the DOS Comm App is active. The default for Win3 is 128 characters. However, at high speed this 128 characters goes real fast. I set mine at 1024 however even higher values will improve performance. The COM?Protocol is handy if your Comm package is using XON-XOFF for flow control. When the Comm Package is active, Win3 starts to dump the Comm Buffer to the Interrupt handler for the ComM PAckage. Not all PAckages can handle the speed at which data flows in and some characters will be lost. If the Protocol is set to XOFF then when the Comm Package sends an XOFF Win3 will stop dumping the buffer. This reduces character loss. The final item to change (only if necessary) is the COMBoostTime. This specifies the minimum number of milliseconds which should be given to the Comm Package in order to process the incoming data. It defaults to 2 milliseconds, and higher numbers will improve performance of the Comm PAckage but will have a high impact on other applications (both DOS and Win3) which are simultaneously running. I have used these techniques to successfully perform Kermit file transfers at 19200 via a ROLM PBX (100% clean connection). One tip for Kermit users, the TIMER should be shut off on the side running under Win3. The Kermit Protocol states that after the start of a packet is received there can not be more than about 1 second between characters. This is sometimes a problem because of the intermediate buffering. Shutting the timer off does not cause any problems. - Jeff (jaltman@ccmail.sunysb.edu)