[Trlog] RE: TRLog with USB to Serial port adapter

[Matthew George]

TRLog runs fine in a DOS session in the Win9X/ME operating systems.  I
wish I had a dollar for each of the messages posted about running TRLog
in Windows 9X/ME. (the NT based OS's are another story... NT/W2K/XP, no
native real-mode execution, all 86 real-mode instruction set
emulation)... Anyway, back to the topic at hand:

If at the DOS prompt you can address the serial port in question via
it's address, you should be able to get TRLog to use the port using
SetComm.  Read my post about SetComm... The SetComm utility will
temporarily change the IO port addresses for the 4 standard serial ports
(or LPT ports with the latest changes I made).

For example: In a DOS session in Win98, you run SetComm and change the
default IO port for COM1 from 0x3f8 to 0x666...  when TRLog access COM1
it will look for the port at IO address 0x666. IF (this is a big IF...)
you have a PCI/ISA extended card installed that has COM ports at NON
standard IO address, that are accessible from a DOS prompt... (in the
above example 0x666) TRLog WILL talk to THAT serial port as COM1.  TRLog
thinks it's talking to COM1 still, whatever port is at 0x666 will be the
port that is accessed by TRLog.  Interrupts are a non issue because at
4800 baud (TRLog access COM ports at 4800 baud) interrupts are not used.

If I remember right, TRLog lets you set IO addresses for Serial Ports 5
and 6 too.  With this being the case, you could get TRLog to access 6
serial ports!  With ports 5 and 6, you use the TRLog cfg file setting to
set the IO ports for serial ports 5 and 6.

I have the standard on-board COM ports in my computer... COM1 (0x3f8)
and COM2 (0x2f8), plus an eight port PCI card that has ports that start
at 0xdc00 (COM5), 0xdc10 (COM6) etc... I can run SetComm before running
TRLog and change the port addresses for COM1 and COM2 to 0xdc00, 0xdc10
respectively... When TRLog is running and talking to what it thinks are
COM1 and COM2, it's really talking to the first two COM ports on my PCI
card. (COM5 and COM6)

So at the end of the day, if you have USB based serial ports AND you can
talk to them from a DOS prompt and they are addressed transparently just
like a regular serial port, you should be able to use SetComm to FAKE
TRLog out... It will think it's talking to COM1-4.  Have I tried this?
No... I have had perfect success with PCI Serial port cards however... I
don't own a USB based serial port card. 

It's as simple as that...

mg NG7M

-----Original Message-----
From: trlog-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:trlog-bounces at contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Tod - Minnesota
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 12:26 PM
To: K4SB; TRLog
Subject: [Trlog] RE: TRLog with USB to Serial port adapter


Ed:

I went to the ByteRunner site and found the USB units. There are drivers
for Win98,WinME and WinXP -- but nothing explicitly for DOS. The site
says the
following:

"These USB Serial Adapters are designed to make serial port expansion
quick and simple. Connecting to a USB port on your computer or USB hub,
the USB Serial Adapters instantly add serial communication ports to your
system. By taking advantage of the USB bus, the USB Serial Adapter makes
it easier than ever to add serial ports and serial devices to your
system with easy plug-and-play and hot plug features. Plugging the USB
Serial Adapter to the USB port, the adapter is automatically detected.
There are no IRQ & COM port conflicts since the port doesn't require any
additional IRQ, DMA, or memory as resources on the system. "

The driver description says:

"FTDI's Virtual COM Port ( VCP ) Drivers appear to the system as an
extra Com Port ( in addition to any existing hardware Com Ports ).
Application software accesses the USB device in the same way as it would
access a standard Windows Com Port using the Windows VCOMM API calls or
by using a Com Port  Library. "

All of that begs the question of how one makes the connection between
the TRLog code and the FTDI/Windows code. The start of this thread dealt
with a program, SETCOMM, that I gather 'plugged' different base
addresses into memory so that the TRLog code would look in the correct
memory locations for the expected COM bytes and send I/O instructions to
the correct IO Port address. I am not sure if that will work for this
mapping of the COM ports. I guess one should have to look at the VCOMM
API and its calls to decide if it can be done. I suppose my next search
should be for documentation about that API.



Tod, KOTO










-----Original Message-----
From: K4SB [mailto:k4sb at earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 12:42 PM
To: Tod - Minnesota
Subject: Re: TRLog with USB to Serial port adapter


Be sure you update that old copy!

> I wonder if anyone has already done this?
> Tod, KOTO

I don't know, but surely it can't be that complicated!

GL
Ed

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