Author Topic: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports  (Read 55238 times)

Rota

  • Guest
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #90 on: February 27, 2021, 04:37:14 pm »
Hi Danielle

I wrote this little page with the information you let us know.
- Novellus Gasonics PEP Iridia DL Plasma Asher

Can it be possible for you to take some pictures of the OS/2 software, so I can also include it to the gallery? What is the name of the software it uses?

Regards

Hi Martin,
here's the main page of the GUI

Regards

Rota

  • Guest
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #91 on: February 27, 2021, 04:43:36 pm »
Hi

I will like to solve the question:
- Which modern 8 Port serial card works on ArcaOS-OS/2 ?
By modern, I may refer to PCI and PCI-e that are available for sale today.

Update: I checked Amazon to see some options, but it is kind of hard to get some device to test those with OS/2.
- Syba SY-PEX15019 PCI-Express RS-232 Serial 8-Port Card with OXPCIe958 Chipset  - $60.66 (Chipset)
- StarTech.com 8-Port PCI Express RS232 Serial Adapter Card - PCIe RS232 Serial Card - 16C1050 UART.  - US$ 164.99 (Website)
- IO CREST 8 Port DB9 Serial RS-232 PCI-e x1 Controller Card with Low Profile Bracket SY-PEX15067  - $102.99  - (Website)

Regards

As I said above, I have tested the StarTech board above and it does not work.

But do you never found a board that works?
Regards

Martin Iturbide

  • OS2World NewsMaster
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4710
  • Karma: +41/-1
  • Your Friend Wil Declares...
    • View Profile
    • Martin's Personal Blog
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #92 on: February 27, 2021, 07:22:57 pm »
Hi Martin,
here's the main page of the GUI
Regards

Thank you very much. I had include it on the Wiki, it always makes me happy to include information about this industrial machines that work with OS/2.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Rota

  • Guest
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #93 on: February 28, 2021, 03:40:01 pm »
https://www.sunix.com/en/product_detail.php?cid=1&kid=2&gid=4&pid=1174

What do you think about this? It has DOS drivers...
And it has also this note "marked as a project supported operating system. Please contact us if you have any further need"

Regards
« Last Edit: February 28, 2021, 03:42:51 pm by Daniele »

Lars

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1271
  • Karma: +65/-0
    • View Profile
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #94 on: February 28, 2021, 03:45:05 pm »
More importantly, it states that it supports Warp3 and Warp4. Which very likely means, it is supported by the existing COM.SYS as they do not supply an OS/2 driver.
If one can install this card under Windows and install the Windows driver, it will be possible to find all the relevant parameters to add to the COM.SYS config file "PCIDEV.TBL" which should be located in the OS2\BOOT directory. If it does not exist, that file is located in the DDK ...
« Last Edit: February 28, 2021, 03:53:28 pm by Lars »

Rota

  • Guest
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #95 on: February 28, 2021, 06:15:50 pm »
In bottom of the page You can download all drivers. It’s possible to install the one for windows and make your checks without having the board?

Lars

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1271
  • Karma: +65/-0
    • View Profile
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #96 on: February 28, 2021, 10:16:36 pm »
No, without the board, the driver cannot query the PCI setup it needs to know.

Neil Waldhauer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1024
  • Karma: +24/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blonde Guy
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #97 on: March 01, 2021, 04:00:07 pm »
Hi

I will like to solve the question:
- Which modern 8 Port serial card works on ArcaOS-OS/2 ?
By modern, I may refer to PCI and PCI-e that are available for sale today.

Update: I checked Amazon to see some options, but it is kind of hard to get some device to test those with OS/2.
- Syba SY-PEX15019 PCI-Express RS-232 Serial 8-Port Card with OXPCIe958 Chipset  - $60.66 (Chipset)
- StarTech.com 8-Port PCI Express RS232 Serial Adapter Card - PCIe RS232 Serial Card - 16C1050 UART.  - US$ 164.99 (Website)
- IO CREST 8 Port DB9 Serial RS-232 PCI-e x1 Controller Card with Low Profile Bracket SY-PEX15067  - $102.99  - (Website)

Regards

As I said above, I have tested the StarTech board above and it does not work.

But do you never found a board that works?
Regards

As I said earlier, the StarTech PCI 8-port card works great with OS/2. Everyone I worked for (5 different companies) on PEP had enough DIGI boards so I never had to find a compatible one. It's pretty easy to get PEP and CC running on the OS/2 computers. The challenge is to get them communicating.
Expert consulting for ArcaOS, OS/2 and eComStation
http://www.blondeguy.com

Andreas Schnellbacher

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 827
  • Karma: +14/-0
    • View Profile
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #98 on: March 01, 2021, 06:35:26 pm »
As I said earlier, the StarTech PCI 8-port card works great with OS/2.
Neil, trying to avoid misunderstanding by reading your previous posts again: StarTech PCI 8-port works, but StarTech PCI Express 8-port doesn't.

Neil Waldhauer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1024
  • Karma: +24/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blonde Guy
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #99 on: March 01, 2021, 11:14:44 pm »
As I said earlier, the StarTech PCI 8-port card works great with OS/2.
Neil, trying to avoid misunderstanding by reading your previous posts again: StarTech PCI 8-port works, but StarTech PCI Express 8-port doesn't.

Exactly. I did not use the StarTech 8-port for this project, though. It seems a lot of robotics programs for OS/2 used serial ports to the controllers for robot arms, conveyers, etc.
Expert consulting for ArcaOS, OS/2 and eComStation
http://www.blondeguy.com

Rota

  • Guest
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #100 on: March 03, 2021, 03:11:46 pm »
As I said earlier, the StarTech PCI 8-port card works great with OS/2.
Neil, trying to avoid misunderstanding by reading your previous posts again: StarTech PCI 8-port works, but StarTech PCI Express 8-port doesn't.

It’s seems Startech doesn’t produce PCI board anymore....
Only PCIe are available.
But the problem is that OS/2 has no drivers for PCIe slot?

Neil Waldhauer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1024
  • Karma: +24/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blonde Guy
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #101 on: March 03, 2021, 03:36:36 pm »
As I discussed with Lars Erdmann earlier in this thread, the PCIe card would need a new driver. The source code is closed source, but widely available in the IBM OS/2 DDK. The old driver communicated with the serial chip in the way that drivers did in the 1980s. The new driver would have to use a method that is a little more recent. I don't believe it is a big change.

If you do get someone to write a device driver, I think that the StarTech PCIe card would be a good choice.

If you had the source code for the CC application, it could be modified and recompiled to use a different communication method to the PEP hardware.
Expert consulting for ArcaOS, OS/2 and eComStation
http://www.blondeguy.com

Lars

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1271
  • Karma: +65/-0
    • View Profile
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #102 on: March 03, 2021, 04:10:32 pm »
In fact, I had already looked into the COM.SYS source code.
What would need to be done is to remove all testing, probing and check against the default builtin COM ports (the well known 0x3F8 etc. I/O port addresses) and the corresponding checks of the BIOS data area at 40:0 (which for our case is competely deprecated) and then to replace all "in" and "out" (I/O address) instructions by "mov" (memory address instructions).

1) Unfortunately, large parts of the COM.SYS driver are written in Intel Assembler (I seem to remember but maybe I am confusing this with other drivers). I can read and program Intel Assembler but for me, it is more difficult to read and understand than C source code
2) I have no HW to test
3) I am running OS/2 as a guest under VirtualBox

Maybe one of these days ...

« Last Edit: March 03, 2021, 04:21:19 pm by Lars »

Martin Iturbide

  • OS2World NewsMaster
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4710
  • Karma: +41/-1
  • Your Friend Wil Declares...
    • View Profile
    • Martin's Personal Blog
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #103 on: March 03, 2021, 05:55:41 pm »
But the problem is that OS/2 has no drivers for PCIe slot?

Hi

I would like that someone with more experience on this subject can answer that.  My guess is that PCIe ports works on OS/2, but there most be some change/update of chipset on the StarTech 8-port PCI-e that does not work on OS/2-ArcaOS. But I would prefer if someone can confirm or deny that, since I lack of experience here.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Sean Casey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 122
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: OS/2 on Virtualbox with 8 COM ports
« Reply #104 on: March 03, 2021, 06:20:22 pm »
I have had no issues using StarTech's PCIe to PCI low profile converter adapter (PEX1PCI1) with older PCI SCSI adapters.  It likely would also work well with StarTech's older PCI 8-port serial adapters.