OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Hardware

Quatech SSP-100 Serial Port PCMCIA in ArcaOS

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Mark Szkolnicki:
Hi ExPLIT


--- Quote from: ExPLIT on December 28, 2021, 09:22:27 pm ---
Thanks for the info Mark, the main Problem is, that the CardBus does not getting an IRQ.
Will look what is the case for this bug.

Under Windows the cardbus adapter is using IRQ 20 and 21 for every Socket. I have only one PCMCIA socket on my JVC MP-XV941, but the SD-Card-Slot is hanging on the same Ricoh CardBUS Controller and is initialized as a second cardbus slot.


--- End quote ---

I'm curious about one statement you made above - when you say "the SD-Card-Slot is hanging on the same Ricoh CardBUS Controller and is initialized as a second cardbus slot", are you referring to in Windows XP or ArcaOS?

Actually I think the whole issue of whether Windows XP can see the card at IRQ's 20 and/or 21 is irrelevant to the conversation, unless for some reason your portable in the BIOS has hard coded or assigned the IRQ's in a fixed manner, as in that case the assignment is OS independent.

That is highly unlikely as, because of the myriad combinations of equipment which any OS may encounter they normally are programmed to assign IRQ's or other resources on a dynamic basis as needed.

You have to understand that ArcaOS and Windows XP operate in entirely different manners, ExPLIT. There were synergies decades ago when OS/2, the forerunner to ArcaOS was first developed, as many aspects of the code was shared with Windows when it became an OS, up to the development of Windows NT.

ArcaOS now and Windows XP, despite both becoming more and more of a legacy OS are two very different OS's, programming wise.

ArcaOS is based on enhancing the original OS/2 which did have many commonalities with Windows up to Windows NT, as mentioned. However after that, Windows OS's were rewritten to advance a lot of the functionality to address new technologies from the ground up, and we have, for legal reasons, not been able to advance ArcaOS in the same manner. ArcaOS has advanced strictly through the extraordinary dedication of a cadre of very skilled people, and a lot of ingenuity from same, and the rest of the community in support. We've attempted to continue to enhance what was there originally, which as things advance more and more, is becoming increasingly difficult, given the limitations involved.

So not addressing IRQ 20 and 21 is not really a bug - you could call it a feature.

If you indeed want to use the Quatech Serial card you have under ArcaOS, you really have to work within these limitations and think outside of the Windows XP universe, as well as all other things Windows.

So what really needs to happen, if you wish to proceed, is an evaluation of the following - namely why is the PCMCIA implementation not running as you wish it to? And can it be fixed?

I can't answer that specifically, but having done similar in the past, after 30 years using OS/2 / eComStation and ArcaOS, I would ask you to consider the following:

Pretty well all of the PCMCIA implementation in ArcaOS is based on what the various drivers are supposed to do. So the question really is, progressing in a logical manner:

1) What driver provides the base PCMCIA support framework?
2) What driver provides access to the PCMCIA controller in your computer? (As I recall there were many such at the time for OS/2 - are you using the correct one? Even though it may be named the same I recall there were many such at the time and you needed the correct one.)
3) What driver assigns the IRQ to the card being plugged in, whether it was present on boot-up or being hot swapped?
4) What driver supplies the specific information related to how to use your card, whether in a generic manner or specifically?
5) For the Quatech serial communication drivers, do the parameters for QCOM.SYS provide the IRQ information, or something within 1) to 4) above, and QCOM just accesses that?

One driver may provide multiple of the above ............ or not.

I guess you see the puzzle involved, friend - do you have all of the correct jigsaw puzzle pieces, or do you need to juggle some around and see if they fit? It sounds like Windows XP provided all the ones needed to function automatically, unless my first question indicates that problems were noted there as well - so, as you are attempting to do the same with ArcaOS you may need to puzzle things out in a more creative manner yourself, with what help we can give you.

Some things could be as simple as rearranging the order of drivers loading in CONFIG.SYS. Or it could be simply that one driver needs to be replaced with another.

Ask as many questions as you need - we may not have the answers, but we can give you what may be clues and perspective. If you do solve the puzzle, the first thing you should do is report back to us as to what you did to successfully get things running. Martin Iturbide has been spending a lot of his personal time trying to document successes - and successes are what keeps what we are doing with ArcaOS running for the current foreseeable future.

Best!

Mark

ExPLIT:
Thanks Mark for the long and very useful answer!

I think i have solved (kind of) the puzzle:
Got my Quatech SSP-100 PCMCIA Card recognised with PCMCIA Socket Services 8.0.
PCMCIA Controller Driver, which i succesflully used is Intel SS2PCIC.SYS
commercial Driver APSoft SSPCIC.SYS also recognizes my PCMCIA Controller Ricoh R5C476 II but i got it not working with it.

The magic tric was in this line:
BASEDEV=PCMCIA.SYS /V /R:500

While the ArcaOS Socket Services 5.0 need the /R:500 to operate in the 5.0 Version of socket Services (Default one is 2.0)
in the newer IBM Socket Services 8.0 this switch should be removed.
After i removed /R:500 swithch, i got the message, that the Card Services Version are 8.0 and suddenly the SSP-100 was recognized as a Modem (COM1), got Power and seems to work.

Will attach some screenshots tomorrow...

Thanks for all the answers, comments and advises! Happy new year!

PS: Sorry, I dont find yet an Screenshot tool for ArcaOS, so i made some pictures:

Hardware Manager, PCIINFO and Card Services.

The most curious thing that i found out (might be also useful for another Ricoh R5C476II CardBus enabled Notebooks (Like ThinkPads X2x, X4x, A30):
Later ThinkPads (like X3x, X4x, X6x, T4x) have later Ricoh Cardbus Controller, which also emulates R5C476II.

The PCMCIA Serial Card is only enabled and got Power, when an FAT-formatted SD-Card is in the SD-Card slot  !
The sound absolutely unbelievable, but when i boot without SD-card in the slot - the PCMCIA Card didn't get power and is not recognized at all.

Here are relevant parts of my CONFIG.SYS:

REM *** PCCARD 8 ***
BASEDEV=PCMCIA.SYS /V
BASEDEV=SS2PCIC1.SYS /E
REM BASEDEV=SSPCIC.SYS /E /AP:ON /BE:AUTO /VS:AUTO /II:OFF /IN:ON
BASEDEV=AUTODRV2.SYS
BASEDEV=PCM2ATA.ADD /S:2 /!DM /NOBEEP
BASEDEV=OS2PCARD.DMD
DEVICE=D:\PCCARD\VPCMCIA.SYS
DEVICE=D:\PCCARD\PCMSSDIF.SYS
DEVICE=D:\PCCARD\PCM2SRAM.SYS
DEVICE=D:\PCCARD\FLSH2MTD.SYS
DEVICE=D:\PCCARD\PCM2FLSH.SYS

REM *** QUATECH SSP-100 PCMCIA RS232 ***
REM DEVICE=D:\OS2\BOOT\QCOM.SYS (1,2F8,3) /L
REM DEVICE=D:\OS2\BOOT\QVCOM.SYS (1,2F8,3)
DEVICE=D:\OS2\BOOT\SSP100.SYS COM1


REM *** SERIAL COM PORT DRIVERS ***
REM DEVICE=D:\OS2\BOOT\COM.SYS (2,3F8,4)
DEVICE=D:\OS2\BOOT\PSCOM.SYS (2,3F8,4)
DEVICE=D:\OS2\MDOS\VCOM.SYS (2,3F8,4)

Quatech QCOM and QVCOM Drivers did not find UART and i have disabled them. For now i use PSCOM and VCOM.
PSCOM need to be set to COM2 (2, 3F8, 4), otherwise SSP100.SYS cant use COM1. A bit strange, but for now it works.
I am happy, that the whole story somehow find an happy end. Learned a lot.... :)

Happy new year to all!!



Martin Iturbide:
Hi ExPLIT

I have updated the OS2World wiki with your latest comments: Quatech SSP-100 Single Port RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Card

Please let me know what else I can add there just to document how you have it working. What were all the changed in config.sys?

Regards

ExPLIT:
added the missing info, happy new year and thanks to all for all the help!

ExPLIT:

--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on December 31, 2021, 02:29:03 pm ---Hi ExPLIT

I have updated the OS2World wiki with your latest comments: Quatech SSP-100 Single Port RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Card

Please let me know what else I can add there just to document how you have it working. What were all the changed in config.sys?

Regards

--- End quote ---

When it is helpful i can describe the whole installation process and hardware support for my tested Notebook:
JVC Mobile Note MP-XV841/941 or Asus S300N (Same Hardware Base)

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