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Messages - Doug Clark

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46
Applications / Re: Odin Question - Palm Desktop
« on: August 12, 2023, 08:34:20 pm »
The latest/last version of Palm Desktop I know of is v 6.2.2.  I could not get that to install using ODIN.

It does install in a WinXP vitual machine running vbox.  However I could not get HotSync to run on that system.  Plus there is the problem of having to keep  the WinXP/VM running in order for Palm Desktop alarms to work.  It MIGHT be possible to sync via a wireless network with that setup, but I have not tried.

I do use a Palm T|X and the Palm Desktop.  The setup I am using is an HP t610 thin client running Windows XP embedded. I needed a machine running 24/7 for my home automation and phone systems anyway, so it made sense to also install the Palm Desktop on this machine.  The HP machine was cheap ($35), fanless, and uses a little less than 14 watts at idle.  Palm Desktop v 6.2.2 will run on Win7 if you want to use a separate machine but run Win7 instead of WinXP.

If I want to access the Palm Desktop from OS/2 I start the VNC server on the HP and using PM VNC client on my OS/2 machine.  But most of the time I leave the HP network cable unplugged, wireless disabled, and use a KVM to access the HP thin client - because one of the things I use the Palm Desktop for is a password manager; hackers can't steal the passwords from a machine they can't access.

Another alternative is one I used to use:  install Palm on both OS/2 (in this case WinXP running in Vbox on OS/2) and on a windows machine that will be used only for Hot Syncing.  Point the Windows machine to a drive on OS/2 where the Palm Desktop is installed.  Fire up the Windows machine when you want to do a Hot Sync.  Since both machines (OS/2 and Windows) are sharing the same Palm files the Hot Sync will update the Palm Desktop running on WinXP / vbox   or in ODIN if you are using a earlier version of Palm Desktop and an earlier handheld.)

FWIW  I sometimes experience Hotsync stop working due to issues with the contacts between the handheld and the cradle. A little WD-40 on both the handheld and cable always fixes the problem.

47
Setup & Installation / Re: USB to Serial adapter setup
« on: August 12, 2023, 04:26:18 pm »
I don't know about the D-series.  The driver works with AceCat III tablet, and the AceCad A1212 tablet.

I have attached the driver, along with some instructions.  My memory is the install fails, or screws up, when making changes to CONFIG.SYS so you really need to manually edit CONFIG.SYS to get the tablet and mouse to work together.  The instructions are in the zip file.

Good luck

48
Setup & Installation / Re: USB to Serial adapter setup
« on: August 12, 2023, 12:55:14 am »
Follow up on the USB to serial adapter situation, and various questions asked.

I was trying to get a Belkin F5U116 USB to serial adapter to work.  The F5U116 adapter has 2 serial ports, a parallel port and USB hub all in one device -  LSUSB.EXE lists it as two F5U103 serial adapters and one F5U002 Parallel port.  The Belkin F5U109 is an USB to one serial adapter.

The Belkin F5U116 and Belkin F5U109 adapters both use the USBSER.SYS driver. Other USB to serial adapters use a different device driver, USBCOM.SYS.

USBSER.SYS did not work for those two adapters - I believe the reason is after the USB stack was updated (I think for USB 3) USBSER.SYS stopped working.

I submitted a support ticket to AOS and David fixed the USBSER.SYS device driver - at least for those two Belkin adapters.  I have to mention that my experience with AOS support has been outstanding - with this ticket and with other tickets I have submitted.

Now for the other questions and comments people posted:

You list USBCOM.SYS and/or USBSER.SYS once in your CONFIG.SYS file.  You can supply switches (or parameters) to both USBCOM.SYS and USBSER.SYS to specify the maximum number of ports the driver should support, along with the starting port number.  Supplying the starting port number can be important if you have both USBCOM.SYS and USBSER.SYS and or other serial port drivers loaded at the same time - such as COM.SYS or QCOM.SYS.  The device drivers attempt to ascertain the first available com port but can get fooled by other device drivers - see below.

Some time after I started this adventure I picked up an 8 port serial port PCI card made by QuaTech.  QuaTech has OS/2 drivers - they were on the CD that come with the card.  All 8 com ports on the card share a single interrupt and it appears the card negotiates the interrupt to use at boot up.

I also have a serial port built into my ASUS motherboard that can be set in BIOS to either the standard COM1 or COM2 port and interrupt.

I mentioned earlier I had an ACECAT tablet that uses the ACECAD.SYS driver. Martin asked if the driver/tablet will work with the USB to serial adapters.  The answer is no.  It also will not work with the QuaTech 8 port card, and I suspect it is for the same reason.  The ACECAD.SYS driver appears to talk directly to the serial port hardware.  You can specify to the device driver COM1 or COM2 but not the address or interrupt. It also works without COM.SYS being loaded, so it must be talking directly to the port.  But it works fine plugged into the com port  of the motherboard, with or without the QuaTech and/or USB to serial adapters loaded.

I did not see in the QuaTech documentation a way to specify the interrupt for the QuaTech card - but supposedly its driver (QCOM.SYS) can handle the ports on the card and ports on the motherboard, or co-exist with IBM's COM.SYS. 

You can see why it can become necessary to specify the starting port number for each device driver.

I believe there is a limit of 16 com ports for OS/2.

I tested and am using the USB to serial adapters for non modem devices.  I had to add the /DCD switch to the USBSER.SYS and USBCOM.SYS lines in CONFIG.SYS to get my device to work correctly.

Thanks everyone for your help and comments.  And I want to again mention how great Arcae Noae's support system has been for me.








49
Off Topic discussions / Re: Off Topic: Situation in Ecuador
« on: August 11, 2023, 11:51:51 pm »
Yes Martin - stay safe.

I wish for peace and prosperity for you and your country - all countries actually.

50
Setup & Installation / Re: USB to Serial adapter setup
« on: July 20, 2023, 07:48:53 pm »
Thanks Dave and Lars,

You are both correct.  I looked at the OS2World Wiki to see what worked and purchased from that.  And what is listed there probably worked for OS/2 and maybe even eComStation - if I hadn't updated ecs with the latest USB stuff from AOS.

I did submit a ticket and David Azarewicz confirmed my adapters will not work, and also pointed out there is a list of working usb to serial adapters on the Arcanoe wiki.

So I chalk this to my bad for not looking at  the right information.

Thanks everyone for your help.

51
Setup & Installation / Re: USB to Serial adapter setup
« on: July 20, 2023, 06:20:02 am »
Rich: no. I saw Martin's mention of usbcom on EDM and looked at that but somehow passed over the reference to usbser

So after I saw your post (thanks for catching that) I downloaded USBSER and installed it.

The package says to run DDINSTAL - which ran but gave no feed back for success or failure.  However it did add
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBSER.SYS
to my CONFIG.SYS  (I added the /V after for feedback on boot up)

On boot a message is displayed saying the converter (USBSER.SYS)  loaded as COM1

Included in the package is a test program: tstusbc.exe

When I run tstusbc.exe nothing happens - blank screen.  And MODE COM1 says Drive not ready.

I ran it with COM1 turned on and turned off in bios, and with COM.SYS remarked out.

I also booted with just USBSER.SYS and with both USBSER.SYS and USBCOM.SYS - same result.

BTW - I also have an eComStation machine, with a subscription for support and just for kicks tried installing USBCOM.SYS on that machine with the same results.

52
Setup & Installation / Re: USB to Serial adapter setup
« on: July 19, 2023, 09:28:05 pm »
Thanks all for your help.

The adapter I purchased is listed in wiki as being tested by OS/2 CHL hardware testing team and
"works like a charm!" -it is part number F5U116 and shows in the list below as id 050d:0103

I also plugged in another Belkin adapter F5U109 USB PDA Adapter which is listed on the
wiki as "According to IBM this device should work flawlessly with IBM's serial USB device driver."

It shows up in the list below as id 050d:0109



Martin,
 lsusb reports
 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 050d:0109 Belkin Components F5U109/F5U409 PDA Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 050d:0103 Belkin Components F5U103 Serial Adapter [etek]
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 050d:0103 Belkin Components F5U103 Serial Adapter [etek]
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0d3d:0001 Tangtop Technology Co., Ltd HID Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 1293:0002 Belkin Components [hex] F5U002 Parallel Port [uss720]
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
 


Dave, Neil and Andi B

I have tried:
1) disabling the com port in bios and removing usb.sys from config.sys - I don't have a vcom.sys in config.sys
2) specifying usbcom.sys with a starting port number (e.g. /N:COM2), and without a starting port number
3) listing usbcom.sys only once in config.sys as advised in usbcom.txt, and listing usbcom.sys mutliple times, one for each desired com port.
4) I have tried different usb-serial adapter IDs(F5U109 and F5U103 shown above)

On boot up, with
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /V /M:3 /N:COM2
I get a message during boot that the driver is loaded and is starting at COM2 with the size of input and output queues

But the MODE command says
SYS0021: The drive is not ready.

or for  COMx where x=5 or higher it says
SYS0020: The system cannot find the device specified.

Plus my program reports an error when it tries to open COM2, COM3 or COM4.

So I think I will open a ticket on with Arca Noae, see what happens.

53
Setup & Installation / Re: USB to Serial adapter setup
« on: July 19, 2023, 05:20:05 am »
Dave,

thanks for the usbcom.sys tip.  That got me started, at least.  I added the following two lines to my CONFIG.SYS

DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /V /N:2
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /V /N:3

and the messages on boot up appear to say the driver is loaded for each com port.

But when I enter MODE COM2  or MODE COM3 I get the message
The system cannot find the device specified.

I have one physical COM port in the motherboard, which is used normally used
by my ACECAD driver.  The CONFIG.SYS lines for that driver are

DEVICE=C:\OS2\ACECAD.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\VMOUSE.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\POINTDD.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\AMOUSE.SYS STYPE=ACECAD$
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBMOUSE.SYS

If I put  COM.SYS in my config.sys with the ACECAD driver I get an error message when it tries to load COM.SYS.

If I take out the ACECAD  stuff out of CONFIG.SYS   COM.SYS loads and I can use COM1 - and MODE COM1 works correctly.

Martin,

The device is an IBM 6094-20 Lighted Program Function Keyboard (LPFK) which needs a serial connection.
You can see it in action, along with a 6094-10 Dials device at

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/g6qfd7/ibm_6094_dials_lpfk_lighted_programmable_function/

I ported the source for a a Linux "driver"  (actually just an interface to the serial port for this device with a test program) to OS/2 - but to do that I had to remove the ACECAD driver and connect the LPFK to the real serial port on my machine.  I am now trying to get it to work through a USB - > serial adapter.

54
Setup & Installation / USB to Serial adapter setup
« on: July 18, 2023, 10:46:22 pm »
I have a serial device that I have working when connected to a real serial port.

I would now like to get it working through a USB to Serial adapter.  The one that I am using is a Belkin fsu116 hub thingy - which plugs into usb and provides 2 serial, 1 parallel and 2 usb ports.  It is shown as working with os/2 in the wiki.

Do I need to add something to my CONFIG.SYS to get the ports working?  Can I assign a comm port number to a specific port on the belkin?

Is there documentation somewhere that describes how you setup usb-serial adapters?

Thanks

55
Programming / Re: Source Code Text Editor Suggestions
« on: May 25, 2023, 10:23:22 pm »
I use LxPM 4 - it is bundled with VisualAge C++ version 4. 

I am not sure what you mean about a reload thing.

You can turn on/off line numbers.  If line numbers are on you can enter some commands in the line numbers area, like ISPF of old.

It also doesn't have tabs for open files, but it has a drop-down list at the top (or bottom) for all the files that are open which you can use for switching between file.  And it shows you which ones have been modified since they were last saved.  The two features I really like are:  1) find/change can optionally work on all open files,  2) you can split the view of a file so that you can scroll to two different areas of the file at the same time - and modify both areas of the file if you need.  Don't use the split all that often, but sometimes you really need it.

It doesn't have the "file explorer" thing, but what I do is open a WPS folder in details view on the side and drag/drop from the folder into the editor to open files.

Plus you can write macros in Rexx.  And extend the editor with C.

The downsides are:
not as pretty as STE
If you want to use help for the editor you have to install the VisualAge C++ 4.0 help system and Netscape Explorer

56
Programming / Re: SQL running total
« on: May 25, 2023, 07:40:59 pm »
Yes - with an Intersolv ODBC dbase driver  (l2dbf12.dll date 10/18/1999)

The example below shows that sql statement, rewritten to  work with some
test data that I have.  rtotal = your accumulated (the running total), district = your amount, and
the table name is voters instead of your example.  I also added a
WHERE last_name='CLARK'  clause because my test data has 31k rows.  And it is
SLOW because of what it is doing.  You have a SELECT statement where
you have replaced a column name with another SELECT statement - so it is
executing a SELECT statement for each row that it retrieves from the first
SELECT statement.  BTW this is covered on page 274 of Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties book.

It is worth noting that the Borland Database Engine does not support this statement.

It is also worth noting that while this works, it probably doesn't really get you
what you want.  The column ID in your SQL (voter_id in mine) is a unique value.
It is unlikely the values in this column sort the data the way you want to view it,
and you must order on the column(s) in the <= part of the WHERE.

So the second image shows a variation of your and my first SQL statement.  Instead of
voter_id (or in your case ID), I am using last_name and first_name concatenated together.
CONCAT() is the scalar function that concatenates stuff together: the {fn }  part is
an ODBC escape clause that Intersolv wants around scalar functions.
Yes the Intersolv dBase ODBC driver supports the CONCAT() function as long as it is escaped.

The problem with this is more than one row in the data has the same first and last name.

What I really want to do is concatenate together last_name,first_name and voter_id, because
voter_id is unique for all rows in the data. But
I cannot do that because voter_id is a numeric column and you cannot concatenate together
two dissimilar data types.  And the Intersolv driver does not have a CAST() function for
changing the data type.

So yes the Intersolv driver will allow you to issue the SQL statement you have written and
it will get the correct data back.  But if you want to order the data differently you will
have to find a unique column, or combination of columns that uniquely identify each row, that
you can live with sorting by.

As for how you use the Intersolv driver.  The application I have attached screen shots of works
with Intersolv drivers - even evaluation drivers.  However it is months away from being released.
If you have a strong need to do this now, and are willing to live with half baked software that
will probably require you to reboot with a different LIBPATH statement while you are using it,
I will send you the app - send me a message or email.  Martin knows how to get ahold of me.


57
Utilities / Re: Intersolv/ODBC
« on: April 30, 2023, 06:29:52 am »
This is what I had in mind for a GUI Admin tool I started to work on... if someone would like to contribute how to open settings for the drivers and handle settings etc.

It looks nice Jan-Erik.

According to the ODBC documentation the function SQLConfigDataSource() is used to call the driver's setup routine, presumably including any dialog box(es) the driver needs to display to get info from the user to set up the datasource. 

The header files in the ODBC SDK specify calling convention for all functions in the SDK.

The UnixODBC driver manager that I got off of the web reports itself as version 3.52.  However I believe that UnixODBC at that time did not support fileDSNs, so neither does the OS/2 port.  The lack of FileDSNs isn't a big loss, in my opinion, since a FileDSN is just a DSN where the configuration information is stored in a separate disk file instead of being stored in ODBC.INI. Arca Noae may feel differently with their corporate customers: the idea of a FileDSN is the file can be created by a network administrator and stored on a file server, instead of requiring each user to create their own DSN on their own machines through the ODBC administator.

Also the concept of User and System DSNs doesn't make sense in OS/2 since OS/2 is really a single user system. That is why the Intersolv administrator only shows User DSN.  (System DSNs are available to all users of a machine, User DSNs are available only to a specific user.)


If Paul Smedley wants to pull the latest sources for UnixODBC and compile them for OS/2 that would be GREAT.  But please keep the following issues in mind.

#1 The format of the ODBC.INI (and possibly ODBCINST.INI - I just don't remember right now) produced by Intersolv and by UnixODBC are slightly different.  I don't think the linux world had an installed Intersolv base they needed to conform to and we do on OS/2.  It would be nice if the new UnixODBC would produce ODBC.INI and ODBCINST.INI files that match the format used by Intersolv.  That way a user could use those files (and the drivers) with either UnixODBC or Intersolv.  This is because of #2

#2 There are users that purchased licensed versions of Intersolv drivers and use those with OS/2 applications.  For example Lotus Smart Suite bundled a complete set of licensed drivers.  Unfortunately the licensing for Lotus Smart Suite limits the use of those drivers to Smart Suite applications,  It appears the application calls a special function (probably in the Intersolv driver manager) that checks the licensing information while connecting.  If that function cannot be implemented in the UnixODBC port then the user would need to switch between Intersolv ODBC and UnixODBC in order to continue to use their licensed drivers.  The function that is called is mentioned in one of the readmes for VisualAge Basic - sorry I don't remember more details right now.


58
Utilities / Re: Intersolv/ODBC
« on: April 25, 2023, 07:14:33 pm »
The intersolv ODBC drivers were sold for OS/2, but I haven't been able to find retail versions for a couple of decades.  I also bought a set, probably from the same place Per E. Johannessen did, and they also were only windows.

As Sean Casey noted, you can use evaluation versions of Intersolv ODBC drivers with VIO/Command Line programs, such as Rexx/SQL ODBC.  This is because the evaluation versions put up a PM dialog box every 10 rows when fetching data to remind users to purchase the retail version.  If you aren't running in a PM session the dialog box never appears, although on older systems you might get a beep from the system speaker.  If you are running a PM program, such as StarOffice, with the Intersolv drivers you will get the reminder dialog box every ten rows.

As for other sources of ODBC drivers - commercial database vendors generally bundled ODBC drivers with their products.  These include Oracle, DB2, Watcom and SQLAnywhere.  In addition to those there are drivers that have been ported from the Linux world to OS/2, such as PostgreSQL, Sqlite, mySQL, etc.  Normally these are bundled with a ODBC Driver Manager/Administrator that have also been ported from Linux, such as from the UnixODBC or iODBC projects.  I have tested some drivers that were bundled with a Driver Manager from UnixODBC and what I found was the drivers work with either the Intersolv Driver Manager or the UnixODBC driver manager (as long as you respect version limitations), but the UnixODBC ODBC Administrator cannot administer Intersolv drivers - however the Intersolv Administrator can administer the UnixODBC version drivers.

ODBC version limitions
The ODBC API went through multiple versions - the major ones of concern to OS/2 are versions 2.x, 3.0, and 3.5.  The API specifies the functions that must be provided by a driver and how those functions operate.  Version 3 changed the names of many of the functions to align with standards, version 3.5 added functions for Unicode.

I should note that the version of the ODBC API that a driver, driver manager, and administrator is written to is not the same as the version number of the driver, driver manager or administrator.  For example the UnixODBC driver manager that is written to the API version 3.5 has many different release versions - as they discovered bugs or completed more of the driver manager they released new versions.

The ODBC API version restrictions are:  an application must connect to a driver written at its API version or higher.  A driver must connect using a driver manager at its API version or higher.  For example, an application written to the ODBC API version 2.x can connect to a driver written to ODBC API version 2.x or 3.0 or 3.5.  But an application written to ODBC API version 3 cannot connect with a driver written to ODBC API version 2.x


59
Programming / Re: Qt6
« on: January 24, 2023, 05:05:42 pm »
Thanks Dave.

The ffmpeg library, plus libkai, pcre2-utf16 and nss libraries got dooble to at least start.

It won't load any web pages and the menus do strange things (submenus appear in random locations), but I will go back through previous posts and make sure I have all my settings correct.

Thanks again.

60
Programming / Re: Qt6
« on: January 24, 2023, 12:29:58 am »
Anyone know where to get AVUTIL56?

Downloaded the packages Martin listed
- Qt6 libs - https://www.dropbox.com/s/j8ybbujncktdf22/qt6-6.2.4-os2-20230108.zip?dl=0
- Qt6Webee - https://smedley.id.au/tmp/qt6webee-20230115.zip
- Dooble   -  https://smedley.id.au/tmp/dooble-2023.01.18-os2-qt6-20230121.zip

Tried to run Dooble and got an error message - missing KAI1 - which I found in libkai with ANPM

Now I get an error missing AVUTIL56.

Is there something I can YUM to get the required DLLs?

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