Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Mark Szkolnicki

Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19] 20 21 ... 29
271
Games / Re: DOS VDM - USB and Game port Gamepad support
« on: February 06, 2022, 07:46:32 pm »
Hi Dave!

Hi Mark,
As far as I know, Josh hasn't made any advancements with this. Looking at his Github, he has been getting the test suite to work and hasn't committed anything joystick related.
The hope was that it would just work once hidapi was enabled and building. Currently here hidapi just returns a series of numbers, some of which change when the joystick is operated, those numbers need to be translated into buttons and x/y axis etc. It is also possible hidapi and/or libusb needs more updates.

Actually a series of numbers similar to a calibration program does tell us something to start - namely that the device is being recognized by the OS, which is a good start - if devices are not being recognized, at least we know which ones, and can use that as a baseline, for testing purposes. As updates and modifications advance at least those simple advances are one way to measure success.

The tests I was doing for Wim are an example of that - but as a tester, I need to know what needs to be installed and running to understand how I can generate data that may be used by the developers at various levels to determine how to proceed. And it does help to have a reference for any tools like hidapitester, so that everyone knows what needs to be done with the tool and how to do it.

Very few here as developers have time at the moment to document that, but I happen to at the moment - so if I can first get an idea as to the set-up needed to undertake some alpha testing and what you gentlemen may need, I can help out with this in a small way, hopefully.

Best!

Mark




272
Games / Re: DOS VDM - USB and Game port Gamepad support
« on: February 05, 2022, 08:06:47 pm »
Good Morning Guys!

Been an interesting year so far - between dealing with weather and politicians (I'm not quite sure which was worse, as neither are predictable) I had a rather busy January.

I have looked in on this thread from time to time in the interim, and I commend Dave, Lars, Jochen, Bitworks and Silvan, and the others who have been trying to press all this forward.

The development types have done a lot of yeomans work - the question now is how can we user types help in alpha and beta testing of whats been done? Thats where we need some input.

As I see it we're at the state where the testers need some detail from the developers on:

1) What needs to be installed to do the testing?
2) How do we do it? (YUM/RPM, downloading certain files, how to install, etc.)
3) What tests do you want run, and what info needs to be generated, and how?
4) What equipment do you want tested (joysticks? gamepads? other USB items like cameras of other USB devices found?)
5) Generally, how do you want the tests run?
6) What do you want us to find out at this stage (and hopefully going forward)

I know some testing has been done with "hidapitester" (don't know where that was pulled from or who created it), but whatever tools we need to test need a little explanation as to how they work and what to do. If you want testing in a games environment, I think we need to know what needs to be set up, possibly in CONFIG.SYS or other places in addition to adding the DLL libraries as well as which OS environment do you wanted it tested in (currently I'm thinking DOS under ArcaOS or OS/2, or native ARCAOS or OS/2).

As mentioned , I'm not a developer, but I can help and am volunteering in compiling 1) to 5) into a post which summarizes how we do this - I have followed this thread, but as Martin has inferred, its difficult to follow, and I don't think I could get all the relevant items together coherently without some guidance by the guys who have been doing the modifications and programming, as to what needs to be put down in writing to make this work.

So if you can post some of the steps here I will attempt to put it all together (or to email me privately - I have no email on OS2World).

Perhaps, Martin, if your listening in, and if I can put together something useful, we can get it up as a development or testing Wiki to give people something to reference on a single page, instead of users trying to find the post (or multiple posts) that has the info throughout the thread

Just wanted to contribute to this in the way I am skilled at - namely methods engineering. I expect if we have sufficient people testing (including me), there will be changes needed as we go along - but at least we have a structured way to move forward.

Thoughts on this anyone? And Best!

Mark

273
Hardware / Re: Quatech SSP-100 Serial Port PCMCIA in ArcaOS
« on: January 03, 2022, 10:20:06 pm »
Good Afternoon ExSPLIT!

A Happy New Year to you as well!

I'm glad you found a solution that worked - as I mentioned, people in this forum are very creative in the way we need to approach problems with ArcaOS - many times the solution is unexpected and the solution not perfect, but we have found through the collective memory here, from roughly thirty years of this operating system, to apply legacy solutions to things, as well as find solutions to address current and future issues. We get a lot of help from examining what the very active Linux community does currently, and attempt to use their solutions a lot, adapted to our situation (CUPS support is a perfect example of that, as it has given us access to printers we could not use otherwise)


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.


As I mentioned previously, there are so many different drivers out there related to PCMCIA controllers especially and many I remember seeing in the past were even named the same but were totally different - sometimes you had to examine what date the driver was created to see which version was the correct one.

Quote

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 switch, 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.


Also not surprising.

If you are following a discussion in another thread, on Zip IDE drives, you will find mention of the Danis506 hard drive driver, which was contributed originally by Daniela Engert, who was very talented at developing those types of drivers, being a software engineer - without her Dani drivers ArcaOS would not exist now, as IBM discontinued enhancing their hard drive support driver years before.

A driver version may have the same name but, because its been updated or enhanced, certain switches may be legacy or may be obsolete or only needed under certain circumstances.

From EDM/2 (http://www.edm2.com/index.php/PCMCIA.SYS )

PCMCIA.SYS - This Card Services driver for OS/2 provides base support for PC Cards:

/R:200  Specify that card services will conform to the PCMCIA 2.0 standard. This is the default value.
/R:500  Specify that card services will conform to the PCMCIA 5.0 standard instead of the PCMCIA 2.0 standard which is the default value.
/P In previous releases, this parameter disabled the hardware interrupt which was used by OS/2 Socket Services drivers to notify clients of a change in status. Neither the new Card Services nor Socket Services drivers for OS/2 use a hardware interrupt to signal PCMCIA status changes. So this parameter is no longer needed.

So the /R:500 switch was needed for v5, as you mentioned - it is obviously not necessary  and obsolete for v8.0 of Cardbus.

Quote

PS: Sorry, I don't find yet an Screenshot tool for ArcaOS, so i made some pictures:


I use a very useful piece of legacy software called PMView

https://www.pmview.com/

The OS/2 version still works and is updated occasionally but is a for pay software.

It can do screen capture and read and display many graphics types as well as other features.

Quote

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


I suspect one of the device statements above may be the culprit - as I mentioned, if your not planning to use any other PCMCIA devices you can probably comment them out. I guess it depends on how the removable SD card reader is being handled by ArcaOS (if it is - can you read the card, is a drive letter assigned for it, and if so is the drive readable or unreadable?).

We have many SD readers that are not able to be read under ArcaOS.

From EDM/2 ( http://www.edm2.com/index.php/PCM2ATA.ADD)

PCM2ATA.ADD - Driver for PCMCIA hard disk drives.

/S:n - Specifies the number of PC Card slots. /S:1 shows that there is only one PC Card slot. When this parameter is not set, the number of PC Card slots is set to 2.
/P:hhhh - Specifies the lower limit for the I/O address of the ATA card. The device driver assigns the next usable I/O address from this lower limit to the card. When this parameter is not set, the device driver looks for a usable address and assigns it to the card.
/EXIRQ:n - Specifies the IRQ level that is not assigned to the card. You can set more than one IRQ level.
/NOBEEP - Specifies not to beep when a storage card is installed. When this parameter is not set, you will hear a beep every time a storage card is installed into the PC Card slot.
 /B - Specifies that OS/2 has started from an ATA card. When this parameter is set, there will be no redundancy in assigning the logical drive to the slot where OS/2 was booted. It depends on the ATA card whether you can start OS/2 from it.
/STBTIME:n - Specifies the time (from 1 to 21 minutes) until entering standby mode. When the ATA card is not accessed for the time specified by this parameter, the ATA card enters standby mode (only when your ATA card supports standby mode). When this parameter is not specified, standby mode for the ATA card is disabled.
/MDRV:n - Specifies the number of extra drives that can be used in addition to the number of PC Card slots available for the PCMCIA storage devices. When this parameter is not specified, no extra drive is given to the device driver. The extra drives can be activated by the PCMCIA ATA Card Mount utility.
/!DM - Specifies not to use OS2DASD.DMD as the device manager. When this parameter is set, OS2PCARD.DMD is used instead.

From https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/ftpdir/thinkpad/old-archive/HTML/tp-1998/msg00867.html

OS2PCARD.DMD : Storage Driver for OS/2
PCMSSDIF.SYS :Storage Driver for OS/2 (Interface)
PCM2SRAM.SYS - Storage Driver for OS/2 (SRAM)
PCM2FLSH.SYS - Storage Driver for OS/2 (FLASH)
FLSH2MTD.SYS :Storage Driver for OS/2 (FLASH MTD)   

As those all have to do with storage or memory, that might solve your problem related to the SD Card, but again you also can keep things as they are - sometimes if it ain't broke you don't fix it.

2Martin - I also included the references above for your Wiki's, if it is useful  M

Quote

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


I ran into this statement related to the Quatech Drivers in the OS2COM.PDF which may explain whats happening:

2.3.4 Quatech PCMCIA Serial Port Adapters

Do not place parameters on the QCOM.SYS command line for these products.
The client device drivers take parameters for PCMCIA serial ports. See the client
driver documentation for details.

So I assume that it is the SSP-100 driver that is providing the info, as the SSP-100 manual indicates it is a "parent/child device". However it also might be that the QCOM driver needs to be placed where PSCOM.SYS is. But as I've said, no need to fix if it is working the way you want it.

The explanation may also be below.

Quote


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.... :)


I still suspect some other serial device is present in your computer ExPLIT that is taking the first COM it can find, unless you override the statement as you did above.

Reading up on PSCOM.SYS ( http://www.edm2.com/index.php/PSCOM.SYS ), I see it is required for serial communications on ACPI systems of which ArcaOS is one, with the following parameters:

/V - Verbose
/W - Wait verbose mode. Displaying pauses with a "Press Enter to continue..." message.
/F - Find COM ports on PCI combo (serial/parallel) cards automatically.

Also to specify address and interrupt manually, it indicates to use the syntax (port,address,IRQ), e.g.:
Set COM3 and COM4 at address 3E8 on IRQ 4 and 2E8 on IRQ 3 which you did.

it does not indicate whether it is a direct replacement for COM.SYS but it has the same switches, so I assume it is.

That could also explain the reason the QCOM drivers do not work - it also makes me wonder whether, if I upgrade the tower with the Quatech ESD-100D card, whether the extra COM ports there will not work - an interesting experiment to try (I have two OS/2 based partitions on each system so nothing lost in way of functionality if that does occur.

2Martin - another little tidbit that may help someone in future.

Perhaps whoever writes and maintains PSCOM.SYS can enlighten us as to its capabilities (and how it interacts with VCOM.SYS or not.

But thank you for the post, ExPLIT as I've learned quite a bit here as well - hope everything you wanted works out for the best and a fine day to you!

Mark

274
Hardware / Re: Using a LaserJet 2100m on a Print Server
« on: January 03, 2022, 04:42:54 pm »
It is on Hobbes. The file is JetAdmin.zip

Got it.

Thanks Doug and a fine day and week to you Sir!

M

275
Hardware / Re: Using a LaserJet 2100m on a Print Server
« on: January 02, 2022, 05:25:13 pm »
Heh Guys!

Mark,

Glad the jetDirect worked for you.  Since you are using  CUPS you don't need the JetAdmin software - but if you do and can't find it let me know and I will upload it.

I have friend that worked for the bureau of land management who says: "there is no such thing as bad weather - just inappropriate clothing"  Growing up in Phoenix we had the opposite problem - 118 F/47.7C  Once you have taken all your clothes off the "inappropriate clothing" motto loses it meaning.

First of all a Happy New year to all - hope 2022 is infinitely better than last year.

Personally I also prefer colder to brutally warm - I've cross country skied for decades and know how to dress for the cold and how to layer to address how warm you are as you warm up - sweat can kill if you get too warm, in excessive cold. As I mentioned to Dariusz above, I also grew up and lived in Winnipeg Manitoba for 30 years - and January cold snaps can be brutal for 2-3 weeks at a time

I've also worked in both the Middle East and in India - my first introduction to Delhi was at 0300 in the morning and the temperature at the time was 38 C with extremely high humidity, and it climbed to nearly 50 a few days - supersaturated humidity hits you like a blanket. The dry heat of the Middle East is a little easier, but you can only take off so much as then the problem is not only the heat, but the blazing sun, as well - people native to the area are not just covered head to toe for religious reasons.

But this cold snap is something I've never experienced here near Edmonton Alberta in my going on 32 years here - minus 20-25 C can be experienced regularly here but minus 45 C going up to only -35 C, and wind chills regularly in the -50's is highly unusual. Coupled with two freezing rain bouts 3 weeks ago and then 45 cm of snow has left ice roads around here.

I live out in a rural area in a hamlet called Collingwood Cove, about 22 km SE of Sherwood Park and about 35 km from the center of Edmonton, so get into Edmonton rarely, as SP has all our supply needs, but went into Edmonton on New Years Eve, and the roads there were worse than out here - huge stretches of glare ice at corners (up to 30 feet) and black ice everywhere, to add to that wondrous feeling, as you lose control and slide. Spent a lot of time lately in 4 wheel drive, even to just get started off as the traffic lights change at the corners.

But we're all getting hit in different ways - fires and floods for Dave, the grass fires that struck one day too early near Denver (25 cm the day after 1000 homes were destroyed - one of my friends was nearly on that list in Boulder County - 15 miles away, as flames were travelling that in an hour) and extreme cold here.

Things have broke here for the moment and expecting minus 5 C as a high today for exactly one day, then back into the -20's for the week.

I would be interested in getting the JetAdmin software, Doug if you could upload a copy - looking all over the Internet I could not find its presence anywhere for download, which seemed strange.

And I do know who the BLM are - dealt a lot with them in Montana and Wyoming, assisting in the EH&S aspects of building the Express Pipeline, and creating their Emergency Response Plan.

Best of the Rest of the Weekend to all, and hopefully a fine start to the week.

Mark

P.S. Just wanted to leave today with a quote from a very fine lady, who is sadly no longer with us:

"Don't try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won't live long enough to find out about, but I'm still curious about them."

- Betty White -
R.I.P. December 31, 2021

Truer words have never been spoken, as the eternal river of time moves ever forward ....... !

276
Hardware / Re: Quatech SSP-100 Serial Port PCMCIA in ArcaOS
« on: December 31, 2021, 02:48:57 am »
Hi ExPLIT


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.


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

277
Hardware / Re: Quatech SSP-100 Serial Port PCMCIA in ArcaOS
« on: December 28, 2021, 05:31:24 pm »
Good Morning ExPLIT!


Hello guys. Need to reopen this topic again. After Update to ArcaOS 5.0.7.7 my PCMCIA Configuration is somehow back to default, and i am not able to activate my SSP-10 again the same way i did it before.


I assume you chose the option to update your previous installation to the most current version of ArcaOS (5.0.7).

Doing that, the installer will install what it "believes" is the most "current" upgrades, based on what was installed previously. It sounds like the installer found the PCMCIA installation you did manually, and which worked, and overwrote those drivers, with the ones in its package, essentially putting you back in the same situation you were in when you previously installed the ones provided by ArcaOS (and which did not work).

I would reinstall what previously worked for you (the v5 drivers from Hobbes) that allowed the card to be recognized as CardBus and then try the parameters I suggested in CONFIG.SYS for QCOM.SYS, in my previous post.

After installing the upgrade to 5.0.7 I too had some problems but with the UniAud upgrade, which meant I had no sound. Reverting to what worked previously (an earlier version of UniAud) solved the problem.

The ArcaOS Upgrade Installer is only doing what it is programmed to do (ie. making sure everything is the most current). Sometimes that doesn't necessarily mean its "better".

Best!

Mark

278
Hardware / Re: Using a LaserJet 2100m on a Print Server
« on: December 28, 2021, 05:09:59 am »
Heh Dariusz!


2) My brother-in-law lives in Winnipeg....I hear a boat-load of temperature horror stories....although today they are under a "Tropical Storm" ( :o) as it's only -16C!!!


I resemble that remark.

Ask him where the North End of Winnipeg is, and you have where I started - 30 years there and 32 here in Alberta as a base, when I wasn't somewhere else in the world.

And the temperature stories are indeed true. I know the corner of Portage and Main, and its reputation as the coldest place on earth some days is not exaggerated - someone once said that Winnipeg and Siberia had the same temperature range (about 80 degrees Celsius at its extremes)

They have many cute terms for things - Alberta Clippers, Montana Lows, Arctic Highs, Heat Domes, Omega Blocks .......... haven't heard that one yet, but I'm sure I will - many friends and colleagues still there.

So I'm used to it, but this is HIGHLY unusual here in Alberta for prolonged periods .......... !

Quote

I feel for ya though as Windsor, ON is home for me, and that's a toasty 4+C today 8)!


So I've been told ........ this weekend - my wife's relatives are in Brampton, Guelph and Paris and I know the Detroit River from my days in the pipelines.

Quote

I can't hack the cold, and my car hobby would "suffer" as well...


My 1984 Firebird TransAm, which I purchased new and am refurbishing unfortunately is in cold storage on my driveway under wraps at the moment. Only a summer bird now but still enjoy driving it.

Quote

Stay warm, and Cheers to you and yours in the meanwhile!


And to you as well Sir!

Lets hope all this craziness we've all been thrown into ends soon, and the next year is the Year of New Beginnings, instead of what I've dubbed the "Year of Change" this year.

M

279
Hardware / Re: Quatech SSP-100 Serial Port PCMCIA in ArcaOS
« on: December 27, 2021, 11:45:23 pm »
Hi There ExPLIT

Hello guys. Need to reopen this topic again. After Update to ArcaOS 5.0.7.7 my PCMCIA Configuration is somehow back to default, and i am not able to activate my SSP-10 again the same way i did it before.

I know PCMCIA and OS/2 / ArcaOS is pain in the ass, but maybe someone can just point me out the main things.

My questions are rather simple:
As i found out earlier, the standard ArcaOS PCMCIA Driver (PCMCIA.SYS) is not the newest.I think its IBM Card Services Version 5.0.
Read somewhere, that the "CardBus Socket Services Version 8.0" ffrom IBM from the Yar 2004 are somehow "broken"
Is that the case, why ArcaOS didnt implement them?



After PCMCIA Installation many drivers are loaded in the config.sys, what thees drivers do, where i can read, what are they for, which parameters theu use etc.

BASEDEV=PCMCIA.SYS /V /R:500

REM (Intel PCMCIA Driver, which recognize my Ricoh Ricoh R5C476(II) just fine
REM BASEDEV=SS2PCIC1.SYS

REM (Intel PCMCIA Driver, which is also compatible with my Ricoh Ricoh R5C476(II)
BASEDEV=SSPCIC.SYS /E /AP:ON /BE:AUTO /VS:AUTO /II:OFF /IN:ON

BASEDEV=AUTODRV1.SYS
DEVICE=D:\OS2\MDOS\VPCMCIA.SYS
DEVICE=D:\OS2\MDOS\PCMSSDIF.SYS
DEVICE=D:\OS2\MDOS\PCM2SRAM.SYS
DEVICE=D:\OS2\MDOS\PCM2FLSH.SYS

BASEDEV=PCM2ATA.ADD /S:2 /!DM / NOBEEP
BASEDEV=OS2PCCARD.DMD



PS: At the moment my Quatech SSP-100 Serial Port PCMCIA Card got the Power, but is recognized as Memory card and not as SSP-100 and i think, the Bridge (or Socket) didnt get the IRQ.
On Windows i got IRQ 20 and 21 for my CardBus Controller (Slots)
IRQ 20 is shared with Realtek LAN Chip.

How i can force the driver to get IRQ 20 and 21?

Thanks

I'm coming into this conversation very late, but will provide some thoughts on this.

First of all, I have installed and used a Quatech ESC-100D card about twelve years ago. It is an internal PCI card which added extra Com Ports in the system (as many as eight) and could be used in addition to the serial ports which may have been installed already - at one point I had COM 1 to 11 available in one computer, all still working now (as to the reason originally  - don't ask).

ArcaOS is based on OS/2 and is really a very old OS - it does not play around with IRQ's very well and does not address the high numbered ones available on newer Windows versions, especially for many of these legacy items (like old communication ports) - it usually expects to see IRQ's in the classical places from the 80's.

Being a troubleshooter by nature and profession, I think this problem needs to be addressed methodically, from the beginning as I think we're going all over the board here.

First of all, about the computer your doing this on .............. whats in it?

1) Are you sure it doesn't have a serial port or ports already present? (up to just a few years ago, there was always built-in serial ports still present)

2) If so, what IRQ's are they using? (usually 3 or 4)

I ask because with the ESC-100D, the QCOM.SYS and QVCOM.SYS drivers are direct replacements for ArcaOS/eComstation/OS2 COM.SYS (Host System) and VCOM.SYS (DOS emulation) - the parameters you were describing, if they are for a serial port implementation seem weird to me - my memory may be foggy, but  I seem to recall IRQ 11 was used by parallel ports, not serial (correct me if I'm wrong guys). That may be giving ArcaOS indigestion.

These are the parameters I used in my config.sys for the Quatech ESC-100D
(And only after I REMMED out COM.SYS and VCOM.SYS)

I will use X to specify the drive - your X may be different than mine:

Device=X:\OS2\BOOT\QCOM.SYS (1,3F8,4) (ESC-100D,5)
Device=X:\OS2\MDOS\QVCOM.SYS

These statements on my system were added directly after the place where COM.SYS and VCOM.SYS statements were in CONFIG.SYS. If you place the substitute Quatech drivers in those same directories and use the CONFIG statements above, they should load fine. I actually have third party drivers in other locations on my systems, so I will not go into the statements I normally use myself.

The first parameter (1,3F8,4) is I suspect the only one you need, as it addresses the legacy COM 1-4 for the Quatech driver QCOM - the second parameter asks the ESC-100D to also address the additional COM ports for that specific Quatech board, which is not applicable here.

I think if PCMCIA identifies your card correctly, then it will load as one of COM 1-4 as the Quatech card.

To my knowledge you do not need to have a parameter to address either VCOM or QVCOM, as the driver is emulating what you placed in COM or QCOM - if you are not planning to use ArcaOS DOS sessions, I suspect that can be REMMED out as well.

However, I think you definitely need to get PCMCIA working, and loaded correctly first - you listed many statements in your CONFIG.SYS above for PCMCIA but, unless you have wide variety of cards (Hard Drives, Extra Memory, etc. etc) your going to use, then essentially you don't need all of them and they can be REMMED out.

PCMCIA has become somewhat of a dinosaur, and your SSP-100 is responding in all those different ways, I suspect, because of those extra loaded drivers wanting to claim that card, when plugged in, thinking it applies to them - as Doug mentioned you probably need to just load base PCMCIA and either a generic or perhaps the specific Quatech driver that addresses just your card.

Its been quite a while since I last configured PCMCIA but if you have no other serial ports on the portable, PCMCIA may need to be loaded before QCOM or QVCOM. Not sure about that, and would have to look it up.

I am going to spend some time having a look at PCMCIA v5 tomorrow, as I have more things to do today - but perhaps some of these suggestions will help get your Quatech serial card both identified and running.

Best to you!

Mark

280
Hardware / Re: Using a LaserJet 2100m on a Print Server
« on: December 27, 2021, 08:32:32 pm »
Heh Doug!

Hope your having a fine Christmas season.

Mark,

Your D-Link not recognizing the printer might be the usb to parallel adapter.

I don't know if your network is all wireless, or partly wired.  If it is wired, or you have an ethernet port close to where you want to put the printer, you could try an HP Jet Direct 300x print server.  I use that to connect an HP 4000 and HP 1320  laserjet to my network.  They are currently selling for $12 on ebay without an adapter and $45 with a power adapter.  (It accepts a 9 - 35 volt DC adapter)

The nice thing about the Jet Direct 300x is that it interfaces with HP Jet Admin - which installs a network port for talking to the print server.  Jet Admin can even show what is being displayed on the printer panel.  OS/2 comes with a printer driver for the HP 2100 driver, or you can use any PCL or PS driver (if the printer recognizes postscript) and then use the Jet Admin/Jet Direct port to talk to the printer.  Jet Admin can talk to HP printers through Jet Direct that it does not recognize - as shown in one of the attachments.

The HP Jet Admin appears to not work so well with the newer HP printers - like my HP452dn.  It can show what the printer panel is showing, but gets messed up in other ways.  I am using SLR to talk to that printer.   But Jet Admin works like a dream with the older printers that have parallel ports.

You don't have to use CUPS unless there is something special about the D-LINK printer server that requires CUPS, or you need to print from an app that will only print to CUPS - like some of the QT based apps.

On the other hand CUPS will print to a printer connected to a Jet Direct print server.  I have my HP 4000 setup to print either from legacy Jet Admin or from CUPS.

Just wanted to tell you that your suggestion worked like a charm.

My used JetDorect 300X arrived from eBay late last week, and I had time to install it before Christmas, hardware wise, but just reset the box to default settings yesterday and then used telnet to give it a fixed IP address on my network, and there it was.

Was able to install through CUPS install on ArcaOS which discovered the printer automatically and configured it for use. So now have three printers working - the LaserJet 2100 on the Jet Direct and the other two on the DLink Print Server.

Obviously it was the USB adapter not recognizing the printer. I may spend a little more time at some point figuring out why,  but I can't argue with success currently .......... !

So added another check mark on my "To Do" list before the end of the year.

Hope your living somewhere warmer, Sir - woke to -42 C here on-site in Alberta today with a -52 wind chill and not expecting much warmer this week. Best of the rest of the Christmas week to you and hope 2022 brings Peace Health Prosperity and Happiness in 2022!

Mark

281
Games / Re: DOS VDM - USB and Game port Gamepad support
« on: December 16, 2021, 04:52:44 pm »
Hi Dave and Lars!

5th byte seems to be buttons, 6th byte the stick. It is a PC joypad.

When Wim and I were fooling around with his USB control driver, using his output program generated the following:

This way oinput.cmd would work for all 4 switch settings and the actual hid input report obtained would vary accordingly.

Code: [Select]

EC18000081030700 | 04000F4956FF6E | EE
EC18000081030700 | 04000F4A94FF6E | EE
EC18000081030700 | 04000F9250FF6E | EE

On each line, between the | characters, you see the actual hid input report data in hexadecimal.

Code: [Select]

04 | 00 | 0F | 49 | 56 | FF | 6E
B  | 00 | H  | X  | Y  | Z  | S

B=button, H=Hat, X=X-axis, Y=Y-axis, Z=Z-axis, S=Slider


Don't know if the hex code output definitions he mentioned above (for B, H, X, Y, Z and S) would be in the same order but thought I would bring it to your attention, in case it might help.

Also Dave, in that technical white paper you linked to on USB Usage Data, Section 4 and specifically Section 4.1 defines standard usages for Joysticks and Gamepads, while section 8 and most specifically Table 8.1 gives standardized usage data related to PC Game controllers.  According to Section 3.5.3 of the paper:

Typical system software will search for application collections tagged with either a Joystick or a Game Pad Usage. When found, the Usages generated by these collections will be treated as standard system joystick (gaming device) input. Devices that use these declarations will have their output routed to separate destinations, allowing multiple-player applications.

The rest of section 3 may be interesting to you and Lars as well.

Don't know if any of that helps understanding the programming, as its all "hex" to me, but if there's one thing I can do is read technical - been doing that for over 40 years and Best, Gentlemen!

Mark

282
Games / Re: DOS VDM - USB and Game port Gamepad support
« on: December 13, 2021, 03:45:48 pm »
Hi Dave!

Yes, the possibilities are many if the interface ever works correctly. https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/hut1_21_0.pdf, a 319 page PDF gives some idea of the devices that can be controlled. I see there's even a Python interface to hidapi. Keyboard, touchpads and such are the obvious and what Arca Noae might be interested in.
Right now the hidapitester doesn't seem to be returning the usage field, or rather returning 0x0.

Downloaded that technical paper you linked and had a quick skim and it is indeed a treasure trove - looks like a great detailed standardized reference guide to addressing a myriad of HID USB devices and usage functions, programming wise, as well as addressing how "Unknown devices" are treated.

I'm going to have a more detailed look at it this afternoon, to see if anything interesting jumps out and report back. I see that Jochen also posted an updated HIDAPI tester, so will see if I can use it with a number of my devices.

M

283
Games / Re: DOS VDM - USB and Game port Gamepad support
« on: December 12, 2021, 11:11:11 pm »
Heh Dave!

So I found https://github.com/todbot/hidapitester
Compiled it and using this command line,
Code: [Select]
hidapitester.exe --vidpid 046D/C216 -l 64 --open --read-input-forevermy joy-pad seems to work. Lots of other stuff can be done apparently, even adjusting the LED's on those expensive keyboards.
I'll simply attach the whole source including usb100.dll. The makefile needs adjusting if you are rebuilding. Simplest was to use an intree build of hidapi.

The added adjustments may be even more valuable to us than the game functionality.. I have Both a Corsair K70 and K95 keyboard that has the ability to adjust the backlighting so at night the keyboard is quite spectacular and you can easily type in pitch black - the colours are also slow enough that the special effects aren't annoying, like a couple of keyboards I've had with that functionality.

However, if we can script or key code that would be very useful - my K95 has 6 extra gaming keys (G1-G6), and I understand from Ivan that a previous incarnation of the K95 actually had 18 Function keys on the left side. He's been trying to find a way to use those keys for other purposes outside the gaming realm, but has not been able to succeed. I noted in one of your other posts that the keyscans locked the board, butr perhaps with the advances being made that can be overcome.

I will download the test program and try it but not today - Grey Cup afternoon today, and I used to be from Winnipeg, so Go Bombers Go!

M

284
Games / Re: DOS VDM - USB and Game port Gamepad support
« on: December 10, 2021, 04:24:53 pm »
Hi Jochen

By now, I have finished work on libusb (hopefully). I'll ask BWW to create an updated RPM. You might want to try the updated version and see if that helps. Proper support of "libusb_get_port_numbers" is still a problem (what error message did you get when trying out hidapi ?)
Where do I get your version from to build it myself?

Dave's build of HIDAPI was attached to one of his earlier posts. I downloaded it there and tried it previously. Don't know where he derived the source code from.

Also don't know if Dave has an update to that.

Best!

Mark


285
Games / Re: DOS VDM - USB and Game port Gamepad support
« on: December 08, 2021, 07:45:08 pm »

No, it's part of SDL2, so I have to try understand the code and tinker around with it, first. Perhaps, the new libusb helps. We will see.

Understood.

Will watch with interest where things go from here with interest and Best!

M

Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19] 20 21 ... 29