COMM-DRV/DOS allows the sharing of individual IRQs on the PC. Several serial ports can be
connected to the same IRQ. IRQ00 through IRQ15 are supported. Any port address can be
assigned to any COM device. Any COM device can be renamed. Each port supports adjustable
communication buffers of up to 128k bytes. DTR/RTS/DSR/CTS hardware protocol is
supported on both reception and transmission as well as
XON/XOFF software protocol.
COMM-DRV/DOS operate at speeds in excess of 460.2K baud on cards that allow it.
It supports most non-intelligent multiport serial
cards that have the 8250, 16450, 16550, 16650, or compatible serial chip
as well as many intelligent multiport cards. It supports both
ISA and PCI cards.
COMM-DRV/DOS may be used with any MSDOS multitasker. It can be integrated with our
COMM-DRV/VxD product to work with Windows 3.x, Windows 95, and Windows 98. It can be
integrated with our COMM-DRV/NT product to work with Windows NT and
Windows 2000.
What Exactly is COMM-DRV/DOS?
COMM-DRV/Dos is a group of serial communication utilities that work together to
provide a complete MSDOS solution to serial
communications. It includes:
- A high performance TSR (commtsr.exe) that allows any application that can
issue INT14 calls and DAM calls the ability to perform
serial communication. All the utilities shipped with
COMM-DRV/DOS use this TSR.
- A device driver (commdrv.drv) that allows any application or program the
ability to write to the serial port if it can open, read, &
write to a standard file. This include programs like Magic.
- A file transfer utility (cdrvxf.exe) that supports the
ZModem, XModem, and YModem protocols.
- A simple BBS type utility (xfer.exe) for sending and
receiving files between computers.
- A keyboard utility (cdrvkeyb.exe) that stuffs data inputted
from the serial port to the keyboard buffer.
- A simple multi-terminal utility (cdrvmtrm.exe) that allows viewing/sending
simple ASCII data over several serial ports concurrently.
- A serial port monitor/ANSI terminal program (commdrv.exe) that can be used
to display serial port statistics as well as view data
received.
COMM-DRV/DOS enables very high speed serial and reliable serial
communications for real mode or protected mode MSDOS
program under Windows. You are now able to leverage your
existing DOS code under Windows 95/98/NT/2000.
In addition to running under old reliable legacy MSDOS,
COMM-DRV/DOS will work under Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows NT, and Windows 2000 with all non-intelligent multiport cards based on the
8250/16450/16550/16650/16750/16850 family of
UARTs. This is accomplished by providing direct hooks to our COMM-DRV/VxD product for Windows 95/98 and our
COMM-DRV/NT product for Windows NT/2000. The COMM-DRV/Dos TSR can be loaded in DOS boxes (MSDOS command
prompt) and receive its serial services from either the VxD provided by COMM-DRV/VxD (Windows 95/Windows 98)
or kernel driver provided by COMM-DRV/NT (Windows NT/2000).
Old DOS applications built to COMM-DRV/Dos' DAM, FOSSIL, BIOS/INT14, or INT21 interface can
gain new life under Windows
3.x, 95, 98, NT, and 2000 when integrated with our COMM-DRV/VxD
and COMM-DRV/NT products.
COMM-DRV/Dos remains targeted to the MSDOS market, the Extended DOS market for 16/32 bit extended DOS applications
(e.g., Watcom's DOS4GW, PharLap), as well as the Embedded DOS market (e.g., ROMDOS). It is the only set of
communication utilities with said scope on the market today.
COMM-DRV/Dos New features and enhancements include:
Support for PCI cards. UARTs addresses and IRQs are
automatically detected.
Supports 16650 UARTs. COMM-DRV/DOS auto-detects the UART. If it finds a UART with a working FIFO it enables. If it
finds a 16650 it enables both the FIFO and built-in flow
control if requested.
Interrupt handler processes FIFO errors eliminating lockups
due to streaming data while port is being initialized.
Monitor utility display format changes that includes hex
display and state of CTS, DSR, RI, CD.
TSR now display the addresses & IRQs of the loaded ports. This allows the user to see the
addresses used by PCI cards.
File transfer utility displays dialog box with file
transfer statistics restoring screen when done.
The mini-BBS utility robustness is vastly improved.
Extended DOS examples (e.g., Watcom's DOS4GW,etc).
A True MS-DOS Device Driver
COMM-DRV/DOS is comprised of several independent and interdependent components. These components may be used
separately or combined, depending on the application. The major components comprising this product are as follows.
A true MS-DOS device driver that allows addressing the
serial port as a standard file.
This driver allows the
user to send and receive data from the serial port exactly as
if he/she were reading and writing from a standard
disk file. This interface is compatible with any database package that can read and write a standard DOS file.
Moreover, this interface is compatible with both MS-DOS and Windows. One could even transfer a file between two
computers as simply as typing "copy file.txt COM1" on the sending computer and typing "copy COM1 file.txt" on the
receiving computer without getting the dreaded " Abort, Fail, Retry" message.
A dynamically configured communication TSR.
This one TSR gives the application programmer
several APIs that may be used concurrently to perform serial I/O. This TSR contains
the FOSSIL interface, the standard INT14H (BIOS)
interface with extensions, and the Direct Address Mapping (DAM)
Interface, a version of dynamic linking under MS-DOS.
In addition, it supports the INT21H (MS-DOS) interface with
large set of IOCTL calls. In general, one or more of these
interfaces are used by off-the-shelf applications to allow them to use non-standard multiport and other serial
communications cards.
COMM-DRV/DOS
Includes
- A serial communication monitor that aids in troubleshooting serial communication problems
- A TSR that redirects the incoming serial data to the keyboard buffer, allowing applications
to get keyboard data from the serial port transparently
- A custom file transfer utility that allows a computer to transfer files to and from a remote
computer without remote user intervention
- A spawnable xmodem/ymodem/zmodem file transfer program
- A standalone dumb terminal emulator that can display communication on several ports concurrently
- A user-friendly installation program that builds the necessary configuration files for the user's
choice of multiport cards. The install program also has
extensive context sensitive help
COMM-DRV/DOS Supported
Hardware
- COM1-COM2
- Arnet(Smartport, Smartport Plus, Ports Plus)
- Digiboard(COM/Xi, PC/Xi, PC/Xe)
- Boca Research(BB1610, BB8002)
- GTEK(PCSS-8FA, PCSS-8FX),
- All non-intelligent multiport cards
- Any card with an INT14H driver
- New cards are added frequently
Technical Specifications
- Supports baud rates up to 460 KBaud. This baud rate is sustainable on several ports concurrently with the
8250/16450/16550/16650 family of UARTs.
- Support standard and non-standard baud rates to 460 KBaud.
- Supports transparent XON/XOFF & hardware (RTS/CTS, DTR/DSR)
flow control.
- Supports virtually any number of serial ports running at
the same time.
- Supports COM1-COM4 and virtually any manufacturer's
8250/16450/16550/16650 based multiport cards. Different vendor's
multiport cards can be in the same machine and running at the
same time.
- Transmit & receive buffers are adjustable up to 128K per
port.
- Autodetects 16550 and 16650 and uses it in high speed mode.
- Support for PCI cards/Plug & Play.
- Allows sharing IRQs on supporting hardware.
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