Title: DFlex ISA Multiport Serial I/O Windows95 Installation
Keywords: DFlex Win95 Windows95
Date: March 26, 1997
KDB: KDB-125
Revision: 0.01
Author: Support
Distribution: External
The DFlex (2, 4 and 8) Multiport Serial I/O cards are fully compatible with the Microsoft Windows95 serial driver. The Windows95 driver supports up to 128 COM (serial) ports, and supports the buffering of the 16550 UART. You can add as many serial boards as you have ISA slots and available hardware resources for. The Connect Tech DFlex Multiport Serial card is capable of IRQ Sharing, this meaning that all the UARTS on the DFlex card share the same Interrupt (IRQ).
The DFlex is not a Plug and Play card meaning that Windows95 will not automatically detect the DFlex, therefor you will need to manually enter in the hardware resources required by the DFlex into Windows95.
DFLEX WINDOWS95 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE
This procedure will consider the installation of a DFlex-4 Multiport serial card.
1. Choose a range of I/O addresses for your DFlex. You will need to choose a range of addresses which won’t conflict with any other addresses. A good range to choose from is the default settings, 280h, 288h, 290h and 298h. For this example the dip switch on the DFlex should set like OFF:OFF:ON:OFF:ON:OFF:OFF:ON , this will set I/O addresses to ( 280, 288, 290, 298 ), the status port to OFF and all interrupts on the DFlex A Channel.
2. You will also need to choose a hardware interrupt for the DFlex. Good choices of IRQ’s are 5, 10, 11, 12 and 15. We will choose IRQ 5 for this example, be sure DIP Switch 8 is set to ON to route all DFlex interrupts to the A channel.
3. You can now install the DFlex in your Computer and boot up Windows-95. Once Windows-95 is started up, go to the “My Computer” icon and double click.
4. Now click on “Control Panel”, then click on “Add New Hardware”. The “Add New Hardware Wizard” will appear, click “Next”. It will prompt you for Autodetection, select No and click “Next”. A list of hardware devices will be shown, select Ports(COM & LPT), and click next. Now select Communications Port, and click “Next”.
5. A Window will now appear with the headings “Resource type and Setting”. The settings shown will probably be wrong, don’t worry we will correct them later, so click “Next”. Another window will appear, click on “Finish”.
6. You will now be presented with a “Systems Settings Change” window, prompting you to Restart the Computer. The settings chosen by Windows are incorrect so click “No” (don’t restart the computer).
If you have more DFlex serial ports to add you need to repeat steps 4 – 6 until you have created enough additional new serial ports.
7. We now need to go to the Control_Panel->System Icon and then click on the “Device Manager” tab. A listing of installed devices will be displayed, click on “Ports (COM & LPT)” icon, it will expand showing all the installed COM ports. Choose the NEW COM PORT, the one(s) we just created and click on properties. (Doubling clicking the COM port will also bring up properties). In this area we can enter the correct I/O and Interrupt settings for the DFlex card.
8. You should now have a “Communications Port (COMX) Properties” window displayed. Click on the “Resources” tab, you should see the current settings for this port, these are the settings we want to change. There are three steps to follow:
a. First select “Basic Configuration 8”, in the “Settings Based On” area.
b. We now need to change the Input/Output Range area, So double click there, a new window will be presented, this is where we enter the DFlex UART I/O port address and click “OK”. Example 200-207.
c. We now need to change the Interrupt Request area, so double click there, a new window will be presented, you can now enter the Interrupt of you DFlex card, then click “OK”. Example 5. You should now be back at the Communications Port (COMX) Properties window, so click “OK”.
d. NOTE: If you repeat steps 8a through 8c on a port where you previously changed the settings, the OLD settings will be inserted and NOT the new (correct) settings. You must reboot the computer before the settings are permanently saved.
9. You will now be presented with a Systems Settings Change window. If you have more DFlex ports to install click No, then repeat steps 7 through 9, until you have setup all your DFlex serial ports, then click Yes to reboot.
After the reboot and assuming you have no conflicts or incorrect settings all your DFlex Serial ports should now be installed and be functional.
TECHNICAL TIPS, KNOWN PROBLEMS and SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS
TECHNICAL TIPS
- You can use the DOS portfind.exe and porttest.exe utilities under a Windows-95 DOS prompt. With these utilities you can verify that the DFlex is installed with the resources you think it is, and that the DFlex indeed functions. It is recommended that you NOT have Windows running while using these DOS programs, please use the shutdown command and reboot to MSDOS mode.
- A test program is available on the Connect Tech Inc FTP site, it is a Windows95 and WindowsNT compatible test program. For more information please download the program ctitest.zip. This program requires a loopback connector.
- Interrupts 4 and 3 are usually used by your standard motherboard serial ports. Interrupt 7 is usually LPT1. If you can disable those devices in your CMOS setup, you can free up those IRQ’s for use with the DFlex.
PROBLEMS
1. When installing the additional serial ports, WIN95 will sometimes skip the label COM4.
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS
1)a) Windows95 and Win3.1 applications can only access up COM9, these applications include:
- The Windows95 Modem setup wizard.
- Printer setup wizard
- Visual Basic.
HyperTerminal will only access up to COM4.
1)b) A work around for developers is available under Microsoft C++. Com ports can be opened with the names “com1, com2…” and so on for COM ports up to COM9, an alternate method is to label the COM Ports as “\\.\com1, \\.\com2… \\.\com255”. All COM ports in Win95 and WindowsNT can be accessed using this alternate method. See your Microsoft C++ documentation for more information.
1)c) For more hints on programming under Windows95 see the tty.c C code example available with the Microsoft C++ development kit.
For more information please contact the CTI Technical Support Department: [email protected]
End of KDB-125