serial activity stops

Originally posted by Lance Edmonds:
Another issue that comes to mind is the conflict between COM4 and certain S3 graphics cards... Most Win3.x users get away with this conflict but strike a problem when using Win9x.

f.y.i
Finally resolved the problem. The cheap 56k modems you can buy today are termed as software modems. I installed a traditional hardware modem and the problem went away.

thanks !
mike



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[Lance Edmonds]

Another issue that comes to mind is the conflict between COM4 and certain S3 graphics cards... Most Win3.x users get away with this conflict but strike a problem when using Win9x.

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Eric Pearson]

> I believe the i/o error i'm getting is device "not available"

If I remember correctly, you wouldn't normally get that error unless you were opening a com port. If the port was already open when PC-Anywhere called in...? I guess I'm not clear about exactly what you're doing.

Are you aware of the way that PC-Anywhere completely "takes over" a com port? It basically makes it invisible to the rest of the system. (At least that's the way the DOS versions always worked.) As I remember it, even doing MODE from a DOS prompt showed that the com port did not exist. If you set up PC-Anywhere to use COM1: and try to OPEN COM1: with PowerBASIC, I would definitely expect "device unavailable".

To be clear, you are using PC-Anywhere and the weather device on two different serial ports, right? Is it possible that PC-Anywhere is incorrectly configured to use more than one port?

It could be something with your DOS version, too. For example, if PC-Anywhere took over COM1: then some versions of DOS would "alias" COM2: and make it look like COM1:. (Some versions of DOS did not allow you to have a COM2: if you did not have a COM1: and it automatically re-assigned them.) So maybe DOS is getting confused? This is purely a guess, but you might try configuring PC-Anywhere to use COM2: and the weather box on COM1: to avoid that (possible) problem.

Or maybe... By any chance are you using COM1 and COM3, or COM2 and COM4? Those pairs often share an interrupt, so if PC-Anywhere took over one of them in might disable the other one...?

-- Eric

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Perfect Sync: Perfect Sync Development Tools
Email: mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>



[This message has been edited by Eric Pearson (edited February 26, 2000).]

Thank you eric,

I believe the i/o error i'm getting is device "not available" I dont have the code here but maybe i'll send a snippit of it for examination later this week. I tried it with the qb45 with the same results. I also tried running the program after a connection was made but was unsuccessful.
The serial device ouputs a string of data sequencially (excuse my spelling)and transmits every 2 sec or so. I simply use a closed loop "input #1, s$,d$,f!..... to retrieve the data.

thanks again!
mike

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[Eric Pearson]

I don't know if this helps or not, but I've used several different versions of PC-Anywhere with PB 3.5 communications programs with no problems at all. But it typically involved connecting with PC-Anywhere and then telling the PB program to begin using the other serial port. I don't remember ever connecting with PC-Anywhere while a serial port was already open.

By "I/O Error" do you mean ERR 57? I used to get those whenever my communications programs did a screen-BLOAD while data was coming in faster than about 2400 baud. It was caused by the operating system "concentrating" on the BLOAD for a fraction of a second too long and not servicing the comm port often enough. One or two bytes of incoming data would be corrupted, and ERR 57 was reported, but the program was fine after that. I just ignored the bad record. I do know that PC-Anywhere "freezes" the currently-running program briefly while it establishes a connection. Maybe your PB program could continue running if you simply ignored the error?

-- Eric

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Perfect Sync: Perfect Sync Development Tools
Email: mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>



[This message has been edited by Eric Pearson (edited February 26, 2000).]

I wrote a software routine (pb35) to extract weather info from a weather station. This is done serially and works quite well under both dos and windows dos window. I decided to use symantecs pc-anywhere to remotly access the running program and as soon a connection is made, i'll get a runtime error stating i.o error. Be assured i have no interrupt problems with the serial ports in the computer. Symantec was not of much help with this problem. Has anyone ran into this problem? Any input would be appreciated.