I've been able to help my net members run BINK 2.60 under WIN-98/ME for a number of years now running COM-IP and WINFOSSIL with no problems.

Recently a WIN-XP box was left in a basket on my porchstep (In humor here!) with the goal to establish BINK/MAX/SQUISH on it as well. OK, I've finaly got it completely updated for critical error fixes and so on.

I've also gotten the COM/IP version 2.4.1 which I have licensed installed on this WIN-XP box. I've also gotten my licensed version of ZOC for Windows installed on it and running. Connected to my I/P via dial-up I have no trouble
connecting via TELNET to I/P instances of BINK at all.

But I can't get BINK to either see COM/IP's fossil, nor WINFOSSIL at all,either
in 'connected' fashion to my I/P with the dialer, nor in any direct COMM port mode for the intended POTS version of BINK that works fine with all this in WIN-ME and so on.

Yes, I know about the issue of COM/IP's internal fossil that doesn't work under
WIN-95/8/ME. That's why I've always installed WINFOSSIL to work around that. Typically, the COM/IP settings that enable this are to enable the service on COM4, for example, then to enable WINFOSSIL as task 0003 for COM4 also. Away we go.

But the WINFOSSIL version which will install on WIN-95/8/ME just fine, that initializes on boot-up, obviously is using the \windows\system directory. That won't work, as far as I can determine in WIN-XP. WIN-XP wants such things associated with \windows\system32. OK, for that task, there is a different version of WINFOSSIL which is allegedly for WIN-NT, It does 'install' into the
WIN-XP enviornment.

It also is to be run via either an AUTOEXEC.NT shim, or via a modification in the CONFIG.NT file - which globally will cast it into operation when a .CMD file session is started. Maybe so. But no combination of task or COMM port assignment I can enable will let BT32 see whatever it has fossilized as a comport.

Nor .. will BT32, even see an enabled COM/IP fossil that allegedly is supposed to work fine with WIN-NT.

Does anyone have any help for me to get BT32 going under XP this way?

Thanks!

Sleep well; OS/2's still awake! ;)

Mike @ 1:117/3001

--- Maximus/2 3.01
* Origin: Ziplog Public Port (1:117/3001)

Hi Mike,

Recently a WIN-XP box was left in a basket on my
porchstep (In humor here!) with the goal to establish
BINK/MAX/SQUISH on it as well. OK, I've finaly got it
completely updated for critical error fixes and so on.

Sorry, I have never seen XP (and I will avoid it at all costs), so I cant offer
any specific suggestions, however something that has been pointed out to me recently may apply. It seems Laptop manufactureres are being PUSHED by M$ into an environment where there is no native SERIAL port on their machines. If a user wants one of those, they have to install a PCMCIA card serial port. The apparent reason for this is that USB is now seen by M$ for all serial type connections (and forget all existing serial port H/W out there today!). As such
M$ have deliberatly altered the way XP "views" the serial H/W.

This may help explain the reason for the apparent difficulty you are experiencing, standard serial ports are no longer serviced by default with XP, you HAVE to do something extra to get them recognised. What that may be I have no idea, however I have seen much comment that this is a serious issue for support users with Laptops that absolutely MUST have a fully functional Serial port to work with existing S/W and H/W, the M$ solution with XP is NOT cutting it in many situations. EG: Just try sending a BREAK signal using a PCMCIA card serial port, 90% of the ones available can't do that, and BREAK is one key that
is ESSENTIAL on Cisco Network H/W as a last choice option to recover a failed box.

This is not much help, but it may give you some ideas on the options available.

Good luck..........pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01
* Origin: Another Good Point About OS/2 (3:772/1.10)

Mike Luther (1:117/3001) wrote to All at 14:45 on 01 May 2004:

@MSGID: 1:117/3001.0 4093fe4e
I've been able to help my net members run BINK 2.60 under WIN-98/ME
for a number of years now running COM-IP and WINFOSSIL with no
problems.

Recently a WIN-XP box was left in a basket on my porchstep (In
humor here!) with the goal to establish BINK/MAX/SQUISH on it as
well. OK, I've finaly got it completely updated for critical error
fixes and so on.

I've also gotten the COM/IP version 2.4.1 which I have licensed
installed on this WIN-XP box. I've also gotten my licensed version
of ZOC for Windows installed on it and running. Connected to my
I/P via dial-up I have no trouble connecting via TELNET to I/P
instances of BINK at all.

But I can't get BINK to either see COM/IP's fossil, nor WINFOSSIL
at all,either in 'connected' fashion to my I/P with the dialer, nor
in any direct COMM port mode for the intended POTS version of BINK
that works fine with all this in WIN-ME and so on.

Yes, I know about the issue of COM/IP's internal fossil that
doesn't work under WIN-95/8/ME. That's why I've always installed WINFOSSIL to work around that. Typically, the COM/IP settings that
enable this are to enable the service on COM4, for example, then to
enable WINFOSSIL as task 0003 for COM4 also. Away we go.

But the WINFOSSIL version which will install on WIN-95/8/ME just
fine, that initializes on boot-up, obviously is using the
\windows\system directory. That won't work, as far as I can
determine in WIN-XP. WIN-XP wants such things associated with \windows\system32. OK, for that task, there is a different version
of WINFOSSIL which is allegedly for WIN-NT, It does 'install' into
the WIN-XP environment.

My immediate guess is that WinFossil is not XP compatible. However, there is a
FAQ at the following URL address which may help with determining that:

http://www.tactical-sw.com/public/Technotes/TN-dos-applications.html

I also understand that NetFOSS 0.8 which is apparently available from JUGE.COM will work with XP.

Incidentally, I recall that the NT version of WinFossil did not work well with my Windows 2000. The way I fixed that was to subscribe to ADSL.:-)

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn@yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Yukon Mail (northof60.tzo.com), Whitehorse,Canada (1:17/67)

Hello Peter!

02 May 04 10:07, Peter Knapper wrote to Mike Luther:

It seems Laptop manufactureres are being PUSHED by M$ into an
environment where there is no native SERIAL port on their
machines. If a user wants one of those, they have to install a
PCMCIA card serial port. The apparent reason for this is that USB
is now seen by M$ for all serial type connections (and forget all
existing serial port H/W out there today!).

The push (and design) of USB has come from an industry consortium of hardware vendors...not some M$ conspiracy. 9 and 25-pin serial ports, parallel printer ports, AT- and PS/2-style keyboard ports and mouse ports are all royalty bearing, patented designs of IBM and each vendor must have some arrangement with IBM in order to provide them. Besides writing checks to IBM, notebooks have extra issues with the internal and external real estate required to support them and the related thermal and power/battery-life impacts. If anything, waiting for MS to provide proper functional OS support for USB devices has done more to slow the adoption rate than accelerate it. The hardware has been around since the Win95/NT4 generation of MS OS.

Any perception of recent urgency on MS's part might not be unrelated to the fact that they now have a certain small form-factor hardware platform of their own to peddle, too.<g>

.\\ike

--- GoldED 2.50+
* Origin: -=( The TechnoDrome )=- Austin,TX 512-327-8598 33.6k (1:382/61)

Hi Mike,

It seems Laptop manufactureres are being PUSHED by M$ into an
environment where there is no native SERIAL port on their
machines. If a user wants one of those, they have to install a
PCMCIA card serial port. The apparent reason for this is that USB
is now seen by M$ for all serial type connections (and forget all
existing serial port H/W out there today!).

The push (and design) of USB has come from an industry consortium of hardware vendors...not some M$ conspiracy. 9 and 25-pin serial ports, parallel printer ports, AT- and PS/2-style keyboard
ports and mouse ports are all royalty bearing, patented
designs of IBM and each vendor must have some
arrangement with IBM in order to provide them.

The DB-9 and DB-25 Serial connectors, and the Centronics Parallel printer connector have nothing to do with IBM, the are hardware standards that existed long before IBM used them on the PC. The AT & PS/2 connectors however are all IBM.

If anything, waiting for MS to provide
proper functional OS support for USB devices has done
more to slow the adoption rate than accelerate it. The
hardware has been around since the Win95/NT4 generation
of MS OS.

Bill is just making sure he makes enough profit from it.

My main issue is the huge no. of existing environments that still need FULLY FUNCTIONAL Serial support, not just with the connector, but with the capability
that the interface provides. The problem comes from component integration, rather than physical design issues, in their hurry to bring out "comparabile" devices, they leave out certain critical elements of the overall interface.

I have been involved in discussions regarding exactly WHAT Laptop H/W is able to provide the functionality required to various support groups, and the picture being built is not pretty, mainly because the control signals need to be emulated where the H/W does not exist to drive them natively. So far the generation of a CORRECT (and some times varible length) BREAK signal seems to be the main show stopper, to many it has been forgotten...

Cheers.........pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01
* Origin: Another Good Point About OS/2 (3:772/1.10)

Replying to a message from Mike Luther 1:117/3001 to All,

About Bink under WIN-XP, On Sat May 01 2004

I've been able to help my net members run BINK 2.60 under WIN-98/ME

Recently a WIN-XP box was left in a basket on my porchstep (In humor
here!) with the goal to establish BINK/MAX/SQUISH on it as well.
OK, I've finaly got it completely updated for critical error fixes
and so on.

Nor .. will BT32, even see an enabled COM/IP fossil that allegedly
is supposed to work fine with WIN-NT.

Does anyone have any help for me to get BT32 going under XP this
way?

The immediate thought I had was I wonder if the Bink-XE versions might work. Just a thought that is off the wall.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted.

We are a fine board trying to make it better.
http://www.pris.bc.ca/ghannah
ghannah@pris.bc.ca
Cheers! Gord
-=Team OS/2=-
--- timEd/2 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Marsh BBS (c), Dawson Creek, BC Canada (1:17/23.1)

Hello Peter!

03 May 04 09:54, Peter Knapper wrote to Mike Tripp:

The DB-9 and DB-25 Serial connectors, and the Centronics Parallel
printer connector have nothing to do with IBM, the are hardware
standards that existed long before IBM used them on the PC. The AT &
PS/2 connectors however are all IBM.

[...]

My main issue is the huge no. of existing environments that still
need FULLY FUNCTIONAL Serial support, not just with the connector,
but with the capability that the interface provides. The problem
comes from component integration, rather than physical design
issues, in their hurry to bring out "comparabile" devices, they
leave out certain critical elements of the overall interface.

Obviously you understand that there is more to an interface than the selection of the physical connector...so it shouldn't be a surprise that the royalties paid by PC vendors to IBM are for providing their interfaces and not the presence of the standard connectors which might represent other interfaces.

I have been involved in discussions regarding exactly WHAT Laptop
H/W is able to provide the functionality required to various
support groups, and the picture being built is not pretty, mainly
because the control signals need to be emulated where the H/W does
not exist to drive them natively. So far the generation of a
CORRECT (and some times varible length) BREAK signal seems to be
the main show stopper, to many it has been forgotten...

Obviously you understand that you have a specific hardware issue with a specific hardware implementation. This is not a general indication of the state of the PC industry in the general, the notebook segment in particular, nor evidence of some Microsoft conspiracy to somehow maximize their profits by forcing you to buy USB hardware. I'm quite confident that their USB implementation is even more likely to be more broken.<g>

Fortunately, Mike is interested in a virtual serial port implementation and not
a physical one...so he should be safe until the shareware programmers start licensing the rights to faithfully emulate a "bad hardware emulation on USB notebooks running Windows XP" mode.<gdr>

.\\ike

--- GoldED 2.50+
* Origin: -=( The TechnoDrome )=- Austin,TX 512-327-8598 33.6k (1:382/61)

Hello Mike.

Replying to a msg dated 01 May 04 14:45, from you to all.

Okay... me ythinks the problem is this...

U R trying to run a 32bit mailer/bbs right??

And U R using the fossil to do??? run doors?? or ??

I use com-ip here... and use the fossil to run frontdoor .. as a point... my 32bit mailer does not need a fossil.

U can't do any 32bit 16bit mixing.

Joe

---
* Origin: Joe's Computer, Crystal River, Fl USA telnet.joesbbs.c (1:275/312.1)

Hello, Mike...

I'm not using COM/IP (I use BinkD for IP), but I use BT/XE with NTCOMM and it works fine.

Regards,

Jerry Schwartz

mailto:jerryschwartz@comfortable.com
http://www.writebynight.com

--- Msged/NT 6.0.1
* Origin: Write by Night (1:142/928)

You said:

I've been able to help my net members run BINK 2.60 under WIN-98/ME
for a number of years now running COM-IP and WINFOSSIL with no
problems.

[...]

Does anyone have any help for me to get BT32 going under XP this
way?

Ok, so I'm late to the game. :)

I did a marginally similar thing here with Win98, except I was using an old release of NetModem instead of COM/IP. I just loaded an instance of the venerable BNU 1.70 as the fossil right in the dos window with the mailer, and it worked great with FD 2.26 and BinkXE XH7.

Depending on how 'dos' the command prompt in XP is and whether XP will allow such low-level control over a 'serial port' or not, it may work.


-dw

---
* Origin: Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma - Nashville, TN - (1:116/116)