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Author Topic: PC USB-to-Serial adapters Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-10-2003 06:05 PM                        I will try that, but I have no hope that it will work - DRAS10 is a DOS application and I know from other unhappy experiments (SDDS setup) that XP does not allow any programs to directly access the hardware. And that is exactly what DRAS10 wants to do. I will also try it with a parallel installation of 98.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-10-2003 06:24 PM                     I always ran DRAS from within Virtual PC but I think the concept will transfer. I found that I got much better results from DRAS if I made a DOS virtual machine and ran DRAS10 rather than installing Windoze and running WinDRAS. Thus, I speculate whether DRAS would work better if you made a DOS partition on your computer and stuck with that. My only question would be whether the driver(s) for the dongle can be made to work through DOS. Again, when running DOS & DRAS through an emulator I don't have to worry about it. The emulator also makes the dongle emulate the serial port(s) that DRAS wants to see.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-11-2003 01:45 AM                        I also ran SDDS setup on a Powerbook with Virtual PC (Windows 98) and an adapter and it worked very well. I forgot to try if WinDRAS or DRAS10 will work under XP in one of the compatibility modes. I can't spend all my time playing with USB adapters though. Does anyone know if the compatibility modes allow applications direct hardware access (at least in theory...)?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 06-11-2003 02:08 AM                        NO! Direct hardware access just isn't allowed under NT, no matter what. DRAS10 doesn't need to directly access the hardware when using the USB adapter, the adapter's driver answers calls made to the regular COM port and routes them through the USB device. DRAS10 won't normally work under Windows 2000 either, but it will when using a USB device (that also works properly).  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-11-2003 02:38 AM                        Well, I just tried it - DRAS10, but it didn`t work ("cannot establish communications with serial port"). I don`t quite understand what you wrote: The adapter`s driver will answer calls to the COM port, so the driver has to hook into the communication between the program and the OS which would normally route the calls to the COM port? In that case, maybe the communication between the adapter and the DA20 might still not work, but shouldn`t the program think it communicates at least with the serial port? In other words, doesn`t the error message I got contradict this? Or maybe the answer is already in your post: if the device works properly...  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 06-11-2003 03:31 AM                        I think you understood what I wrote. Good thing, cause I think I'm halfway to confusing myself. Normally when an application (app) asks for access to a COM port (instead of the COM driver which app's are now supposed to do) the OS says, no Actually, it just completely ignores the request, basically telling the app that the hardware doesn't exist. The driver for the USB to Serial adapter I have seems to act as the actual COM hardware that old app is asking for. So the app gets a response and it's happy. I don't even have any special settings, in fact I never changed the defaults on anything. In the Device Manager: COM1,9600,8,N,1,N or COM Port 1, 9600 bits per second, 8 data bits, parity none, 1 stop bit, flow control none. Recieve and Transmit buffers are also set to high (14 and 16). I'm also using the defaults in both Load500 and DRAS10. If you're using the same, I'd say that the adapter or driver you have just doesn't work. Did you try it out with Win98?  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-11-2003 03:11 PM                        No, not yet, but I just got a response from Belkin support, which confirms your analysis: "in some cases, the software is unable to communicate with the virtual COM port." The software here means the program I want to run. Of course, I have a simplistic view of the processes involved, but I can not understand why some programs would find it more difficult to communicate with the emulated serial port than others. What is so complex about this exchange that some programs refuse to talk to the virtual COM port?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 06-11-2003 03:36 PM                        That's just a lame excuse for a product that doesn't work as good as it could. It sounds like their driver (and probably hardware too) isn't capable of precisely replicating a traditional COM port. If that's the case then I doubt it'll work under Win98 either... unless of course the person who wrote the Win98 driver was able to make it work correctly.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 08-28-2003 01:04 AM                        Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! The Keyspan USA-19QW works great with my Toshiba notebook running Windows XP and a variety of cinema hardware and programs. What a relief! Now I can stop dragging the second "legacy" notebook around with me. It also has a cool software which allows you to test and config the emulated serial ports.  |  IP: Logged

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