Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anyone have an R2 manual?/R2 under Virtual PC

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 09-26-2007, 01:07 AM:

Pdf would be good. I mean the THX analzyer, not the Westrex unit.

BTW, has anyone tried running the R2 under Windows XP, using Virtual PC? I have a Virtual PC module installed on which Windows 98 "runs", and when I "boot" that in DOS mode, I can run the R2 program. But I haven't figured out how to use the serial port of the notebook - which, to complicate things, is not a physical serial port, but the Keyspan USB-to-serial adapter. The Keyspan adapter comes with its own config tool which allows remapping the ports, so mapping it to COM1 is no problem, that's the basic setting for all the other programs (e.g. Dolby) which want to connect to a serial port. But how is that set up under Virtual PC? Basically, the virtual machine is completely integrated into the actual hardware, and there are config options for each virtual machine you create, including COM ports, but there is no option to use the COM port the adapter is currently mapped to - because Windows sees that as "occupied" by that device.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-26-2007, 09:36 AM:

I believe it will work with the conetix dos shell but the serial port config is a problem
also with win98 I found it had issues unless the com port was set to 9600

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-26-2007, 12:50 PM:

The R-2 was always a bit fussy about how you ran it. Straight from DOS is best and most stable. Running under another shell it may decide to just drop out on you once in a while. I saved an old Toshiba laptop to operate it that runs dos exclusively. Its just packed in with the R-2 so not really an extra piece to lug around. The D-2 is the better bet with its USB connection and windows based program.
Do let us know if you get it to run that way... would be interested to try it myself.

Mark

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 09-26-2007, 05:36 PM:

Looks from googling a little bit like MS bought out Connectix and their virtual machine technology a few years ago. So I guess that's what is in Virtual PC anyway.
I will try the XP thing some time, although since I just got the D2 and we have a lot of stuff going on right now, it's more like a "science project" that will have to wait for a while.

So, does anyone have the R2 documentation in electronic form?

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 09-27-2007, 09:06 AM:

you might want to look into making an extra partition and installing freedos to it.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 09-29-2007, 04:57 AM:

That's too easy! Plus I may want to run Windows based programs at the same time (e.g. CP650 setup) or access documents such as auditorium or equipment specs.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 09-29-2007, 02:14 PM:

quote: Michael Schaffer
That's too easy! Plus I may want to run Windows based programs at the same time (e.g. CP650 setup) or access documents such as auditorium or equipment specs.

Touche.

Have you tried not using Virtual PC? Because WinXP does include compatibility modes for older OS's; you could try running the program in question in windows itself but you right-click on the executable and tell it to run in whatever mode you want. You could try either win98 or dos as a choice. And if the program runs it could possibly avoid the fact that windows is controlling the hardware port and not letting virtual pc see it.

Though if your system isn't something uber-fancy that uses SATA or 64-bit, you could simply install Win95/98 since the CP650 software is supposed to work with those and both include DOS (and not the emulated kind of win2k/xp).

Posted by Andrew Poulain (Member # 457) on 10-01-2007, 06:03 PM:

The R2 software can not be run with Windows XP or in Command Prompt. Unfortunately the R2 software will only work in a DOS operating system.

The R2 software is quite stable with Virtual PC. You will need to modify the autoexec.bat and config.sys files to obtain a sufficient amount of lower memory in DOS to run the R2 application. Additionally you need to use a dedicated RS232 port on the computer or a PCMCIA to RS232 adapter. USB to RS232 adapters don’t work with the R2 as well. Since a PCMCIA to RS232 card connects directly to the PCI bus in a computer, the COM port is recognized by Virtual PC. One more thing, Virtual PC is now available for free from Microsoft.

To edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys files you will need to start the DOS virtual environment. Type “e autoexec.bat” or “e config.sys” for each respective application you are editing. Then type “rem” in front of the following applications to remove them from the operating system. Save, then exit back to DOS.

Autoexec.bat applications to remove
C:\dos\mscdex.exe /s /d:idecd001 /l:e
C:\dos\smartdrive.exe
C:\dos\mouse.com
C:\dos\doskey.com

Config.sys application to remove
Device=c :ccntx\cdrom.sys /d:idecd001 /l:e

You will need to set up a shared folder with the R2 application on your C drive. If anyone needs additional information feel free to email me at apoulain@thx.com. I can also provide a pdf copy of the R2 manual if needed.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-01-2007, 08:57 PM:

Andrew - thanks a lot for this detailed information. That was basically the direction I had wanted to explore, but didn't have time to so far.
I guess it should work just as well when you have Windows 98 in Virtual PC and "boot" that to DOS. I don't have DOS anymore, but I have an old Windows 98 which I installed in Virtual PC on my desktop computer and I ran the R2 appliction under that. Not because I want to use my desktop computer for this, simply because I didn't have Virtual PC on my notebook and just wanted to run a quick test to see if the software even started up in the Windows 98 DOS mode under Virtual PC. It did, but I couldn't establish a working connection to my USB-to-serial adapter (Keyspan).
Just out of interest, why do you have to edit autoexec.bat and config.sys to remove mouse, CD-ROM and other functions? Obviously, there is no mouse functionality in the R2 software, but how does it interfere with running the program? Or is that just to free enough lower memory? I dimly recall how much work it could sometimes be to expand and configure it under DOS which wouldn't be necessary here anyway since the R2 software is everything that will ever run under this virutal configuration.
Which PCMCIA adapter are you using? I think it always makes sense to try hardware which other people already know works, rather than wasting time with untested hardware which might have driver issues.
The one thing I didn't quite understand is the shared folder. How do you set that up? Isn't installing the software on your virtual "C" drive enough? It would be great if you could elaborate on that a little more.

And yes! I would appreciate it very much if you could email me the PDF. I have two R2s which I want to bring back into action even though I also just got a D2.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-02-2007, 02:14 PM:

Michael,
Don't get your microphones mixed up... they are NOT interchangable... they are offset calibrated to each unit... just in case you weren't aware...

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-02-2007, 10:00 PM:

Thanks for pointing that out, but I knew that - after all, that is one of the main advantages of such measurement systems! The two R2 we have were in their own separate cases anyway, and I don't think they have really been in the same location at all in recent years. Plus they got recalibrated not long ago, and I have the purchase orders for the calibrations with the serial numbers of each set of mics. Isn't the serial number part of the file name, too? Can't check right now because I don't have them near me. In any case, I am sure I have the right sets of mics for each unit, and the matching (quite recent) calibration files.

Posted by Andrew Poulain (Member # 457) on 10-04-2007, 04:14 PM:

Removal of the mouse, CD-ROM and doskey functionality is strictly to free up the lower memory in DOS. Without sufficient lower memory the R2 application will freeze up. This tends to happen when conducting a reverberation measurement, where a large amount of data is collected and stored in the lower memory of DOS until the test is complete.

I use the Quatech DSP-100 PCMCIA to RS232 adapter. The DSP-100 has two serial ports and a detachable dongle, which is quite useful.

The shared folder in Virtual PC allows you to put the software on your “C” drive of the native operating system. A virtual drive is assigned to each shared folder. This allows you to quickly access the R2 files when you are working off line for report processing or access to the files from your email application.