Have you tried the CVS Builds of DosBox from HAL 9000's site? (Click on CVS builds in my signature for a link to his site).

He has builds of DosBox that have alot of support for serial ports.

Also you may want to change cycles=auto to cycles=3000 when your troubleshooting issues with devices.

I have tried the following:

I belive one is what you are referring to. Can you verify?

http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/dosbox_files/dosbox_dlls.zip

http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/test/dosbox_s … rial10_fifo.zip

http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/dosbox_files/ … osbox_ocbus.zip

This looks more like a bugged USB/serial adapter. Maybe try to get a later driver from the manufacturer or try on a computer with real serial port for a test.
Btw the "startbps:38400 parity:n bytesize:8 stopbits:1 irq:4 " are not used anymore since 0.70 or so. The program should set them itself.

Hi Hal -

Thanks for your input, however can you please let me know what you mean by a "bugged serial port adapter"? Are you saying that the USB to serial port adapter that I have is the culprit?

Is there any serial to usb adapters that you might recommened that I could try?

I'll see if I can find another computer that has XP with a 9-pin serial connector and give it a try....the question is, what if it works, as all of our site managers have laptops with USB.

Thanks again for responding.

It's about the 1000 parity errors, I have an USB adapter that does exactly the same (clearcommerror function doesn't work). It shows up as 'Prolific USB-to-serial COMM port' in the device manager. When it's in the right mood it may produce bluescreens too.
Another manufacturer is FTDI [ft232 chip], I don't know if they work better though.
Try the real COM port first and maybe increase the cycles to 6000, 10000 or so.

Hi Hal...

Interesting... I have the Prolific installed on this computer. I would be great if this was the problem and all it took was another USB to Serial Adapter to get it to work.

I have tried other programs such as VMware, Virtual PC and they don't work either...however I like this DOSBOX the best. Easy to use, great diagnostic window.

Maybe I'll run down to Frys Electronics and try to see what they have...is there anything I should look for? Such as USB 1, USB 2, Chipset, features?

In the meantime...I'm trying to find a field engineer that has a laptop with a 9-pin serial port and XP installed.

I only have this one adapter and thus can't recommend anything. Under Linux it appeared to work fine though 😉

I went and bought 5 USB to Serial Adapters....including a PCMCIA card...the only one I can get working is the PCMCIA card....which is fine.

Although this seems to work, and I can now talk to my piece of hardware...which is a major relief....however, I'm still getting the following errors.

I have tired to change the CPU cycles from 1000 to 4000 and no changes...same errors.

This is what I have so far configured...

core=auto
cycles=3000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

I also modified my serial port per your recommendations....is this correct?

# serial1=directserial realport:com1 startbps:38400 parity:n bytesize:8 stopbits:1 irq:4
serial1=directserial realport:com1
serial2=disabled
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled

MIDI:Opened device:win32
Serial1: Opening com1
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 3, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 2, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0

Could it be that the wrong parity is set in your program? If not, you should thoroughly test if everything is okay and assume those errors are part of the commnication protocol. Maybe use my serial10 build because it tags the correct bytes with errors.

I have tired to change the CPU cycles from 1000 to 4000 and no changes...same errors.

Is there any reason why you want to stick with that low number of cycles?

Hal suggested already to use 10000. If you are using a recent PC, then you can easily use:

core=dynamic
cycles=30000

If you need to stick with 4000 cycles, then try to reduce the serial speed to 9600 bps.

Best regards

Rolf

There are programs though that draw 100% CPU if above some cycles level no matter how fast your computer is (F-29 retaliator comes to mind). Look at the task manager to see how high you can go. 3000 cycles = 3 MIPS. Depending on the baudrate it may need more.

Hi....let me say that you guys are great. I really appreciate all your help.

Being new to all this, I don't have a clue as to what the CPU cycles should be. I can try different settings....all the way up to 10,000 as recommended.

HAL...how can I find your build? Can you provide me a link?

You have any ideas why the PCMCIA card "talks" to this piece of hardware I have and yet my USB doesn't? The card was 100 dollars, and I'm not sure all of the field engineers have PCMCIA slots...I'm checking that now. Would be easier just to use a serial adapter, but the PCMCIA card seems to work flawless....even though I'm getting these framing errors.

I have subscribed to "notify" when a reply is posted, however the last few I haven't been notified. So sorry for the delayed response...I'll check more frequently.

You have any ideas why the PCMCIA card "talks" to this piece of hardware I have and yet my USB doesn't?

Maybe they are all Prolific?
And USB has that 10 millisecond delay. Don't know if that's a problem though.

HAL...how can I find your build? Can you provide me a link?

http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/test/dosbox_s … rial10_fifo.zip

All of the the USB to Serial Adapters except one was Prolific. But even that one I had the same problem.

It just doesn't seem to "see" the hardware and I get all these "break detect" shown on the LCD display.

Perhaps I'm stuck with having to use a PCMCIA card....kind of sucks, but hey, I'm glad at least it is working!

I find it interesting that it works but I still seem to get the same framing errors as I see with the USB ports....any thoughts on this? Could the CPU cycles be preventing the USB serial adapter from working?

I'm about to try the recommendation on changing the CPU prameters....stay tuned.

Well...I tried all sorts of different CPU cycles...all the way up to 30000....same thing...I get Framing errors.

I have the port on my PC set to COM1 38400, 8, N, 1 and the PCMCIA serial port set to the same. Its actually a nice PCMCIA card with an easy to use pop-up window for setting the port features. However there is nothing that I see for changing the partity, or handshake...you can only change the Port speed.

I have noticed that I get these framing errors even when I'm not transferring information to my hardware device...i'm just connected up to it and every couple of minutes or so, I see a frame error message come up.

I'll try your build and see if what that does.

MIDI:Opened device:win32
Serial1: Opening com1
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 3, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0
Serial1: Errors occured: Framing 0, Parity 1, Overrun 0 (IF0:0), Break 0

Hey HAL....I tried this build...didn't work. If you look at one of my earlier posts, I gave three LINKS one of them is the one is your build.

Have you made any changes since I posted those Links?

It just doesn't seem to "see" the hardware and I get all these "break detect" shown on the LCD display.

Almost sounds like an electrical incompatibility.

I tried this build...didn't work.

Does it completely fail or has it just the parity errors?

Have you made any changes since I posted those Links?

No.

HI Hal...

It didn't see the hardware at all. However I tried your build with the USB port, I didn't try it with the PCMCIA card.

Any idea why I'm getting these framing errors even though it works with the PCMCIA card?

As I mentioned, I thought it was kind of weird that while just connected up to my device and not transfering any information to or from it, I got these framing errors about ever couple of minutes.

Is there something I can change in the config file that might prevent these from happening?

Since this isn't a game, I was thinking of deleting a lot of stuff such as the sound and joy stick stuff in the config file and streamline it just so that it talks to my device. Maybe some of these other parameters being set in the config file might be causing problems...such as the sound?? Thoughts??

Does it matter if the DosBox config is set to no parity but mabye the program is trying to send it?