Thanks for the report. Found a bug. Please try http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/test/dosbox_serial11.zip and if it still doesn't work send me a serlog again.

Hi h-a-l-9000,

looks like sending is fixed but receiving is not fixed. 😀 & 🙁

With the XP machine running dosbox serial11 and the other computer just used for testing purposes running hyperterminal I no longer get errors in the status window when sending from dosbox. But I still get the errors when i send to dosbox from the hyperterminal end. When i typed at the dosbox end command prompt:

type autoexec.bat > COM2

the text appeared in the other computers hyperterminal window as expected.

When i send from hyperterminal i get the errors

ONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file dosbox.conf
MIDI:Opened device:win32
Capturing serlog to capture\dosbox_025.serlog.txt
Serial2: Opening com1
SHELL:Redirect output to COM2
Serial2: Errors: Framing 0, Parity 0, Overrun RX:6 (IF0:0), TX:0, Break 0
Serial2: Errors: Framing 0, Parity 0, Overrun RX:6 (IF0:0), TX:0, Break 0
Serial2: Errors: Framing 0, Parity 0, Overrun RX:2 (IF0:0), TX:0, Break 0

See serial log 025 below

I really appreciate your help. Hopefully this testing will help someone else someday.

szaba_the_hut

What software are you running in DOSBox to receive data? Any chance for me to get it?

I am running a legacy application called wespine.exe

I can get serial comms working on my dosbox with a different app called Telix (like a DOS hyperterminal) but not with this legacy app. With the legacy app i still get the

serial2 error ....... overrun RX:2 .....

I can send you the executable but it may require the associated database binary dos files to run which are big (hundreds of Mb) ?

The file normally lives in c:\wespine\wespine.exe

Hm it doesn't do anything... but hundreds of MB... I think not 😉

What values did you try for rxdelay so far? Try something like 50 100 200 1000 too.

I havent tried other rxdelay values - are these number in miliseconds? Does rx delay change the timeout for the buffer to empty?

OK i think i have found where I was going wrong but I am not sure how to fix it.

In the legacy computer config.sys there is the following line
devicehigh=c:\slipdrv.sys /c=2 /i=3 /b=64

looking up slipdrv - it looks like it is a serial line IP driver thing which uses standard serial port hardware but might explain why my app runs but doesnt receive the signal from the port!!!!

How do i load this driver in dosbox when it has no config.sys?

Can I use a device in DOSBox?

i followed the link and downloaded device.rar - expanded it and used it to load the slipdrv.sys successfully!!!

I was prematurely celebrating however 🙁 - I still get the same error

I have attached the latest logfile for your analysis - RAR compressed

I appreciate all of your efforts to assist.

There is nothing that shows any interest in this port... did you choose the right com port in your software?

Hmm, there is no option to choose a port inside the legacy application. I did notice that the original line in the config.sys on the working legacy machine that loads the slipdrv.sys driver uses /c=2 and the text output after that driver has loaded indicates com2. Inside dosbox i have therefore used serial2. 😕 The other thing is that the serial cable on the legacy win98 computer is plugged into physical com2.

I would agree that the symptoms appear to indicate that the application isnt grabbing anything from the port.... I am at a bit of a loss as to what to try next. I could go back and try serial 1 to 4 again, did you notice i was up to logfile #78
🤣

I was hopeful that the driver was the issue but alas life wasnt meant to be easy.

Depending on how the device driver works, this might still be an issue
as dosbox doesn't provide support for block devices and some chaining stuff.

Yes I had wondered how you got to 78 😉.
By booting DOS in DOSBox the config.sys driver should be kind of safe.

Tried the legacy app in XP and added the device driver load into the config.nt and - hooray it bloody works!

Although i didn't get the serial comms to work with my legacy application and the current version of dosbox I want to thank everyone for their efforts and assistance. This is a great forum.