🚀 go-pugleaf

Index Number: 26352

[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

 WS> Her computer has four serial ports, but what do you mean by
 WS> disable one of them?  Tell me more.  I am illiterate about this
 WS> sort of stuff.

Walter,
    I don't know about "illiterate", but unless Donna has a very rare
computer indeed, she doesn't have 4 serial ports!!!

     That is, all Dos computers have the ability to have 4 devices
addressed as serial ports, or at least so far as I know, but when you
first get it, usually only 1 or 2 of them are configured.  Most new
computers I've seen have two external comm ports, meaning RS232
connectors and either 25 pin or 9 pin male connectors, but as with
everything, this isn't a rule, just a general practice.

     Well, if the computer in question has two external ports as I've
described, one of them is probably set up as comm 1, and the other as
comm 2.  If you configure the modem as comm 2, what you are in essence
doing as trying to tell the computer it has 2 comm twos, which in most
cases just ain't gonna work!  I've seen it where the modem, when this is
done, in most ways works, for reasons unbegnownst to me, but most
definitely, this ain't the route to go.

     So then, as I think Chris said, you could configure the modem to
use com 3 or 4, but then we get into an IRQ problem, as com 3 and com 1
share the same by default as does com 2 and com 4.  For this reason, I
just think the easiest way out is to disable one of the external ports
and configure the modem as that one you've disabled.

     You know, this is one of those messages I'm leaving where I know
someone is going to come up and tell me where I'm wrong, as I am for
sure not an expert in the way of hardware, but this is how I understand
it at this point.  I do know that it is highly unlikely that Donna has 4
serial ports configured on her system though, so take it from there...
                                        Willie

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