[Coco] DriveWire with modern laptop?

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 09 March 2008, Roger Merchberger wrote:
>Rumor has it that Roger Taylor may have mentioned these words:
>>At 11:09 PM 3/4/2008, you wrote:
>>>I'm trying to find out if anyone uses the DriveWire system with a laptop
>>>having no built-in serial port, using a USB to Serial adaptor.
>>>
>>>My IOGear adaptor seems to insert COM5 into the ports instead of a 1,2,3,
>>>or 4.  I haven't found a way to disable those ports in hopes that the
>>>adaptor will appear as a typical COM #1-4 that older software can
>>>use.  Some modern software only allows using 1-4 as well.  I'd like to
>>>know if the PC side DriveWire server can use COM ports above 4 before
>>>purchasing the product.  The adaptor itself works just like a COM port,
>>>and claims to be compatible with anything.
>
You may find it loses the first byte of a packet fairly often though.  I use 
FDTI adaptors now with heyu, and have had no further trouble in that regard.

>I have a Prolific chipset adapter, but it's at work. I have the latest
>Prolific as well, and *somewhere way down deep* in the driver settings you
>can tell it to be any "unused" COM port which on your lappy should be "all
>of 'em." ;-) (Watch out for bluetooth dongles - those seem to add a metric
>buttload of COM ports to the mix!)
>
>I can get the driver & instructions for you if you want them on Monday.
>Warning: I've never used this adapter for Drivewire.
>
>>>This was aimed at the list for a reason since I know there are lots of
>>>users of DriveWire out there who might have different setups.
>>
>>I see now in the DriveWire 2.0 docs that you can choose COM1-COM6 on the
>> PC.
>
>Glad to see you got it worked out.
>
>I've got a Belken <mumble> [[ runs over to lappy bag ]] F5U109 adapter, and
>on my Transmeta Crusoe processor laptop under Linux I've never had an
>issue, and used it on some really wacko stuff. However, under Winders XP,
>especially using Drivewire (but with other things as well) it would
>randomly bluescreen. I think the adapter's OK, but I think the Windows
>driver had issues with being run on an emulated x386. [[ The emulation's in
>hardware in the CPU - it translates the x86 CISC instruction set to it's
>own internal VLIW RISC-type instructions. ]]
>
>Oddly enough, the box would *never* bluescreen other than using that dongle
>- I was quite surprised that the Transmeta CPU was amazingly stable; albeit
>slow if stuff wasn't compiled with the right flags for it. Linux rocked
>(but took literally a month of spare-time compiling to get it just right);
>Winders worked OK but wasn't awe-inspiring by any means. ;-)
>
>HTH,
>Roger "Merch" Merchberger
>
>--
>Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
>zmerch at 30below.com
>
>What do you do when Life gives you lemons,
>and you don't *like* lemonade?????????????

Open a stand and sell it?

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
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