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6 Other Operating Systems
Device drivers for Windows NT and OS/2 are also available for the
DSCLP-200/300. The board can be used under DOS and other operating systems
as well in many circumstances. The software described below can be obtained
from the Quatech web site if it did not come with the board.
6.1 OS/2
The OS/2 device driver supports up to 32 serial ports in a system.
Installation is a manual, but simple, process. Please refer to the documentation
included with the device driver for full installation and configuration details.
6.2 DOS and other operating systems
The DSCLP-200/300 is not a direct drop-in replacement for a legacy serial
port because its base address and IRQ cannot be fixed at values such as 3F8 hex,
IRQ 4 (COM1) or 2F8 hex, IRQ 3 (COM2), etc. Rather, the system BIOS assigns
the address and the IRQ in a plug-and-play fashion at boot time. Software which
is to use the DSCLP-200/300 must be able to accommodate any valid assignments
of these resources.
For Windows 95, Windows NT and OS/2, the Quatech device drivers
determine what the resource assignments are and proceed accordingly. In other
cases, however, the user must intervene. The discussion below will center on
DOS, but the concepts can be applied to other operating systems as well.
Many DOS applications support user configuration of the base address and
IRQ of a serial port. Such applications can generally make use of the
DSCLP-200/300. Older applications, as well as some custom software, may use
hard-coded standard legacy serial port addresses. These applications will require
modifications to support PCI devices.
Custom applications for which the customer has source code can be
modified to make just a few PCI BIOS function calls to obtain all the necessary
configuration information. The PCI BIOS specification can be obtained from the
PCI Special Interest Group. Contact Quatech technical support for more
information.
DSCLP/SSCLP-200/300 User's Manual 35