Hi Jerry,
On Thu, 8 Jul 1999 01:39:44 -0700, Jerry J. Haumberger wrote:
> It's so good to see you back, Eko! Thank you for your
> suggestions...
Thanks for the welcome! :) I'm still around, just lurking
for a while; haven't had enough time to actively participate.
> My notebook computer says I have one com port available, COM1;
> the desktop says I have both COM1 and COM2. (Under Win98 their's
> COM4, which is an infrared port, but I'm using a PC DOS 2000
> partition here.) I'm certain my connections and cables are
> correct -- it just seems the "old and the new" are not compatible,
> for whatever reason.
AFAIK any COM ports should be compatible, as they're manufactured
based on an international standard (CMIIW). Newer COM port usually
always backward compatible. The worst drawback you have with
that old 'n new combination might only lower transmission speed
and (perhaps) less reliability.
> The desktop has a motherboard that's from 1991 (a 486DX2 at 50Mhz),
> and I suspect that a 1999 notebook serial port may not recognize
> an older 25-pin connection, although the IBM manual doesn't give
> me any reason to believe otherwise.
Sounds like you have a bad connection. The connections and cables
might looks correct, but have you test them for possible flaws?
It's relatively easy to do. All you need is a multimeter -- or
at least a battery, some wire, and a flaslight bulb <g>.
Here's the connection chart for serial laplink cable (use
monospaced font to view):
9-pin 25-pin 25-pin 9-pin
----- ------ ------ -----
pin 5 pin 7 <------> pin 7 pin 5
(Ground - Ground)
pin 3 pin 2 <------> pin 3 pin 2
(Transmit - Receive)
pin 7 pin 4 <------> pin 5 pin 8
(RTS - CTS)
pin 6 pin 6 <------> pin 20 pin 4
(DSR - DTR)
pin 2 pin 3 <------> pin 2 pin 3
(Receive - Transmit)
pin 8 pin 5 <------> pin 4 pin 7
(CTS - RTS)
pin 4 pin 20 <------> pin 6 pin 6
(DTR - DSR)
(Some serial cable might only have three wires: Ground-Ground,
Transmit-Receive, and Receive-Transmit).
Plug-in your pin converter/adapter to the cable, and make sure
the above pins are connected properly by using the ohm meter
function of your multimeter.
If your cable and adapter passed the above physical test,
connect both computers with them. Grab a copy of COMTOOL.COM
from Arachne package, and let's test the COM ports...
>From the notebook's DOS prompt, run COMTOOL as follows:
C:\>comtool 1 ^b7
Then from the desktops's DOS prompt:
C:\>comtool 1 ^b7
or if the cable connected to COM 2:
C:\>comtool 2 ^b7
If everything OK, you should see a blank screen. Type in any
message, it should be echoed correctly on the other PC. If
not, one of the COM ports might be damaged, disabled, or can't
cope with the current motherboard I/O freq setting (on the same
PC, not the remote).
If you able to "chat" from both side, then your connection
and cables are definitely OK. At this point, you're connected
at 1200 baud. Let's see how fast your COM ports can take...
At both computers, hit ALT-E to exit COMTOOL. Rerun it with
higher baud rate by substituting ^b7 with ^b6, ^b5, and so on
until the fastest - 115200 baud - ^b0, and repeat the "chat"
routine again for each speed. Older COM ports might only
reliable at speeds below 9600 bps. Take note of the fastest
reliable speed, refer to COMTOOL's docs.
Try INTERSVR/INTERLNK again by specifying the COM ports and the
speed above (run the server first). If all of the above passed,
and INTERSVR/INTERLNK still won't work, then the problem should
be either in it's config setup, or (worse) serial port might not
supported yet. You might want to ask IBM about this "bug"! ;-)
> I've tried all of your suggestions; there simply isn't any
> response.
Well, try and try again... Good luck! :-)
--Eko
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