Com/LPT port question

[blindphoneman]

Hi:

I have discovered something interesting, and, puzzling at the same time.

I am a blind user, and, I use a couple DOS screen readers, with a good deal of success with Ibmulator.

Here is a really weird thing.

I can actually (in Windows 10) make the emulator send paralel data to com4 on my host system by putting this into the [lpt] section:

enabled=yes
port=LPT1
file=com4

I use a program called com0com to receive the data sent to com4 and spit it out com3, where my speech synthesizer emulation is listening and it then speaks the info it receives.

I was doing something similar with the serial port, but, I wanted to use that virtual modem, so, I just thought I'd tell the emulator to send data from lpt1 to com4, and, it actually works pretty well.

However, when I install Windows 11, I cannot do this. Everything appears to run, but, instead of using the virtual com4 port on my host, it actually creates a file in the default ibmulator directory called "com4".

I'm not close to being ready for Windows 11 on this machine, but, I figure I will one day be forced into it. Any idea why the file "com4" is created in Win 11, rather than open the comport? Is that one of the reasons you don't include that capibility in the Windows port?

Anyway, this is one undocumented feature I like, since it gives me speech access to Ibmulator.

Thanks!

[barotto]

This is an interesting use case I never tought about, and your solution is very clever.

Unfortunately I think the fact it's working for you is a happy coincidence as I never tested redirecting LPT data to a real COM port, all I do is opening a file in write mode. In this regard it's possible that Windows 11 needs a different approach to successfully open a COM port for writing, whereas Windows 10 is happy with a simple file open procedure.

I don't have Windows 11 myself (actually I don't even develop in Windows), but I shall investigate this further.

[blindphoneman]

Hi:

I didn’t know if it would work, but, the nice thing about emulation is you can experiment without breaking anything.

Ibmulator makes me feel like I’m using real hardware, since you did so well with the sound effects.

Thanks for such a cool emulator.

Sent: Friday, June 30, 2023 3:50 AM To: barotto/IBMulator @.> Cc: blindphoneman @.>; Author @.***> Subject: Re: [barotto/IBMulator] Com/LPT port question (Issue #75)

This is an interesting use case I never tought about, and your solution is very clever.

Unfortunately I think the fact it's working for you is a happy coincidence as I never tested redirecting LPT data to a real COM port, all I do is opening a file in write mode. In this regard it's possible that Windows 11 needs a different approach to successfully open a COM port for writing, whereas Windows 10 is happy with a simple file open procedure.

I don't have Windows 11 myself (actually I don't even develop in Windows), but I shall investigate this further.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/barotto/IBMulator/issues/75#issuecomment-1614269482 , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AKY6KCSJMZ2QOECBCLWQCK3XN2AKJANCNFSM6AAAAAAZZI7P7M . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: @.***>