virtual pc and mrss

budinboat · Post by **budinboat** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:14 pm

Any of you guys using microsoft virtual pc win98se on a winxp platform.
I just got a new dell d520 and were trying it out with the rss since it has a real 9db serial port I can run new rss fine. But the older stuff like maxtrac , gm300, maratrac and the like need to run either on a dual boot system dos or win98 or in my case xp using virtual pc to emulate win98se os. The programs start up ok for the most part but then trying to read the radio is another matter. It seems almost as though the com port 1 is already being used in xp. now I have disabled com1 in xp in hopes that it solves it. I wont be able to test it until i go to work tommoro. any ideas or suggestions?

Post by **HumHead** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 9:01 pm

RSS needs to have direct hardware control of the com port, which Windows just will not give it.

I'm afraid that probably the only thing worse than trying to run DOS in the Windows DOS box would be trying to run it in an emulator running under Windows. I just do not see any way that that could be made to work reliably. There are just too many layers between the RSS and the RS232 port.

I suspect that your only options will be either a true dual boot configuration, or a separate DOS programming computer. The fact that you cannot get it to read reliably is a red flag warning of the troubles to come if you were to try to write with that setup.

AlexR · Post by **AlexR** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:55 am

Would like to note that older stuff like Radius GM300 and Maxtrac
both use non-standard baudrates when communicate through COM-port.
Solving that you can easilly get access to radio in XP.

HLA · Post by **HLA** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:26 am

i tried virtual pc on a mac a few years back and it would run the programs but that was it, no communication to any of the ports and some of the programs would not install and the ones that did had trouble finding drives.

Post by **wavetar** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:26 pm

Yep, even trying to use DOSbox v0.65 (a DOS emulator) results in the same thing...RSS runs perfectly, but cannot read/write the radios. I've played with it extensively, but the furthest I've gotten is to make a few different models beep when initiating the read...nothing beyond that yet.

Funny how the various pager softwares will read/write all day with no issues within a DOS window or command prompt. Why couldn't they make the radio RSS as friendly?

Todd