Programming : IBM Thinkpad

motorolamonster911 · Post by **motorolamonster911** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:26 pm

I just got a new IBM think pad, and I have the hard-drive partitioned, one side normal XP OS and the other DOS 6.22 and all my RSS.

When I boot my computer it gives me the choice of going to XP or DOS ...

If I go to DOS and try to read a radio it just keeps flashing : Accessing Serial Bus .... over and over until it finally fails.

If I go to XP and read a radio under "virtual dos" it works, but a little bit slower.

I did exactly what our radio shop done to their laptops for progrmming but mine dont work.

I want it all to work in DOS mode, any ideas??

FMROB · Post by **FMROB** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:39 pm

Something to check, Maybe windows XP is using the serial port. I had some problems with xp utilizing things it really doesn't need to. Also, sometimes laptops (espicially) IBM Thinkpads have their own utilities to turn on/off ports i.e. seriel, LPT etc. etc. Also, virtual dos XP is using I believe the windows settings for ports, where as dos uses the IBM utility to assign and control ports...I might be wrong, but it is something to check...Good Luck, Rob

mancow · Post by **mancow** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:46 pm

How does that work? Can you format each partition with a different type? Fat 16, or 32 and NTFS?

mancow

cfd1736 · Post by **cfd1736** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:21 pm

I have a IBM thinkpad 755ce 486dx machine and I can't get the comm port to work. THe machine is loaded with dos 6.2 only. How do I check to see if the comm port is on/off. Where can I turn it on if it is off? Thanks.

Dennis

Dkouz · Post by **Dkouz** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:52 pm

mancow wrote:How does that work? Can you format each partition with a different type? Fat 16, or 32 and NTFS?

Yup

FMROB wrote:Something to check, Maybe windows XP is using the serial port.

Can't be that, he booted DOS not windows.

giantcake · Post by **giantcake** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:02 am

In your TP's BIOS, check to make sure that COM-1 is set to on. DOS relies on the BIOS settings, Winblows does not.

Hard boot the TP into DOS. (shutdown, power off, start up)

What will help to troubleshoot serial port problems is if you can download the old shareware Procomm terminal software. (Or any old dos terminal software)

Start procomm, set for any baud rate, no hardware control, no flow control.

With a small screwdriver or other small metallic object touch pins 2 and 3 together on the DB9 serial connector on the back. Don't bend the pins!!

Type a few characters on the terminal program, you should see characters come back to the screen. What your doing is taking your TX data pin and connecting it back to your RX data pin on the DB9 connector. (loopback).

If this works the serial port is working under DOS correctly.

Here is a legal site with Procomm/Dos you can download for free from:
http://www.aspectscripting.com/support.html

Having a dos terminal progam comes in handy for other good things also.

-Steve
giantcake

giantcake · Post by **giantcake** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:19 am

On this site: http://www.aspectscripting.com/support.html you will want to download this file, unzip it and install it into your dos partition. This is a dos shareware program.

filename: procomm243.zip

If you need the dos unzip program search for this file which a lot of web sites still have in their old archives for download. (handy to have this also!) This is a dos shareware program.

filename: pkz204g.exe

Finally, if the TP is a 380 or 770 series you might have to jumper some additional pins on the DB9 serial port for use under dos. I've had to do that for a few other serial comm programs I use under dos with these models.

-Steve
giantcake

giantcake · Post by **giantcake** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:35 am

On another note, do you have an actual DB9 serial port on the computer or are you trying to use a USB adaptor to DB9 Serial Port ?

Most of the new laptops no longer have a "real" serial port on them.

-Steve
giantcake

cfd1736 · Post by **cfd1736** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 1:58 am

OK... don't flame me for this but how do I get into the BIOS to check on the serial port settings? Thanks for your help.

Dennis

KG6EAQ · Post by **KG6EAQ** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:47 am

My last IBM had you press F10 when it was booting up. Another IBM I had was F2. And if that's not bad enough I've seen a few that used F1. It should say upon startup which key to press to enter the bios or setup program. The more I think about it I think it's F1 on the 755...

tomsdad · Post by **tomsdad** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 4:17 am

motorolamonster911 wrote:I just got a new IBM think pad, and I have the hard-drive partitioned, one side normal XP OS and the other DOS 6.22 and all my RSS.

When I boot my computer it gives me the choice of going to XP or DOS ...

If I go to DOS and try to read a radio it just keeps flashing : Accessing Serial Bus .... over and over until it finally fails.

If I go to XP and read a radio under "virtual dos" it works, but a little bit slower.

I did exactly what our radio shop done to their laptops for progrmming but mine dont work.

I want it all to work in DOS mode, any ideas??

Just went through a similar drama with my new Thinkpad - turned out there was a setting in BIOS where you could set the serial port address and IRQ up - or let the OS do it for you.

Once manually set my thinkpad programs like a champ in DOS;-)

Hope it helps,

Steve

motorolamonster911 · Post by **motorolamonster911** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 7:37 am

Tomsdad,

Explain how you did this, I'm having trouble with it....

And YES the TP has a true DB9 connector in the back.

-Nick

Cam · Post by **Cam** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:51 am

What model ThinkPad do you have? I know my T40 (not more then a few months old) doesn't have a serial port.

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:11 am

I have a thinkpad 770 that I use for programming. When I first set up system commander to partition the drive and load everything, the next thing you need to do is go to ibm's website and download the bios drivers for your computer. Search on their website for "thinkpad features". This is a bios program that allows you to set everything up.

Once I did that and enabled the com ports it worked perfectly.

There is one for windows and one for dos. You have to download both of them to get it to work for the cps and rss. It is pretty simple once you download the programs to enable it.

You have to disable the infrared port and enable the com port. The infrared port has the same address as the com port that is why it needs to be disabled.

I have done about 10 thinkpads this way. If you still have trouble after that, I will try to dig out my settings so I can give you an example to go by.

cfd1736 · Post by **cfd1736** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:33 am

Ok I have searched the ibm web site and I can't find anything like that. Suggestions? Thanks again.

Dennis

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:37 am

What model do you have?

cfd1736 · Post by **cfd1736** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:41 am

I have the 755ce 486dx100 machine

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:45 am

On the bottom you should have a "type" number near the serial number. Post that one too.

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:47 am

Also, what windows version are you using?

cfd1736 · Post by **cfd1736** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:47 am

9545-7be

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 10:17 am

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4ZFRG3

this should work for windows

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIE-3AXE3E

this should work for dos.

These only list 760 770 and others but I talked to a service manager with IBM and he said they were the same matrix and should work. If not, just uninstall them. They will do no permanent damage.

motorolamonster911 · Post by **motorolamonster911** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 1:47 pm

I have a T30 with serial port,

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:09 pm

Yours would be:

windows
http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4ZFRG3

dos
http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4ZFPEG

Hope this helps.

Just need to download the first .exe file and follow the on screen instructions.

FMROB · Post by **FMROB** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:39 pm

I have a IBM 380 ED that I use for most programming. It has a thinkpad utility that configures that ports, on/off, location, etc. This is done through windows. And yes, while he is okay in windows and not okay in DOS, chances are that windows is occupying the serieal port, for what ever reason.

KG6EAQ · Post by **KG6EAQ** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 4:00 pm

Everything that IBM utility does can be done directly in the BIOS itself... just press F1

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 4:23 pm

The problem I have seen with all the IBMs I have encountered if the thinkpad features is not installed you can not access the bios settings.

Also, with the dos partitioned it doesn't see the settings unless you install the thinkpad features for dos. There are several dos commands to go through and then it saves your settings so everytime you boot up, it comes back to your settings.

tomsdad · Post by **tomsdad** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:30 pm

motorolamonster911 wrote:Tomsdad,

Explain how you did this, I'm having trouble with it....

And YES the TP has a true DB9 connector in the back.

-Nick

Ok, my TP is a T22 - but I see no reason why it shouldn't apply to later models with a DB9 serial port as long as the BIOS is similar.

1. Power Up the TP

2. Hit the F1 key to enter BIOS

3. Select Config <enter>

4. Select Serial Port <enter>

5. Enable Serial Port

6. Set I/O address and IRQ - in my case it's the Com1 defacto standard of 3F8 IRQ4

7. F10 save and exit

Once I had done this on my T22 I went from not being able to R/W through RSS to no problems.

Good luck!

Steve

FMROB · Post by **FMROB** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 6:05 pm

Just another suggestion....Loose the crapy windows XP and go with a good platform like Win98SE and you won't have these problems anymore...

motorolamonster911 · Post by **motorolamonster911** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:47 pm

I enabled port and it worked!

I now have read/write capabilities and it works great!

Thanks for the help you guys!

- Nick

tomsdad · Post by **tomsdad** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:51 pm

motorolamonster911 wrote:I enabled port and it worked!

I now have read/write capabilities and it works great!

Thanks for the help you guys!

- Nick

Good to hear you've got it working - where my instructions of any use, or was your T30 way different?

Steve

motorolamonster911 · Post by **motorolamonster911** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:56 pm

First I used Fire-Medic's program, then I found out it was easier to do it through the original BIOS.. Both ways worked!

Your instructions did come in handy, I had no idea how to get my computer into BIOS CONFIG because it seems everyone of my computers is different.

Thanks again for the help!

fire-medic8104 · Post by **fire-medic8104** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:02 pm

Glad to hear everything worked out okay. I have never been able to get them to go into the bios setting without it.

That maybe something specific to the 770 because that is all I have ever ran across.

Actually it was another batlabber who showed me how to do it.

But glad to hear you made it work either way.

Programming : IBM Thinkpad

Programming : IBM Thinkpad

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Part-2 TP Serial Port

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Re: Programming : IBM Thinkpad