Batboard

Last night someone brought over a GM300 and I didn't have an old laptop handy so I decided to throw caution to the wind and tried reading it with my Dell Latitude D610 1.86 GHz Pentium M running Windows 2000. I figured it didn't matter if I bricked it since he only paid $3 for it at a farm auction and was taking it to a shop to get it reprogrammed anyway. I ran the RSS out of a DOS window and it worked just fine. I read it and wrote it twice. I've also used this laptop to program Minitors without any problems.

My question is did I just get really lucky or is there something about either a) this computer or b) Windows 2000 that makes everything hunky dory for programming older radios? Thanks in advance,

Andy

I suggest you go out and buy a lottery ticket.

It generally isn't that it will never work, it just usually doesn't work, and the consequences sometimes very ugly. It also depends on the rev of the software, and, sometimes, the hardware architecture of the serial port. I saw someone do it once and it worked over and over - until there was a serial retry and then it failed.

Rob
Northeast Massachusetts

The Minitor RSS will work just fine through a DOS Window/Command Prompt...everything else you take your chances. Luckily, most of the time you just get some type of serial bus error, so you can't harm anything.

Todd

If I run the Com Port test in the RSS before trying to read the radio, will that give me any indication as to whether the read/write will work? Or is it possible that the Com Port test will work and I could still brick the radio?

Andy

I call BS.. if it was windows 98, or 95.. I'd say possibly.... but windows NT based products, IE NT,2k,XP use a TOTALLY different way of accessing the serial port.....which dos programs do not like at all....

What motivation would I have to ask whether something was a fluke if it never happened in the first place? I assure you I read and wrote the radio twice with no problems whatsoever. I may be stupid (because I tried it) but I'm not a liar.

Still wondering about the COM port test...will that predict failures or is it still a gamble even if the the test passes?

Andy

Others have reported using the 2000/XP command prompt to program their radios, so it's certainly possible.

The comms test is not a reliable predictor of write failures. What I've commonly seen happen is when the RSS is actually able to make the serial connection, the read/write process tends to take a lot longer than it normally does through DOS. Sometimes, the RSS is able to deal with it, and you program the radio successfully. Other times, some sort of time-out parameter is reached and you get an error part way through the write process, which may or may not corrupt the radio.

It's all about risk factor. I'm more liberal than some when it comes to computer recommendations, as I follow the Motorola Pentium Compatibility Matrix and will use any modern computer, regardless of speed, to program radios. I have had great success in programming literally thousands of radios this way. BUT, I always recommend a proper DOS mode for doing so, be it via boot disk, partitioning, etc. It simply minimizes the risk factor.

Todd

wavetar wrote:Others have reported using the 2000/XP command prompt to program their radios, so it's certainly possible.

The comms test is not a reliable predictor of write failures. What I've commonly seen happen is when the RSS is actually able to make the serial connection, the read/write process tends to take a lot longer than it normally does through DOS. Sometimes, the RSS is able to deal with it, and you program the radio successfully. Other times, some sort of time-out parameter is reached and you get an error part way through the write process, which may or may not corrupt the radio.

It's all about risk factor. I'm more liberal than some when it comes to computer recommendations, as I follow the Motorola Pentium Compatibility Matrix and will use any modern computer, regardless of speed, to program radios. I have had great success in programming literally thousands of radios this way. BUT, I always recommend a proper DOS mode for doing so, be it via boot disk, partitioning, etc. It simply minimizes the risk factor.

Todd

welp...seems i stand corrected....

I have a bootable DOS Partition on all my computers... for programming as well as recovery stuff......

its not that hard to do..... easy to save codeplugs..even easier to work on them...save them..then dump them into the radio.......

I too, have used everything from a 286 on up to my p4 2.4 gig, in DOS, not a dos box, or command prompt.. I wouldnt do ANYTHING in a dos box other than work with an existing codeplug, and save it to disk.....

but hey....if u did it once..i wouldnt push your luck and try again....

its not worth saving 3 mins to posssibly brick a radio...

kb3jkp wrote:I call BS.. if it was windows 98, or 95.. I'd say possibly.... but windows NT based products, IE NT,2k,XP use a TOTALLY different way of accessing the serial port.....which dos programs do not like at all....

No, I use MTSX RSS R06.07.00 to read (but not program) my MTS2000 all the time.

The serial APIs used by NT and 9x are not relevant to DOS programs. RSS make exactly the same system calls as it would if it were running under DOS - only Windows' DOS emulator cares about the difference between operating system.

The problem is that RSS uses the serial port in a very nonstandard, gung-ho manner that nobody else does. The DOS emulator wasn't designed to cope with that.

Another question...I have an old Windows 95 laptop with the 1225 RSS. Could I get away with running that on 2000? I haven't tried installing it on that machine...is it worth the effort or should I just use the 95 machine? The 95 machine's battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, which is why having it on the 2000 machine would be more convenient.

Andy

If you want to run 1225 RSS on a Win2000 or XP machine, you need to use the latest version 4.0. The older versions (3.2 or less) will not work...the software will run just fine, but it will not be able to access the COM port, no matter what you do. The newest version was put out by Motorola in just the last 8 months or so, specifically to allow people to use Win2000 & XP to program 1225 series stuff.

Todd

Cool thanks!

Version 3.2 of the 1225 RSS does work under Windows 2000 if you are logged in as administrator. Windows 2k does not allow direct serial port reads and writes as a regular user, but as an administrator it does. I am not sure with regards to XP as I haven't tried it. I have been using 3.2 on 2k for almost 2 years.
Good Luck

q_rad wrote:Version 3.2 of the 1225 RSS does work under Windows 2000 if you are logged in as administrator. Windows 2k does not allow direct serial port reads and writes as a regular user, but as an administrator it does. I am not sure with regards to XP as I haven't tried it. I have been using 3.2 on 2k for almost 2 years.
Good Luck

Not that I don't believe you, but you're seriously the only person I've heard of to this point (and plenty have tried it) that has it working. I am administrator on my Win2k machines, and it doesn't work, period. Motorola says so too, that's the sole reason they came out with 4.0. What's your hardware, if you don't mind me asking?

Todd

I tried it today on my Win2000 machine logged on as an admin and it didn't work...couldn't even see the RIB, so I know it was a computer/OS issue.

Andy