Legacy serial ports

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff

Hi
I have a new notebook PC with the new Intel duo-core cpu running XP MCE. The
manual does not tell me if I have a legacy com port. I looked in the Device
Manager and cannot find any mention of legacy serial ports, only USB ports.
I need a com port for an old Windows 3.1 program to run. Don't actually need
the com port for communication. It just needs to exist because without it
being present the legacy program freezes and crashes.

How do I find out if a COM1 or COM2 port exists? Is there a command line I
can use to find out or to create one?

Thanks.

Jeff
 
You should see the com port on the outside of the laptop - it's a 9 pin DB
connector. If it doesn't have one then you can get USB to serial
convertors and use one of those.
 
Jeff said:
Hi
I have a new notebook PC with the new Intel duo-core cpu running XP MCE. The
manual does not tell me if I have a legacy com port. I looked in the Device
Manager and cannot find any mention of legacy serial ports, only USB ports.
I need a com port for an old Windows 3.1 program to run. Don't actually need
the com port for communication. It just needs to exist because without it
being present the legacy program freezes and crashes.

How do I find out if a COM1 or COM2 port exists? Is there a command line I
can use to find out or to create one?

Thanks.

Jeff
Click to expand...

NEW laptop, you almost certianly don't have one.
 
To determine if XP has created a "logical" com port start
device manager. (Right click on My computer, left click on
manage then click on device manager. Click on the + by
Ports (COM & LPT). If no com port is listed, you don't have
one available.

If you have a physical port on the computer, you should also
show a logical port in Windows. If there is no physical
port in the computer, you may need to purchase a USB to
Serial port adapter cable and hopefully when you install the
cable, Windows will create a COM port for it.
 
That's what clued me to the absence. There is a USB entry that opens to
show 5 USBs and 5 USB hubs, but there is no entry for "Ports" which is
strange because I know I have a printer parallel port.

This is a new Toshiba Satellite M105-S304 notebook.

Jeff
 
Or update your software, W 3.1 is very old software.



| To determine if XP has created a "logical" com port start
| device manager. (Right click on My computer, left click
on
| manage then click on device manager. Click on the + by
| Ports (COM & LPT). If no com port is listed, you don't
have
| one available.
|
| If you have a physical port on the computer, you should
also
| show a logical port in Windows. If there is no physical
| port in the computer, you may need to purchase a USB to
| Serial port adapter cable and hopefully when you install
the
| cable, Windows will create a COM port for it.
|
|
| | > Hi
| > I have a new notebook PC with the new Intel duo-core cpu
| > running XP MCE. The
| > manual does not tell me if I have a legacy com port. I
| > looked in the Device
| > Manager and cannot find any mention of legacy serial
| > ports, only USB ports.
| > I need a com port for an old Windows 3.1 program to run.
| > Don't actually need the com port for communication. It
| > just needs to exist because without it being present the
| > legacy program freezes and crashes.
| >
| > How do I find out if a COM1 or COM2 port exists? Is
there
| > a command line I
| > can use to find out or to create one?
| >
| > Thanks.
| >
| > Jeff
| >
| >
| >
|
|
 
Pavel A. said:
Simply. If your laptop has Bluetooth, make a virtual COM port on it.
Or, get a USB to RS232 adapter.

--PA
Click to expand...

Aha. It has Bluetooth. I'll explore that.

Jeff
 
You may have the port but it might be active in the BIOS settings. The
port(s) must be enabled in the computer's BIOS before XP can define them in
Device Management.
 
Hi.
Any USB port, say, COM 1 and COM 2, is around 0x3e8-0x3ff and uses INT 4.
COM 3 is phone line at 56k, the NIC plugged into the PCI slot at 0 0 0 uses
maybe INT 18. The USB cable is a hub, not a switch. If a switch was used on a
router and went to hub mode, it would just deflect all data packets. The
power for the USB hub, its branch off of the Modem, connect to that PIC
serial chip that nears port 0x20 and 21: the border of the environmental
variables ( those don't synchronize with legacy files). Download the older
Art of Assembly: you don't have to code in asm, but it make clear how the
port structures, both serial and parallel. Other sourcesz will show how the
PIC chip has 4 connections to the I/O ports and is directly bused to the IDE
controller to the CPU. The device driver will be in the system32 directory,
as will the DLL.
 
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