MY Experience with this USB driver

The intent of this forum is to discuss my DOS TSR programs (available at http://bretjohnson.us), how they work and don't work, new/missing features, status of updates, and anything else related to them that may need to be discussed.

MY Experience with this USB driver

Postby Mysoft » Sun Sep 11, 2016 9:40 am

so, in my tests i'm using a DOS 8.0, with a few customizable options (config.sys menu) booted trough PXE

to enable/disable...

1) UMBPCI (using loadhigh (freedos), to make the USB driver load first, on a DMA avaliable UMB)
2) JEMM (it seems only EMM386 is working with the umb driver, so would be nice to see JEMM support)
3) Packet Network (currently the bare minimum for packet driver NDIS->PKT conversion, or UNDI->PKT conversion
4) Samba Network (the above plus logon on network.. hugh memory expensive i plan to make my own alternative for shared drives)

and so on my computer it seems the ethernet drive (for realtek 8136) uses IRQ 11... the same as the USB driver (so it has some sharing issues)
like when it doesnt conflict with the RAM disk driver, it can disable the network after enabling some parts of the USB driver (i think the USBPRINT)
but i managed to get it working sometimes...

however to properly init my USB port... i had to call USBUHCIL.COM in a very very weird manner...
Code: Select all
USBUHCIL /disablelegacy /disableother /irq 9 /index 0  ;causes a beep with invalid IRQ but DOESNT WORK if i don't do that  :?
USBUHCIL /disablelegacy /disableother /irq 10 /index 0
USBUHCIL /disablelegacy /disableother /irq 11 /index 0
USBUHCIL /disablelegacy /disableother /irq 11 /index 0  ;yes... init 0 and then update it  :lol:
USBUHCIL /disablelegacy /disableother /irq 11 /index 2 ;now this loads without hanging


i believe the /disablelegacy /disableother isnt required... but i included because it keeps stuff clean (and seems my mouse/keyboard on the subject netbook are
both PS/2 so i could disable legacy just fine, and not even need to enable the usb drivers for those)
so if i don't do the forementioned sequence, it always hangs on loading index 2... (or any other index other than 0), while trying to redirect the IRQ (and it happens with and without the ethernet card driver installed)

but so when i got it working, i tried one of my flashdrive, and it worked very nicely (i didnt did speed tests or check if something like smartdrv would be required it was just a brief test, for my final goal...)

so then i tried USBPRINT, with my USB->LPT adapter... and using NoParallel:Yes, to make it as LPT1, worked wonderful :ugeek:
altough obviously it's a fake LPT port, so i may need to use your USBAPI to create a EMM/JEMM driver to actually redirect the I/O to LPT, for programs not using PRN,LPT1 file devices :)

then i tried my final goal on this... that was to have a COVOX SPEECH THING, working trough the USB->LPT adapter... but that didnt worked well, it seems the adpater itself, doesnt identify properly (and i got a bad device beep and then it doesnt anymore until i restart the printer, the device, the port, etc..), once the covox was connected to it instead of the printer... maybe i need to check more into that, and make covox thing, that is more resembling a printer, for the adapter to work, as it probabily except it to be handled as a true printer :P, and then hopefully the V86 driver using the USBAPI directly will be fast enough to have such thing working here...

but ofcourse that is just for fun... since i also plan to make a EMM/JEMM compatible Sound Blaster emulation for my native Intel HD Sound card... (which then can emulate the covox/dss/etc... there)

Seems you may not working on this anymore... but i'm glad i could use to have some USB fun on a "modern" netbook :)
Mysoft
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 9:13 am

Re: MY Experience with this USB driver

Postby Bret » Thu Sep 22, 2016 8:11 am

Sorry it took so long to respond to this. Haven't had time to do much of anything besides work for the last couple of weeks.

Mysoft wrote:and so on my computer it seems the ethernet drive (for realtek 8136) uses IRQ 11... the same as the USB driver (so it has some sharing issues)
like when it doesnt conflict with the RAM disk driver, it can disable the network after enabling some parts of the USB driver (i think the USBPRINT)
but i managed to get it working sometimes...


My USB drivers do support IRQ sharing, but it's possible/probable that the Ethernet driver does not. Very few DOS drivers are set up to handle IRQ sharing.

Mysoft wrote:however to properly init my USB port... i had to call USBUHCIL.COM in a very very weird manner...


That is indeed weird -- I've never seen anything like that before. I'm surprised at your tenacity to experiment to that degree to figure out a way to get it to work. I probably would have given up long before you did and just assumed it doesn't work.

Mysoft wrote:so then i tried USBPRINT, with my USB->LPT adapter... and using NoParallel:Yes, to make it as LPT1, worked wonderful
altough obviously it's a fake LPT port, so i may need to use your USBAPI to create a EMM/JEMM driver to actually redirect the I/O to LPT, for programs not using PRN,LPT1 file devices


Glad USBPRINT worked for you. There aren't a whole lot of DOS programs that don't use PRN/LPT1 to print. Usually, the only time things need direct I/O access to the printer is if they attach something other than printers to the parallel port (things like your COVOX, daisy-chaining multiple devices, or devices that need two-way communications).

Mysoft wrote:then i tried my final goal on this... that was to have a COVOX SPEECH THING, working trough the USB->LPT adapter... but that didnt worked well, it seems the adpater itself, doesnt identify properly


It's possible it could work with a different brand/model of USB-to-Parallel Adapter. All of the parallel port communications and timing and voltage/current levels/detection are actually handled by the adapter, which then "translates" them into packets that go across the USB bus. It sounds like your adapter doesn't "like" the COVOX for some reason (it doesn't look enough like a printer for the adapter to recognize it).

Mysoft wrote:Seems you may not working on this anymore... but i'm glad i could use to have some USB fun on a "modern" netbook


I am still working on it in my spare time, but there's very, very little of that to go around these days. It's been weeks since I've had any time at all to work on it. Glad you're having FUN!
Bret
 
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Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 3:43 am
Location: Rio Rancho, NM


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