on Sat 18-03-2000 12:42 David barkin wrote:
>
>Hello Mr. Anderson
>
Hello David  (I hope you don't mind my informality ;-)

>I recently managed to configure STING for my machine, a Hades 68060, and
>with the latest CAB.OVL find my self happily running around the Internet. I
>recently replaced (temporarily) HS MODEM drivers with the program FAST
>SERIAL and its accompanying CPX. I find that this program,
>unlike HS MODEM, properly recognises the different serial chip of the Hades
>computer.

I have never used FAST SERIAL myself, so I can't say exactly what it is doing.

>My problem is that when I run the STING Dialer I get the message
>"Serial ports being used by another program."

This can be due to several different reasons.  STinG needs to have drivers
accessible in several ways, all of which will be done for HSModem drivers.
(BIOS vectors, BCONMAP structs, gemdos calls, and device names in "u:\dev\")
This device installation of HSModem is actually done identically with that of
MagiC, even in normal TOS (with a simple simulation of the "u:\dev\" folder).

If FAST SERIAL does not install the drivers in a way compatible to HSModem,
then that is why STinG says they are already 'in use', because some feature
that should be available is not even present.  In some ways this will look,
to the STinG software, just as if the feature was available but reserved for
other programs.  This can happen when STinG gets an error code for opening
a driver on gemdos level after checking that it exists on bios level, but
the driver has not been installed completely for gemdos level (u:\dev\driver).
Some softwares work only on the bios level, and for them the problem will
never be noticed.

Another possibility is that the driver was left in an 'open' state after the
installation, and then the system may refuse STinG's attempt to open it for
that reason. STinG will always accept such refusal, unlike some other programs
that will 'forcibly' take over port ownership. Doing so is _wrong_, but it may
make them seem better, as they can work with a faulty driver of that kind.


>Apparently this driver was meant for STIK(???).

No.  STiK needs HSModem too, although I am unsure of which HSModem features
it is dependent on.


>At any rate, do you know a way that I can take advantage of this serial driver?

No I don't, and in fact I do not think you can use FAST SERIAL with STinG.

But that is not really what you need.  What you need is an HSModem driver for
that Hades serial port.  That should exist somewhere, though I am not sure of
exactly where at this moment. We should be able to find out however, since one
of the STinG beta testers does use Hades, being a major dealer in TOS systems
in New Zealand.  He should know these things as his work demands it.

I will send a copy of this mail to the beta testers mailing list, requesting
that he (Anthony Green) provides info on HSModem stuff for Hades.  Then I or
he will pass the info on this subject to you.


Note that all is not lost even if no such driver is available at present, as
it is always possible to write a new HSModem driver, given the specifications
of the hardware (or another existing driver for it).
