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- From: Dave Hershberger.
-
- I have noticed and found a fix for a problem which occurs when
- you use PROCOMM on COM3 and/or COM4. COM3 and COM4, when used
- with PROCOMM 2.4.2, share the same interrups as COM1 and COM2.
- That is, COM1 and COM3 share interrupt IRQ4 while COM2 and COM4
- share IRQ3. This is fine as long as all programs which use the
- COM ports tell the UART to "shut up" and get off the interrupt
- bus before the programs terminate. Otherwise, bus contention may
- occur. Two UARTs can both be tri-stated "on" trying to drive the
- same interrupt. I have had the problem using PROCOMM on COM3 and
- a Logitech mouse on COM1 with Generic Cadd. After using COM3 with
- PROCOMM, for instance, then sometimes I could not run Generic
- Cadd using the mouse on COM1. It was as though COM1 was not there
- anymore. Similarly, sometimes after using Generic Cadd using the
- mouse on COM1, COM3 did not seem to be there using PROCOMM.
- CNTRL-ALT-DEL is not sufficient to clear the problem. The only
- way to clear the bus contention was to turn the power off! After
- conferring with a friend (Jim Michener, who gets credit for
- writing the "RS232OFF" program), a solution was found. The
- RS232OFF program simply sends a "shut up" command to all four
- UARTs. The simple ten-line "c" source code as well as the
- compiled .EXE files are included. If you have programs which
- alternately use COM1/COM3 or COM2/COM3, just run RS232OFF between
- them.