4
Other Operating Systems
Device drivers for Windows NT and OS/2 are also available for the MPAC-100.
The board can be used under DOS and other operating systems as well in many
circumstances. The software described below can be downloaded from the Quatech
web site if it did not come with the board.
4.1 Windows NT
The Windows NT device driver is installed by running the SETUP program. Up
to 256 serial ports are supported. There is a command line-based configuration utility
which is used for adding PCI bus and ISA bus serial ports. Please refer to the
documentation included with the device driver for full installation and configuration
details.
4.2 OS/2
The OS/2 device driver supports up to 32 serial ports in a system. Installation is
a manual, but simple, process. Please refer to the documentation included with the
device driver for full installation and configuration details.
4.3 DOS and other operating systems
The MPAC-100 is not a direct drop-in replacement for a legacy serial port
because its base address and IRQ cannot be fixed at values such as 3F8 hex, IRQ 4
(COM1) or 2F8 hex, IRQ 3 (COM2), etc. Rather, the system BIOS assigns the address
and the IRQ in a plug-and-play fashion at boot time. Software which is to use the
MPAC-100 must be able to accommodate any valid assignments of these resources.
For Windows 95, Windows NT and OS/2, the Quatech device drivers determine
what the resource assignments are and proceed accordingly. In other cases, however,
the user must intervene. The discussion below will center on DOS, but the concepts
can be applied to other operating systems as well.
Many DOS applications support user configuration of the base address and IRQ
of a serial port. Such applications can generally make use of the MPAC-100. Older
applications, as well as some custom software, may use hard-coded standard legacy
serial port addresses. These applications will require modifications if they are to use
the MPAC-100.
Custom applications for which the customer has source code can be modified to
make just a few PCI BIOS function calls to obtain all the necessary configuration
information. The PCI BIOS specification can be
obtained from the PCI Special Interest Group. Contact Quatech technical support for
more information.
4.4 QTPCI.EXE
Quatech MPAC-100 User's Manual
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