5 Other Operating Systems
Device drivers for Windows NT and OS/2 are also available for the QSC(LP)-200/300.
The board can be used under DOS and other operating systems as well in many circumstances.
The software described below can be obtained from the Quatech web site if it did not come with
the board.
5.1 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.
5.2 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.
5.3 DOS and other operating systems
The QSC(LP)-200/300 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 QSC(LP)-200/300 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 QSC(LP)-200/300. Older
applications, as well as some custom software, may use hard-coded standard legacy serial port
addresses. These applications will require modifications to support PCI devices.
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.
Quatech QSC(LP)-200/300 User's Manual
21
