6 Other Operating Systems
Device drivers for Windows NT and OS/2 are also available for the DSC-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.
6.1 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.
6.2 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.
6.3 DOS and other operating systems
The DSC-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 DSC-100 must be able to accommodate any
valid assignments of these resources.
For Windows 95/98/2000/ME, 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 DSC-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 DSC-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.
Quatech DSC-100 User's Manual
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