Interworld Electronics

FTP Site

Access various information about Quatech's quality product lines via their FTP site which is located at:

ftp.quatech.com

Windows 3.1x supports only 4 COM ports with the standard Windows COM port driver. If the number of ports that Windows would support were to exceed 4, then is would require that the customer purchase the Quatech Communications Driver for Windows 3.1. This driver would increase the number of Windows supported COM ports from 4 to 9. This driver would act similar to the PORTS icon of the Control Panel.

Always be certain to match the base address settings and IRQ settings under the COM Driver and/or the PORTS settings with those settings for the hardware being used.

If other problems are encountered with installing Quatech Hardware under Windows 3.1x, contact Quatech's Technical Support at (330)434-3154.

OS/2 Issues

If the total number of COM ports that OS/2 will support will exceed 4, then the user must purchase the Asynchronous Serial Device Driver for OS/2. This driver increases the number of COM ports that OS/2 supports from 4 to 32. Remember, this driver will replace the standard OS/2 "COM.SYS" file. So, be certain to that statement from the "CONFIG.SYS" before attempting to use the Quatech OS/2 serial device driver.

Quatech's 4 and 8 port cards use interrupt sharing. Before using the card, be certain that the ISR (Interrupt Status Register) is turned ON. The ISR will be used to provide information to the system on which port needs the interrupt.

For the PCMCIA cards, the DSP-100 and the QSP-100 require use of the Asynchronous Device Driver for OS/2.

Quatech's current version of the Asynchronous Device Driver was written before the "RMVIEW" utility was added to OS/2 Warp. So, all of Quatech's ISA hardware being supported by the Asynchronous Device Driver for OS/2 will not appear using "RMVIEW".

Windows95 Issues

Windows95 maintains a registry of all known hardware installed within the computer.  Inside this hardware registry Windows95 keeps track of all the computer's resources, such as base I/O addresses, IRQ levels, and DMA channels.  In the case of Quatech hardware, Windows95 configures the new hardware using free resources which it finds in the hardware registry and updates the registry automatically.

To allow easy configuration of Quatech hardware, configuration files known as ".inf" files have been written for many of Quatech's PC hardware.  Windows95 uses the ".inf" files to determine what system resources are required by the particular Quatech hardware.  Thus the ".inf" files search for available resources to fill that hardware's requirements and update the registry with an entry that allocates these resources.  

Windows95 will allow changes in the system resources if the default choices are unacceptable; however, always permit Windows 95 to first setup all of the configurations.  Changing these settings is then an easy process.  Simply go to the Device Manager and click on the particular hardware that requires alteration.  The following window to appear will contain the properties of that selected hardware.  Click on the resources tab.  Several pre-defined Basic Configurations have been included leaving the user to simply specify the most suitable configuration.  (Note:  In some instances, Windows95 will require a re-start to put these new settings in to effect.)

Western Canada: - Vancouver, B.C. Tel: 1-(604) 925-6150    Fax: 1-(604) 925-6170 Toll Free:1-(800) 663-6001

Sales inquiries to:  sales at interworld.ca    Support & Service: support at interworld.ca