The dosemu HOWTO: Parallel ports, serial ports and mice

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## 4. Parallel ports, serial ports and mice

## 4.1 Port access worked with older version, but doesn't work now!

Read ../doc/README.txt and the port-section in ../etc/config.dist

## 4.2 Port access was faster with older versions!

To have a chance to log port access, by default every port access produces an exception out of vm86-mode. This takes some time. If you don't want to log port access, use the keyword "fast" in the appropriate port statement.

## 4.3 Where are the (microsoft compatible) mouse drivers?

Tom Kimball (tk@pssparc2.oc.com) reported (93/11/24) that

Several people said to use a different mouse driver and suggested some. I found a couple that seem to work fine.

       oak.oakland.edu:/pub/msdos/mouse/mouse701.zip   (mscmouse)
       oak.oakland.edu:/pub/msdos/mouse/gmous102.zip   (gmouse)

Normally you can use dosemu's internaldriver, so you don't need any additional mousedriver in dosemu outside winemu(97/2/10).

## 4.4 Why doesn't the mouse driver work?

Mark Rejhon (mdrejhon@magi.com) reported (95/4/7) that

If you start the mouse driver and it just hangs (it might actually take 30-60s), but if you are waiting longer than a minute for the mouse driver to start, try specifying the COM port that the mouse is on, at the mouse driver command line.

## 4.5 Why does dosemu clobber COM4?

Rob Janssen (rob@pe1chl.ampr.org) reported (94/3/24) that

According to jmorriso@bogomips.ee.ubc.ca, "dosemu still clobbers COM4 (0x2e8, IRQ 5). 0x2e8 isn't in ports{} in config. I have to run setserial /dev/cua3 irq 5 on it after dosemu exits."

This is caused by your VGA BIOS. I have found that by enabling the IO port trace and seeing where it was clobbered.

Disable the "`allowvideoportaccess on`" line in config and it will work fine. When you then have problems with the video, try to enable more selective ranges of IO addresses (e.g., 40-43).

## 4.6 How do I use dosemu over the serial ports?

## 4.7 How can I switch between dosemu and a shell over the serial line?

John Taylor (taylor@pollux.cs.uga.edu) reported (94/5/25) that

I am running Linux 1.1.13 and want to point out a great feature that should be protected and not taken out (IMHO). With the 52 version, I can run the program, "screen." From screen, i can invoke dos -D-a. What is really great (IMHO) is the screen commands (the CTRL-A cmds) still work. This means I can do a CTRL-A C and add another unix shell, and switch between the two (DOS / UNIX). This allows me to use dosemu over the serial line really well, because switching is made easy.

## 4.8 How can I get the parallel ports to work?

The dosemu.conf has lines at the end to redirect printers to either lpr or a file. If you want direct access to the bare metal, comment out these emulation lines, and add the line

> `$_ports { device /dev/lp0 fast range 0x3bc 0x3bf } # lpt0`

for the "monitor card" printer port (corresponds to /dev/lp0), or

> `$_ports { device /dev/lp1 fast range 0x378 0x37f } # lpt1`

or

> `$_ports { device /dev/lp1 fast range 0x278 0x27f } # lpt2`

for LPT1 (/dev/lp1) or LPT2 (/dev/lp2) respectively(97/2/9).

Hans Lermen (lermen@dosemu.org) writes:

But NOTE: these lines should not be _added_ simply, the string should be concatenated such as:

$_ports = "...." $_ports = $_ports, " device /dev/lp0 fast range 0x3bc 0x3bf" = This blank is important

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