[DOS-6.22] - Tricky problem and I don't know if it can be solved...

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x007alfa
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Joined: 11. May 2016, 11:29

[DOS-6.22] - Tricky problem and I don't know if it can be solved...

Post by x007alfa »

Good day people! :D
Hope you're all doing well.

I have a pretty interesting project in the works, and I would like to have feedback from the community.

I'm trying to reunite 3 different systems into one. Let me explain this crazyness of mine...

In my dad's factory there are 3 machines that run off of 3 dos programs... I would like to make (already done :wink: ) 3 VMs running DOS 6.22 with those programs installed.

Next what I would need is a way to map into each VM a USB, and have it being recognized as a COM port... that is the tricky bit... I'm not even sure it can be done... :oops:

These programs essentially are monitors that interact with the PLCs into the machines (they're sooooooooo old it's not even funny....)
Is there a way to make that happen?

Thanks a lot for the help :D

Fabio (x007alfa)
mpack
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Re: [DOS-6.22] - Tricky problem and I don't know if it can be solved...

Post by mpack »

Using USB devices directly from the VM is not an option: DOS died long before USB, and even if you found USB controller drivers, there will be no DOS drivers for your USB serial devices.

It should be no problem mapping host serial ports to your 3 VMs, using the VM settings (Serial port section). Obviously you need one RS232 port per VM.

The main thing to avoid is over speccing the DOS machine: DOS isn't design to manage resources from even a 1990's PC, never mind a 2010s one. My own DOS 6.22 VM allocated 16MB RAM (itself probably way over the top: without a memory extender DOS can't use more than 1MB), and a 512MB hard drive - 20MB would probably be more than enough.
x007alfa
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Re: [DOS-6.22] - Tricky problem and I don't know if it can be solved...

Post by x007alfa »

mpack wrote:Using USB devices directly from the VM is not an option: DOS died long before USB, and even if you found USB controller drivers, there will be no DOS drivers for your USB serial devices.

It should be no problem mapping host serial ports to your 3 VMs, using the VM settings (Serial port section). Obviously you need one RS232 port per VM.

The main thing to avoid is over speccing the DOS machine: DOS isn't design to manage resources from even a 1990's PC, never mind a 2010s one. My own DOS 6.22 VM allocated 16MB RAM (itself probably way over the top: without a memory extender DOS can't use more than 1MB), and a 512MB hard drive - 20MB would probably be more than enough.
Thanks for your answer! :)

I wasn't really hoping to get anything really :lol: Such a weird problem...

So then I would need a pc with 3 Serials, one for each VM, and map said serial to the VM. Well 4 actually, because one of the programs is written in Pascal and requires the machine to have 2 serials, even though it uses only one... crazyness but can't do anything....
socratis
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Re: [DOS-6.22] - Tricky problem and I don't know if it can be solved...

Post by socratis »

x007alfa wrote:So then I would need a pc with 3 Serials, one for each VM, and map said serial to the VM. Well 4 actually...
Or three USB-to-Serial adapters. It's kind of difficult to find a PC with 4 serial ports these days. OR, you could buy a "4 serial port PCI adapter card". I'd go for the second solution myself, I think it is more robust.
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mpack
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Re: [DOS-6.22] - Tricky problem and I don't know if it can be solved...

Post by mpack »

socratis wrote:Or three USB-to-Serial adapters.
I believe that was the implication, at least it was the original question. Finding even one serial port in a modern PC isn't something you can assume, especially the small form factor ones.
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