Subj : Binkley Error message
To : Fred Riccio
From : mark lewis
Date : Fri Mar 15 2013 11:12 am
FR>> Any idea what this is trying to tell me?
FR>> + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
FR>> ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()
ml> seems to be saying that the com port is broken or inaccessible...
FR> Thats what I was afraid of. The modem (external) is making a high
FR> pitch noise (like a bad fan) too.
yeah, sounds like the modem has gone... at least without looking at it closer,
anyway...
FR> Can you even buy a serial card or modem any more? Maybe at a
FR> museum?
there are places that still have the older equipment... most of it is pulls
from machines being recycled... ebay might be a good place to start... or
possibly your local freecycle group(s) where someone might have an older
machine they will give you... i hesitate to suggest craig's list as i've never
used it but some folks have had decent luck there, too...
ml> what OS?
FR> Win2K
FR> What little information I could find on GetCommState says error 6
FR> is "bad file handle"
if we were in the DOS days, i'd ask you to dump the BIOS section with the
defined ports in it from debug but ya can't really do that with windows these
days... besides, it has been so long that i'd have to dig for the proper
address to dump anyway... [time passes] ahh! i found it! hahaha...
[file biostab.dbg]
d0040:0000
q
[eof]
then
debug < biostab.dbg
the first line contains the addresses of the ports discovered during boot...
the first eight bytes are the serial ports and the next six are the parallel
ports... each two bytes are reversed so an output like this
the only "problem" is that if there is no 03 F8, the next one may be slid down
to the "com1" slot... in other words, if the first serial port is set for the
"com2" address of 02 F8, it may reside in the "com1" slot... in that case, even
though the port is set for "com2", you'd use "com1" in your settings... but
that only for software that relies on the bios table... software that has a
built in table would not run into this li'l wicket...
