Losing keyboard after starting Windows 3.11

I've been able to install and use Windows 3.1 perfectly fine on my PC/XT 5160 that uses an Intel Inboard/386 PC with a 4MB piggyback board. When I boot up DOS my keyboard is working just fine. When I launch WFW 3.11, Windows starts fine and the mouse works fine, but my IBM Model-M 101 keyboard becomes disabled. When I quit Windows it returns to a DOS prompt fine, but the keyboard remains disabled - any thoughts why?

UPDATE: I found some help here and applied the suggested fix, but it didn't work: http://www.itlisting.org/5-windows/93289a0e3b6513f6.aspx For a moment after booting WFW 3.11 I was able to type one letter before it locked up again. I also tried using an IBM 83 key keyboard but got the same results.

Regards,
Mike

Is that an XT Model M? You might need an AT keyboard to run Windows with the 386 board. Try an AT keyboard.

I don't have an AT keyboard, but I do have a clone PC/XT 83 key keyboard - that didn't work either, same result (and I did modify WFW 3.11 setup to use the IBM 83 key keyboard before I rebooted).

Really odd, everything else works great, mouse, launching apps, etc....just the dang keyboard is disabled. When I exit out to DOS the keyboard remains hung and I have to do a hard restart to get back into DOS with the keyboard unfrozen again.

Regards,
Mike

What keyboard driver is listed in Windows 3.1 system.ini file [386Enh] section?

I'm I right in guessing you did used win3.1s vdk instead previously?

A bit off the wall but Windows 3.11 and Wfw 3.11 have about half a dozen core files that were replaced compared to Windows 3.1 to increase stability. There's a list and zip of them floating around the internet. You could try putting these in your win3.1 install to see if they recreact the keyboard hanging issue in that. If it does just copying these over the original win3.1 files to your wfw 3.11 install might sort it out.

Is it possible other that the keyboard drive it may be using that it's initializing another piece of hardware and ending up with an IRQ conflict? I forget in Windows 3.x but isn't there a safe mode?

barythrin said:

Is it possible other that the keyboard drive it may be using that it's initializing another piece of hardware and ending up with an IRQ conflict? I forget in Windows 3.x but isn't there a safe mode?

Click to expand...

Windows 3.1 has Standard Mode(for use on 286 class systems but can be use with 368 class systems as well but forgoes virtual memory and any 386 specific drivers/libraries) and Enhance Mode(386 class systems). The former doesn't use any 386 specific enhancement. WFW 3.11 doesn't have this luzury though, it dropped Standard Mode support. WFW 3.1 does have it but you loose networking in the process so really there isn't any use in trying that.

Loading a packet driver and winpkt before plain windows 3.1 and using Trumpet Winsock is another option to getting tcpip connectivety instead of using WfW 3.11. I've done this on my 286.

Caluser2000 said:

What keyboard driver is listed in Windows 3.1 system.ini file [386Enh] section?

A bit off the wall but Windows 3.11 and Wfw 3.11 have about half a dozen core files that were replaced compared to Windows 3.1 to increase stability. There's a list and zip of them floating around the internet. You could try putting these in your win3.1 install to see if they recreact the keyboard hanging issue in that. If it does just copying these over the original win3.1 files to your wfw 3.11 install might sort it out.

Click to expand...

Good idea for diagnosing the issue. I am not sure exactly what to search for to find the list/zip of the half a dozen core files you mention...searched a bit but couldn't find them yet - will keep looking. Thanks!

Regards,
Mike

nc_mike said:

Good idea for diagnosing the issue. I am not sure exactly what to search for to find the list/zip of the half a dozen core files you mention...searched a bit but couldn't find them yet - will keep looking. Thanks!

Regards,
Mike

Click to expand...

Just search for "windows 3.11 core files" and your'll find the listing and files.

Thanks. I found this: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/peropsys/windows/public/WIN311.TXT

Which lists these core files:

- KRNL386.EXE
- GDI.EXE
- COMMDLG.DLL
- PSCRIPT.DRV
- UNIDRV.DLL
- VTDA.386

So what I'll do is copy these from the 3.11 Win install to my 3.1 Win installation and see if the keyboard breaks on 3.1. If so then I assume the culprit is one of those 6 files (its probably not the postscript driver, but I'll just include all 6).

Regards,
Mike

Caluser2000 said:

Windows 3.1 has Standard Mode(for use on 286 class systems but can be use with 368 class systems as well but forgoes virtual memory and any 386 specific drivers/libraries) and Enhance Mode(386 class systems). The former doesn't use any 386 specific enhancement. WFW 3.11 doesn't have this luzury though, it dropped Standard Mode support. WFW 3.1 does have it but you loose networking in the process so really there isn't any use in trying that.

Loading a packet driver and winpkt before plain windows 3.1 and using Trumpet Winsock is another option to getting tcpip connectivety instead of using WfW 3.11. I've done this on my 286.

Click to expand...

I've given up on WFW 3.11 - tried multiple ways to diagnose why just the keyboard freezes only after 3.11 bootup. I going to take your advice and and going to add a shim between DOS and Win 3.1 today which looks pretty simple to do seeing I already have the right packet driver for the 3Com Ethernet 3C509B installed and working under DOS. I think it is as simple as grabbing a copy of Trumpet Winsock, adding WINPKT to it in my autoexec.bat after the the packet driver (using the same soft IRQ as the packet driver) and adding trum21f.exe to a Windows program group and I should have TCP/IP under Windows 3.1 making the need for WFW unnecessary.

One thing I was wondering - when I do this can I continue starting DHCP under DOS before I start Win 3.1 or will they clobber each other?

Regards,
Mike

nc_mike said:

I've given up on WFW 3.11 - tried multiple ways to diagnose why just the keyboard freezes only after 3.11 bootup. I going to take your advice and and going to add a shim between DOS and Win 3.1 today which looks pretty simple to do seeing I already have the right packet driver for the 3Com Ethernet 3C509B installed and working under DOS. I think it is as simple as grabbing a copy of Trumpet Winsock, adding WINPKT to it in my autoexec.bat after the the packet driver (using the same soft IRQ as the packet driver) and adding trum21f.exe to a Windows program group and I should have TCP/IP under Windows 3.1 making the need for WFW unnecessary.

One thing I was wondering - when I do this can I continue starting DHCP under DOS before I start Win 3.1 or will they clobber each other?

Regards,
Mike

Click to expand...

It doesn't effect the mTCP suite of apps. at all. What the mTCP DHCP app. does is get a TCPIP address, lease time etc to add to the mTCP suite MTCP.CFG file, which is a text file, for the other mTCP apps. to make use of.

Caluser2000 said:

It doesn't effect the mTCP suite of apps. at all. What the mTCP DHCP app. does is get a TCPIP address, lease time etc to add to the mTCP suite MTCP.CFG file, which is a text file, for the other mTCP apps. to make use of.

Click to expand...

Caluser2000 said:

It doesn't effect the mTCP suite of apps. at all. What the mTCP DHCP app. does is get a TCPIP address, lease time etc to add to the mTCP suite MTCP.CFG file, which is a text file, for the other mTCP apps. to make use of.

Click to expand...

OK. So close but no cigar yet. I downloaded, unpacked, and copied trumpet 2.1 to C:\trumpet. Then I added C:\trumpet to my PATH in autoexec.bat, added WINPKT 0x60 after my 3Com packet driver also using 0x60:

View attachment 22644

Then started Win31, added TCPMAN.EXE to the Startup group, and edited the settings for it, clicked OK and it told me I needed to restart.

View attachment 22645

I exited Win31 and rebooted. On reboot all looked good after DOS finished booting - looks like the packet driver loaded fine and the shim did its IRQ vector redirect fine:

View attachment 22646

So I then started Win31 and got this after which TCPMAN automatically opens:

View attachment 22647

View attachment 22648

I see the two error messages:

ERROR - Packet driver must be class 1 (Blue book) or class 6 (SLIP)
ERROR - Unable to locate WINPKT or PKTDRV virtual packet driver

I am using what I thought is the right packet driver for the 3Com 3C509B adapter...or maybe I am needing some additional entries in an .ini file somewhere (I thought adding C:\trumpet to autoexec.bagt PATH would be enough). Thoughts?

Links/attachments are broken.

I just start my ptkdrv and winpkt via batch files as and when required. I try and keep the autoexec.bat and config.sys files on the 286 as clean as possible. But other than that your setup seems correct.

It's early hours of the morning here I do a bit more digging when I get back from work.

In the mean time someone is bound to chime in.

Caluser2000 said:

Links/attachments are broken.

I just start my ptkdrv and winpkt via batch files as and when required. I try and keep the autoexec.bat and config.sys files on the 286 as clean as possible.

It's early hours of the morning here I do a bit more digging when I get back from work.

In the mean time someone is bound to chime in.

Click to expand...

Apparently it didn't like my existing packet driver for some reason, even though it worked under DOS. I found another packet driver for the 3C509B card and tried it and then TCPMAN under Win31 and loaded successfully and automatically assigned the right IP addy. Then I was able to connect

Mike

Sweet.

Caluser2000 said:

Sweet.

Click to expand...

Sincere thanks for the assist!

Regards,
Mike

No problems at all Mike. It's nice to see someone keen on old kit, upgrades and software. Helping out in a constructive way is what this forum is all about. It'd be interesting to find out what the issue with wfw is just out of curiousity.

Oh and a nice shell for Win 3.1 is Calmira II if you want to give it a Win9x look n feel.

I'm now using Calmira II -very nice!

Now finally having TCP/IP working, I began wondering if I could establish remote control of DOS and Windows 3.1 on my hot-rodded 5610 from another machine (e.g. from a Win 95 system) (I know, always pushing the limits). I wanted to be able to remotely control both DOS and Win3.1 from a remote, more current system.

Update on the disabled keyword issue...some interesting clues - I don't think it was a keyboard driver issue or a Win 3.11 issue per se, I think it is 386enh mode with an InBoard/PC and the way it hooks (or doesn't) do the right IRQ.

So I grabbed a copy of PCAnywhere 2.0 for DOS and Windows 3.1.x and Win95 (Version 1 didn't support TCP/IP). I almost got it fully working. PCAnywhere remote control worked, but its Host function didn't because it wanted to load a 32bit driver. So I tried starting up Windows 3.1 in enhanced mode and PCAnywhere Host mode loaded fine. Actually, I was surprised Win 3.1 started in enhanced mode at all using the InBoard/386 PC (now a 486 with the Cyrix Cx2 CPU upgrade) - and it runs snappy, but I ended up with only one critical thing not working again as in Win 3.11 earlier - the keyboard. I had thought (see earlier posts) that the issue was a 3.11 keyboard driver related problem, but it must have something to do with the way the InBoard hooks the keyboard interrupt and I've run out of ideas to solve; it might be that it can't be worked around.

The issue at hand isn't remote control - that was just playing around, but the dead keyboard issue still nags me in enhanced more because everything else works fine running Win 3.1 in enhanced mode other than the keyboard. I can run apps, use the mouse...just can't type :-(

PS Another clue, when I return to DOS from a Win 3.1 enhanced session after the keyboard gets disabled, the keyboard remains disabled when I return to DOS (it was working under DOS before starting up Win 3.1 in enhanced mode, e.g. Win /3) . Win 3.1 in protected mode must somehow be stealing the keyboard IRQ, not getting it right, and not returning it going back to DOS.

UPDATE: I am thinking I might be able to solve the problem by upgrading from Windows 3.1 to WFW 3.1 (''Sparta'' 3.10.014e B2) I think its becoming clear to me that the furthest the InBoard/PC can go is running Windows in Standard mode. If I want NetBios/IPX support I have to add full Windows networking support, but MS killed being able to run in standard mode starting with WFW 3.11. The interesting detail is there was a release of WFW 3.1 called Sparta which looks like it adds all of the networking support, including NetBios/IPX, and also runs in standard mode. That also likely means I ought to be able to add the regular TCP/IP stack for Windows rather than use the shim to bridge between DOS and Windows. After that I ought to be able to remotely control other computers over NetBios and allow this system to be controlled remotely (bot Win and DOS using PCAnywhere V2) from other systems running different versions of Windows. It is only a guess - might be worth a shot.

Regards,
Mike