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DCI 5250 ISA card Twinax drivers

J

jc179

Experienced Member
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Apr 21, 2007
Messages
128
Hello,

Would anyone happen to have the drivers for a DCI 5250 ISA card?

I recall (about 20 years ago) I using something from affinity systems called stepsaver v4.11, but seems the disk is corrupt and with that lost most of the files.
There are some utilities that weren't corrupted and still run, but as luck would have it I am missing the rest I recall was once there.

I am missing the setup.ins, CEM5250.VXD, TwinaxOEM.sys, CEM5250.386 probably other stuff too... Maybe it was never there and my memory is toast.

The info the utility detects the card is as in the attached screenshot.

The card looks like this (pretty close at least) :

pdf to config it:

I googled archive.org and intext but came up empty handed so far...

thanks for any help here
Jonathan
microplus-twinax.jpg
 
I don't have any drivers specifically for that card, but some adapters are compatible at a register level with IBM adapters. The details shown in your screen shot look similar to those for my adapter from Maple (I can't check the exact values right now) so perhaps your card emulates an IBM Enhanced adapter like mine, in which case you could just use IBM software with it.
 
You could be very right on that, I was trying to configure pcomm but there is no valid IO address matching 2718 -> 318H hex

pcom-addr.png

Seem to have a range of 11A, 21A,
240A -> 24AA, 24BA, 24CA, 24DA, 24EA, 24FA,
250A -> 25AA, 252A etc
260A -> 26AA, 26BA, etc
270A -> 27AA, 27BA
31A
41A

Feel like im missing something here then...

I/O Board ConfigurationThe default selection for I/O address is 2718H (318H in the 10 addressbit terms used by most other PC adapter manufacturers).The Interrupt level and Memory address defaults are set by the softwareand set for IRQ 5 and Memory address DC00H.
Click to expand...
 
That seems strange! What version of pcomm are you using? Under Windows 95 I'm pretty sure that I had success with version 4.3.

Edit: I checked the manual for the card I'm using and it says the default I/O address is "271X"/"31X" and I recall making sure it was set to the default.

Edit again: Have you tried picking 271A or 31A? Perhaps XXX8 is the base port number and XXXA is just one of the ports in the range that the software uses and pcomm happens to show that one instead of the base or an "X". I can't recall what exactly I picked in pcomm myself.
 
Last edited:
I'm using Pcomm 4.3 under Windows 95, lots to me is strange here, last I used this stuff was 20 years ago, literally its been in a box since then, and my memory isn't fresh on this anymore.

I did install the pcomm to a fresh PC and try that using the default, which I do believe is 271A .

When I do connect in PCOMM now, using address 271A, I no longer get an error message but pcomm sits at "Connecting ..." and I get nothing further : ( (machine boots up to A9002000 so I should be getting something ).
Machine is plugged into the the first port on the twinax hub, station address of 0, etc.

Presently, my card fails the diagnostics (in dia-ea.com, "Error 0040 - Wrap data latch did not set during offline test" - PDF mentions to check -5v rail - I confirmed that's OK, so... I don't know how indicative this is ).

At the moment it seems my 5250 card is dead : ( ... maybe I'll get lucky and find one for non ebay prices and can try again...

Let me know if anything else comes to mind! I can provide additional screenshots if it would be helpful ...

thanks,
Jonathan
 
I finally got to check my setup (without any twinax plugged in, but hopefully that's irrelevant). I do have Pcomm 4.3 under Win95 set to I/O address 271A. It's set to IRQ 5 too, but the memory address is CC00, not DC00 like yours. I think the IRQ and memory address are both things the software configures the card to use via the I/O registers, so they just need to be set to values that don't conflict with anything else in the system, like a sound card in the case of IRQ 5.

I have a vague recollection of things staying in states like "connecting..." when I had an IRQ conflict. Presumably the software was able to talk to the card via the I/O ports and found what it wanted, but never got the IRQ indicating that a connection was established. I think there's a thread somewhere where I was struggling with this and ended up having to disable my parallel port so my sound card could go on IRQ 7 and the 5250 clone card could go on IRQ 5. Perhaps check for IRQ conflicts? Sorry I didn't think of this suggestion earlier!
 
Mmm, I will give that a try, I can't remember if I tried all memory addresses with the card or not. From changing the io address, it threw an error right away, but I don't recall on the memory one. I did need to pull out a few cards to get the IRQ to clear up (one was a sound card ... : ( ) , but parallel port was on irq7 here iirc.

Thanks for circling back, so far I haven't been able to get that card to work, something might be borked perhaps.
I ended up buying a IBM 82G7060 5250 which worked without a hitch, so that is good! Have it even working with the DOS 5250emu software, though unable to find a manual for how to send special commands yet, but its so much more convenient than needing to boot windows!

thanks again
 
Glad to hear you got something working!

If the adapter you were having trouble with is in fact compatible at a register level with an IBM Enhanced adapter, like mine is, you might be able to use the Enhanced 5250 Emulation Program with it (e.g. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/5250/Enhanced_5250_Emulation_Program_V2.4/), which is also a DOS program.

And if the 82G7060 adapter you're using now works with that program, you might find that program useful since there's documentation for it. I think I found earlier versions of the Enhanced ... Program with corresponding documentation somewhere too.
 
whoops, somehow missed your reply!
thanks VM for the link that is very helpful, exactly the software I have been using.
Please pass the others along if you ever come across them....
 
IBM Enhanced 5250 Emulation Program 2.12 (software only), 2.2 (software only) and 2.4 (manual only)
According to my notes, versions 2.12 and 2.2 always use IRQ 5. I assume the manual should be the same as the one I linked above, not sure if I ever checked this though. I think I was wrong in my previous post and I didn't actually find documentation for those older versions.

Also, some other DOS tools from https://ftpmirror.your.org/pub/misc/ftp.software.ibm.com/networking/pub/products/5250/ that might be useful:
  • lite5250.exe: Self-extracting .zip file containing "5250 Express Program Lite Version 4.0" for DOS and Windows 95
  • 5250boot.exe: Self-extracting disk creator dated Apr 12, 1999 containing bootable floppy with 5250 Express Version 4.0 set up for 5250 Express PCI (but I think this could be changed); doesn't seem to be a "lite" version like the above
I'm not sure if I found documentation for that "Express" program either.
 
Thanks VM
the software 2.4 manual I found in the first link you shared, and it was helpful for those special key combinations I was missing!
Need to try them out still, but per documentation at least I have some idea!

Thanks for the other link, will grab and try those out in the future too!

Appreciate it very much!
 
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