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QUICKCOMM Version 1.0 June 9, 1989 Copyright 1989 by David Cleary DISCLAIMER: This software is marketed as shareware and as such, is only guaranteed to take up disk space. The author is not responsible for any loss resulting in using this product. By choosing to use this product, you assume all risks involved. DISTRIBUTION: I encourage distribution of this software in its unmodified form as long as no fee is charge except a nominal disk charge not to exceed $10. I require that if you distribute this package, that it be distributed in a self extracting ZIP format. I have done this because there is no longer any standards left in the file archiving world. I don't like getting some software and then find that I have to get yet another unarcing utillity to use it. I have chosen ZIP because it works well and I think PKWARE origanated the self extracting type. REGISTRATION: I ask that everyone who tries this software, likes it, and plans on using it, to please register it. Registration is FREE and will allow you to receive free telephone support. By registering, you will also be notified about major updates and new product announcements. Please take the time to fill out the registration form at the end of this documentation. LICENSE: Quickcomm's four part licensing agreement: 1. You are free to use this package for your own personal use as you see fit. Read on about distributing programs. 2. If you use this package for a shareware or freeware product, all I ask for is a full registered version of the software and all rights I would receive as a registered user. I have done this to help promote shareware by providing these tools at no monetary cost to shareware authors. 3. If you use this package for a commercial product, a fee of $50 is required. This will entitle you to use this product royalty free for all versions of a particular product. A fee of $50 is required for each particular product you use this package for. 4. If you plan on using this package for software distributed in house of a corporation, a fee of $50 is required. This will allow your company all rights to use this product in any and all software distributed in house. Send a check or money order payable to David Cleary to the address on the registration form. CONTACTING THE AUTHOR: I can be contacted a number of ways. The fastest way is by sending in your free registration and receiving free telephone support. The next fastest way is by sending me a FIDO Netmail message to 1:141/730. I am also active in the QUIK_BAS and ECPROG FIDO echoes. I can be contacted on COMPUSERVE by sending mail to 76510,1725 or on PRODIGY by sending mail to HSRW18A although I am not very active on these services. You can also send a letter to me at the address on the registration form. ABOUT QUICKCOMM: I wrote QuickComm because of the problems I was having with the com routines in QuickBASIC. I would get device errors whenever there was line noise or just for no reason at all. I also need to support baud rates higher than 9.6K. I was able to work around these faults but after I wrote this, my programs became much more reliable and easier to use. QuickComm is an interrupt driven communications library for Microsoft QuickBASIC versions 4.0b and 4.5. It was written and compiled with Microsoft C 5.1 with all calls to routines in the C library rewritten in assembly. There is a layer of QB code to ease the user interface. While this is not the most efficient way of doing things, I felt it was necessary to make this product easy to use. There may be an advanced version in the future that doesn't contain this interface. QuickComm may support QuickBASIC version 3.0 in the future if there is demand for it. I know that version 3.0 does not do direct screen writes and also supports an alternate math library, making programs execute faster. Quickcom supports only Com1 and Com2 at this time. Support for more com ports will be included in the future as I learn more about the hardware involved. QuickComm will support a baud rate up to 112K although the actual baud you achieve will be limited to your hardware. Versions of QuickComm for Microsoft C/QuickC and Microsoft ForTran 4.1 may be available in the future if there is demand for it. There is no support planned for QuickPascal at this time because it is not compatible with other Microsoft languages and I don't have it. With the advent of QuickAssembler, I hope to optimize even further the assembly language generated by C 5.1 but this will take some time as I improve my programming in assembly. I also plan to release a toolbox for QuickComm that will be BASIC source for alot of communication functions. Registered users will be the first to know about the release. I have included source to two BASIC programs. The first is called TREMINAL. It is the program that is distributed with QuickBASIC. This program is what taught me how to use the serial port. The other program is called TERMQKCM. It is adapted to use the QuickComm library. I also suggest reading "Programming in BASIC. Selected Topics." for those of you who bought QB 4.0 and got the manuals. It explains thier TERMINAL program pretty well. I know this documentation sucks. I am sorry but when it started taking longer than the programming took, I had to rush it. When I release the next version of QuickComm, I promise that the documentation will be better. This is what happens when you wait till the end to do the documentation. A NOTE ABOUT CHAINING AND SHELLING: If you do door type programs and have to CHAIN or SHELL, here is a simple rule of thumb to follow. If the program you transfer control to does not need to access the com port, use SHELL. The interupt routine will stay in memory and handle all input while in the other program. If you need to transfer control to a program that has to use the com port, use call QComChain first and then use CHAIN or RUN. QComchain will remove the interrupt routine but keep DTR hi so your modem won't disconnect. Then if you are in another QB program, call QComInit to put the interrupt routine back in memory. If you don't call QComChain or QComClose before your program terminates or transfer control permenantly to another program, YOUR MACHINE WILL LOCK UP. It will jump to a place in memory that no longer has a valid routine and it will crash. When you use QuickCom in the enviroment, you should save your program before you run it. While I think I got it to work pretty well in the enviroment, I am not guarenteeing anything. If you loose cde because your machine locks up and you didn't save your program, you have been warned. QComBuffOut Function QuickBASIC Equiv: PRINT #1, Use: Ercd% = QComBuffOut("This is a string I want to print") Returns: 0 Worked properly. -2 Com Port not initialized. -4 Time out on Com Port handshake lines. -5 Transmit buffer not empty. #Bytes Returns number of bytes it put into the transmit buffer. The only way for this to happen is by sending more than 2048 bytes at a time. I had problems with this routine if I sent things while the buffer was still transmitting. It would stall and I don't know why. To solve this, the transmit buffer must be empty. This is so I can start the interrupts up in a reliable way. I hope to have this routine improved by the next release. This routine is very useful for file transfers. The size of the buffer is 2048 bytes. Once it gets done dumping the data into the buffer, you regain control while it is sending the data. This will allow you to get the next block of data from disk or other things you might have to do without slowing down the transfer. This does not add a carriage return/linefeed at the end. If you need that, you must add it yourself. EXAMPLE: OPEN "SENDTHIS.FIL" FOR BINARY AS #1 LEN=1024 'OPEN FILE 'YOU WANT 'TO SEND DO UNTIL EOF(1) GET #1,,A$ 'GET 1K BLOCK DO:LOOP UNTIL(QComXLoc = 0) 'WAIT FOR XMIT TO 'EMPTY IF (QComBuffOut(A$)) 'BUFFERED PRINT PRINT "ERROR TRANSMITTING FILE" END END IF LOOP QComChain Subroutine QuickBASIC Equiv: None Use: Call QComChain or just QComChain This routine is used to transfer control to another program permanently without dropping DTR. This is used when you use the QB commands CHAIN or RUN. It returns control over to the BIOS for all com input and output. You should make sure you don't have anything in the transmit or receive buffers when you call this or you will lose it. I hope it solves the problem people have with door programs and QB. I have not had to do anything like this myself so I am not sure exactly what people are trying to do. If this doesn't solve that problem, let me know and I will try to solve it. If you use the QB command SHELL to transfer control to another program, the interrupt routine still resides in memory and will function except the program you shelled to will not have any access to it. You should only use SHELL if you need to run a program that doesn't need to use the com port. Use CHAIN or RUN for all other purposes. EXAMPLE: QComChain 'CLOSE COM PORT LEAVING DTR HI CHAIN "NEXTPROG.EXE" 'PROGRAM TO TAKE CONTROL QComClose Subroutine QuickBASIC Equiv: CLOSE # Use: Call QComClose or just QComClose This routine is exactly the same as the QComChain routine except that it drops DTR. You must make sure you close the com port when your program terminates or you will have problems with you machine locking up. It will expect an area in memory to goto when there is input to the com port and will overwrite what's ever in memory there. EXAMPLE: QComClose 'CLOSE PORT AND RESET INT VECTOR END QComDTR Function QuickBASIC Equiv: None Use: ErCd% = QComDTR(Toggle) Toggle = 0 DTR Dropped Toggle = Not(0) DTR Raised Returns: 0 Worked Properly -2 Com Port not initialized This routine lets you control the DTR line. Sending it a 0 raises it and anything else drops it. EXAMPLE: IF (QComDTR(-1)) THEN PRINT "Com port not initialized" QComEOF Function QuickBASIC Equiv: A = EOF(1) Use: A = QComEOF Returns: 0 Data in receive buffer -1 Receive buffer empty This routine emulates QuickBASIC's EOF function. It returns a 0 if there is data in the buffer or a -1 if it is empty. EXAMPLE: IF NOT(QComEOF) 'CHECK FOR CHARACTERS IN RECEIVE BUFFER ModemIn$ = QComInput$(ErrorCode) 'GET CHARACTERS PRINT ModemIn$; 'PRINT CHARACTERS END IF QComFlush Subroutine QuickBASIC Equiv: None Use: CALL QComFlush This routine flushes the transmit and receive buffers. IMPORTANT... If you have a receive buffer overflow, you must make a call to this routine. Otherwise your program will be in limbo. EXAMPLE: CALL QComFlush QComInit Function QuickBASIC Equiv: OPEN "COM1:" Use: ErCd% = QComInit(Parameters$) Returns: 0 Worked properly -1 Syntax error in Parameter$ This is the heart of the package. This installs the interrupt routine and sets up all the parameters. Parameters$ has the following syntax: Port,Baud,Parity,Databits,Stopbits,Handshaking Port: COM1: COM2: Baud: 110 4800 150 9600 300 19200 600 38400 1200 57600 2400 115200 Parity: N E O Databits: 5 6 7 8 Stopbits: 1 2 Handshake: CTS NONE You select the parameters you want and separate them by commas and put them into a string. You can call this routine as many times as you want in order to change a parameter. You must include all of them. QuickComm supports COM1 or COM2. You can not switch com ports unless you call QComClose to close the port first. Quickcom supports baud rates from 110 to 115200. It supports CTS handshaking. If the receive buffer gets near full, RTS is dropped until the buffer is emptied. Of course the other computer must stop sending when RTS is dropped or you could still overrun the buffer. EXAMPLE: If you wanted to open COM1 at 2400 baud with 8 databits, 1 stopbit, no parity and CTS handshaking it would be: ErCd% = QComInit("COM1:,2400,N,8,1,CTS") Remember to put a comma between the COM1 and 2400. QComInput$ Function QuickBASIC Equiv: INPUT$() Use: ModemIn$ = QComInput$(ErCd%) Returns: String from recieve buffer. Errorcodes: 0 Worked properly -2 Com port not initialized -3 Receive buffer overflow -5 No characters in buffer This routine gets a string from the receive buffer. IMPORTANT... If you get a receive buffer overflow error, you must execute a QComFlush to have your program continue to function properly. EXAMPLE: ModemIn$ = QComInput$(ErCd%) IF ErCd% = -3 THEN CALL QComFlush QComOut Function QuickBASIC Equiv: PRINT # Use: ErCd% = QComOut("This is what I want to send.") Returns: 0 Worked properly. -2 Com Port not initialized. -4 Time out. This routine outputs a string to the com port with out buffering. It will output characters and when it is completed, will return control back to your program. This is what you should use unless you are sending a large amount of data. This routine does not add carraige returns or linefeeds so you have to add them to your string yourself if you want them. EXAMPLE: KeyInput$=INKEY$ IF KeyInput$<>"" THEN ErCd% = QComOut(KeyInput$) IF ErCd% THEN PRINT"ERROR TRYING TO OUTPUT TO COM PORT END IF QComRLoc Function QuickBASIC Equiv: A% = LOC(1) Use: Bytes% = QComRLoc Returns: 0 Receive buffer empty. >0 Number of bytes in receive buffer. This function returns the number of characters in the receive buffer. It ruturns 0 if the buffer is empty. EXAMPLE: See Use. QComRTS Function QuickBASIC Equiv: None Use: ErCd% = QComRTS(Toggle%) Toggle = 0 RTS Dropped Toggle = Not(0) RTS Raised Returns: 0 Worked Properly . -2 Com Port not initialized. This routine is similar to QComDTR except it works on the RTS line. You drop this line if you want the other guy to stop sending you stuff. If you select CTS handshaking when you call QComInit, DTR is automatically dropped when the buffer gets near full and is raised when it gets near empty. EXAMPLE: IF (QComDTR(-1)) THEN PRINT "Com port not initialized." QComXLoc Function QuickBASIC Equiv: None Use: Bytes% = QComXLoc Returns: 0 Transmit buffer empty. >0 Number of bytes in transmit buffer. This routine is similar to QComRLoc except it checks the transmit buffer. It will always return 0 unless you use QComBuffOut. EXAMPLE: See Use. Please mail this registration if you plan on using this program. Mail to: DAVID CLEARY LAKEVIEW TERRACE EXT. SANDY HOOK, CT 06482 NAME:___________________________________________________ ADDRESS:________________________________________________ CITY,STATE ZIP:_________________________________________ ANY COMMENTS,SUGGESTIONS,BUGS:__________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________