NewDeal Technical Support Document 262
When you launch Preferences and click on the Computer button, all the serial and parallel ports on your computer should be displayed. If you are sure that your computer has a port, but it is grayed out in Preferences, you can use DOS's DEBUG to force your NewDeal software to recognize the port. (DR DOS customers can use SID in place of DEBUG).
If the port is active, but the IRQ setting shows a question mark, just dial the spinner to the correct interrupt number, then click OK. The question mark remains next to the IRQ settings for the serial ports until the software accesses the port in the current session. Unless the software does not recognize a port, the simple thing to do is to ignore the question marks.
DEBUGDR-DOS users: at the DOS prompt, enter
d40:0,f
SIDIf DOS reports "Bad Command or Filename," then change to the subdirectory where DEBUG.EXE or SID.EXE is located and try again.
d40:0 f
0040:0000 f8 03 f8 02 00 00 00 00 78 03 00 00 00 00 00 00
com1 com2 com3 com4 lpt1 lpt2 lpt3 lpt3
When NewDeal starts up, it first examines the value for the COM1 location. If it finds the value f8 03, then it activates (darkens) COM1 in Preferences. If it finds the value f8 02, then it activates COM2 in Preferences (and leaves COM1 "grayed out"). If it finds 00 00, then it stops looking at serial ports. If NewDeal finds a value other than 00 00 in the location for COM1, then it goes on to the location for COM2 and so on. Note that NewDeal determines which COM port to activate according to the value, not the location.
Here are the values for the four possible serial ports:
When NewDeal finds a value of 00 00 in one of the serial port locations (or when it finishes with COM4), it starts examining the parallel port locations. NewDeal first looks at the location for LPT1. If it finds a value of 78 03,it activates LPT1 in Preferences. If it finds 78 02, then it activates LPT2 (and leaves LPT1 "grayed out"), and so on. Then NewDeal examines the next port location. If it finds 00 00, then it quits checking ports.
Here are the values for the four possible parallel ports:
MS-DOS users: to insert the values for serial ports at the DEBUG prompt, enter
e40:0followed by the values for the serial ports you have.
EXAMPLE 1: to insert values for COM1, COM2, and COM3, you would enter:
e40:0 f8 03 f8 02 e8 03 00 00
EXAMPLE 2: to insert values for COM2 and COM3 (leaving COM1 and COM4 "grayed out"):
e0:0 f8 02 e8 03 00 00 00 00
To check your work, enter d40:0 again at the DEBUG prompt. Then enter q to quit DEBUG.
DR-DOS (SID) users: to insert values for serial ports, enter the command:
s40:0then enter each value one at a time, hitting the Enter key after each one. After the last one, enter a period to exit the "s" command, then q to quit SID.
EXAMPLE 1: to insert values for COM1, COM2, and COM3, enter
s40:0
f8
03
f8
02
e8
03
00
00
.
q
EXAMPLE 2: to insert values for COM 2 and COM 3 (leaving COM1 and COM4 "grayed out"), enter
s40:0
f8
02
e8
03
00
00
00
.
q
MS-DOS users: at the DEBUG prompt, enter e40:8 followed by the values separated by spaces.
EXAMPLE 3: if you want LPT1 and LPT2, enter
e40:8 78 03 78 02 00 00 00 00
EXAMPLE 4: if you want a third parallel port, you'd enter
e40:8 78 03 78 02 3c 03 00 00
Then enter d:40:0 f to check your work and q to exit DEBUG.
DR-DOS (SID) users:for parallel ports, at the SID prompt, enter s40:8,then enter the values for your parallel ports one by one. Next, enter a period to exit the "s" command. Last, check your work with d40:0,f and enter q to quit SID.
The ports for which you inserted values should now be active in Preferences in the Computer section. However, the settings will be lost as soon as you turn off or reboot the computer. You probably don't want to have to enter all the information in DEBUG or SID each time you start up your computer, so...
To simplify the process you must create two files. You can use the NewDeal Text File Editor or any text editor to create the files. The first is a simple text file that contains the key presses which you would normally type in DEBUG or SID.
MS-DOS users:
EXAMPLE 1: For example number one above, create a file your text editor containing the following text:
e40:0 f8 03 f8 02 e8 03 00 00
q
EXAMPLE 3: For example number three above, create a file in your text editor containing the following text:
e40:8 78 03 78 02 00 00 00 00then save the file with any name you choose. For our examples, let's say you save it in the \NEWDEAL directory on your C drive with the name PORTVALS.TXT.
q
The second file you need is a batch file containing the following command:
DEBUG < C:\NEWDEAL\PORTVALS.TXT
DR DOS (SID) users:
Your first file would look like these:
EXAMPLE 1:
s40:0EXAMPLE 3:
f 8
0 3
f 8
0 2
e 8
0 3
0 0
0 0
.
q
s40:8
7 8
0 3
7 8
0 2
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
.
q
The second file you need is a batch file containing the following command:
SID < C:\NEWDEAL\PORTVALS.TXTALL users:
Use your text editor to create and save this batch file with any name you like (the filename must end with the extension .BAT). Let's say you save it in the same directory, C:\NEWDEAL, under the name SPRTVALS.BAT.
Whenever you want to insert the values, just run the batch file. You can do so by double-clicking on the batch file in NewManager, or by typing the name of the batch file at the DOS prompt.
If you want to run the batch file automatically every time you start up your computer, just add a line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file which CALLs the batch file. In our example, you would add the following line:
CALL C:\NEWDEAL\SPRTVALS
If your computer starts up a program automatically every time you turn it on (like NewDeal software, Windows, or a menu program, etc.), be sure to add the line that calls the batch file before the lines that load that program.