Vision Systems VScom 100E PCIex, VScom 200E PCIex, VScom 800E PCIex, VScom 400E PCIex, VScom PCI Card User Manual

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User Manual VScom PCI Cards

VScom PCIex Card

Edition: February 2010

Tel: +49 40 528 401 0 Fax: +49 40 528 401 99 Web: www.visionsystems.de Support: service@visionsystems.de

The software described in this manual is furnished under a license agreement and may be used only in accordance with the terms of that agreement.

Trademarks

VScom is a trademark of Vision Systems GmbH. All other trademarks and brands are property of their rightful owners.

Disclaimer

Vision Systems reserves the right to make changes and improvements to its product without providing notice.

Vision Systems provides this document “as is”, without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, its particular purpose. Vision Systems reserves the right to make improvements and/or changes to this manual, or to the products and/or the programs described in this manual, at any time.

Information provided in this manual is intended to be accurate and reliable. However, Vision Systems assumes no responsibility for its use, or for any infringements on the rights of third parties that may result from its use.

This product might include unintentional technical or typographical errors. Changes are periodically made to the information herein to correct such errors, and these changes are incorporated into new editions of the publication.

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 2

Contents

1 Overview 5

2 Introduction 5

2.1 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2 Product Speciﬁcations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.2.1 VScom 100E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.2.2 VScom 200E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.2.3 VScom 400E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.2.4 VScom 800E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.3 Packing List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.4 About this Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3 Windows Driver 11

3.1 Installing the Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.1.1 Install in Windows 9x, 2000, XP and Vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.1.2 Install in Windows 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.1.3 Verify the Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

About assigned port numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.1.4 Removing the Software in Windows 9x, 2000, XP and Vista . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.1.5 Removing the Software in Windows 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.2 Card and Port Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.2.1 Card and Ports in Device Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.2.2 Card Advanced Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3.2.3 Ports Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

VScom Standard Port Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

VScom Advanced Port Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Enhanced Software Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Automatic Software Flow Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Automatic Hardware Flow Control by RTS/CTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Automatic Hardware Flow Control by DTR/DSR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

3.3 Windows NT 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

3.3.1 Installing in Windows NT 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Automatic Detection of PCI Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Conﬁguration via Control Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

System Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Card and Port Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Uninstall Drivers from Windows NT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Checking Installation in Windows NT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

4 Connector Deﬁnitions 35

4.1 DB9 male . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

4.2 DB25 male . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4.3 DB44 female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4.4 DB62 female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.5 DB25 male RS 232 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4.6 DB25 female RS 232 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 3

List of Tables

5 History 40

List of Figures

1 VScom 100E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 VScom 200E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3 VScom 400E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

4 VScom 800E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

5 Windows 7 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

6 Driver Installation Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

7 Windows 7 Installing Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

8 Windows 7 Driver Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

9 Windows 7 Drivers removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

10 Cards and Ports in Device Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

11 Card Advanced Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

12 Port Renaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

13 Standard Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

14 Advanced Settings 16C950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

15 Advanced Settings 16C550A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

16 UART Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

17 Software Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

18 Auto XON/XOFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

19 Auto RTS/CTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

20 Auto DTR/DSR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

21 Auto-DTR Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

22 NT Plug & Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

23 NT Device list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

24 DB9 male Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

25 DB25 male Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

26 DB44 female Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

27 DB62 female Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

28 DB25 male RS232 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

29 DB25 female RS232 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

List of Tables

1 Features of VScom PCIex models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Features of VScom 100E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3 Features of VScom 200E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4 Features of VScom 400E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

5 Features of VScom 800E PCIex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

6 DB9 male Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

7 DB25 male Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

8 DB44 female Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

9 DB62 female Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

10 DB25 male RS232 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

11 DB25 female RS232 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 4

2 Introduction

1 Overview

VScom provides several models of serial port cards for PCI Express bus, also named PCIe. This modern serial bus is the successor of several parallel PCI variants. It is a fast bus, and the size of bus connectors can be very small. Since mainboard design with PCI Express is more easy than with fast parallel PCI, the classic PCI slots will vanish from modern systems in the future.

Serial ports are required much longer than that. So there is a demand to to implement serial port boards for PCI Express. VScom has done so with the modern E-series cards, ranging from one to eight ports. The cards are designed to control industrial hardware via asynchronous serial ports, as many software requires today.

The supplied drivers for Windows operating system install the serial ports into the Windows API, so they appear as the usual Com ports software requires. A rich set of driver options is conﬁgured via the Device Manager in Windows. The driver allows to conﬁgure the serial ports for a bitrate of up to 15.6Mbps. Of course RS 232 can not reliably transport very high bitrates, even under best conditions 1 Mbit/s is the limit. As the result of the extreme high maximum bitrate, there is no bitrate below 1 Mbit/s which the cards can not generate. No matter which conﬁguration the hardware requires, the VScom PCIex cards deliver it.

2 Introduction

This manual describes the hardware of VScom PCIex cards. PCIex is the name used in VScom products for PCI Express products. Also the Windows driver for these cards is described in detail.

2.1 Features

• PCI Express 1 Lane

• Serial port interface RS232

• Max 15.625Mbps

• Huge FIFO buﬀers 128 Byte

• Drivers for Windows™ operating system

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 5

2 Introduction

2.2 Product Speciﬁcations

The VScom PCIex cards share some common properties, the most important diﬀerence is the number of serial ports. The maximum speed is 15.625 Mbit/s, but this is theoretical because the electrical interface RS 232 is not capable of such transmission rates.

Bus interface PCIe x1 PCI Express, max. 500MByte/s Serial Ports 1 to 8 RS 232 Signals RS 232 RxD, TxD, RTS, CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD, RI, GND Max. Bitrates Theoretical 15.625 Mbit/s

Eﬀective 1 Mbit/s

Serial conﬁgurations Data bits 5, 6, 7, 8

Parity None, Odd, Even, Mark, Space Stop bits 1, 1.5, 2

FIFO size 128 Bytes For transmit and receive each

Table 1: Features of VScom PCIex models

2.2.1 VScom 100E PCIex

The VScom 100E PCIex card features one serial port, available via a PCI Express slot.

Figure 1: VScom 100E PCIex

Serial Ports 1 RS 232 Connectors 1×DB9 male Standard for RS 232 Signals RS 232 RxD, TxD, RTS,CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD, RI, GND

Table 2: Features of VScom 100E PCIex

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 6

2 Introduction

2.2.2 VScom 200E PCIex

The VScom 200E PCIex card features two serial ports, available via a PCI Express slot. Both serial ports share one common connector DB25-male, an adapter cable is included. For signal assignment see 4.2.

Figure 2: VScom 200E PCIex

A model for Low Proﬁle cases is available.

Serial Ports 2 RS 232 Connectors 1×DB25 male Adapter to 2×DB9 male included Signals RS 232 RxD, TxD, RTS, CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD, RI, GND

Table 3: Features of VScom 200E PCIex

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 7

2 Introduction

2.2.3 VScom 400E PCIex

The VScom 400E PCIex card features four serial ports, available via a PCI Express slot. All four serial ports share one common connector DB44-female, an adapter cable is included. For signal assignment see 4.3.

Figure 3: VScom 400E PCIex

A model for Low Proﬁle cases is available.

Serial Ports 4 RS 232 Connectors 1×DB44 female Adapter to 4×DB9 male included Signals RS 232 RxD, TxD, RTS, CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD, RI, GND

Table 4: Features of VScom 400E PCIex

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 8

2 Introduction

2.2.4 VScom 800E PCIex

The VScom 800E PCIex card features eight serial ports, available via a PCI Express slot. All eight serial ports share one common connector DB62-female. For signal assignment see 4.4.

An adapter cable to eight times DB9-male is not provided, customers can choose from several connection options. There are Octopus-type cables to DB9 and DB25, male and female. There are also connection boxes for DB9 male, or DB25 male and female. Also converter boxes to RS 422 and RS 485 are possible.

Figure 4: VScom 800E PCIex

Serial Ports 8 RS 232 Connectors 1×DB62 female Adapter not included Signals RS 232 RxD, TxD, RTS, CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD, GND

Table 5: Features of VScom 800E PCIex

Note: There is no RI signal, because no pins are available for this on the DB62 connector.

2.3 Packing List

All models are shipped with a driver CD-ROM, which includes the documentation and the driver software.

VScom 200E PCIex An adapter cable DB25 male to 2×DB9 male is included

VScom 400E PCIex An adapter cable DB44 female to 4×DB9 male is included

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2 Introduction

2.4 About this Manual

This manual describes the hardware of VScom PCIex Cards, as well as signal assignments. There is no conﬁguration option for customers.

The part describing the driver is generic for all VScom PCI cards, the same in all manuals. It will describe options not available on the VScom PCIex Cards, mainly parallel ports. Just ignore such sections. Also Windows NT and even older versions of Windows operating system are mentioned. There are drivers for these old systems, however they are without warranty. Since modern mainboards with PCI Express slots are not supported in these OS versions, customers use these drivers at their own risc.

The screen shots in this manual are made on an English language version of Windows XP. It is not diﬃcult to ﬁnd the appropriate part in any other language version of Windows.

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 10

3 Windows Driver

This chapter of the manual documents the drivers for Windows Operating Systems. The driver is basically the same for all the VScom PCI cards available, independent of the model. As one consequence there is only one driver for download, linked to from all the products. It does not matter which link you use.

When Windows loads the driver, the type of card is identiﬁed. The driver adapts to the options available on the certain card, and disables or hides other options. Because of the great similarity of the products, users ﬁnd the options always at the same positions, they do not have to learn each product individually.

The following text is common to all cards, important diﬀerences are mentioned when necessary. When a described option is not available on your product, this is not an error. This option is just not oﬀered by your hardware.

The manual ﬁrst describes the process of installing the driver software, followed by instructions for removing the drivers in the unlikely case you whish to do this. The drivers still support very old phased out products, as well as old Windows versions 95 to ME (9x strand) and NT. The old Windows systems are no longer supported by Microsoft, so there may be hidden problems on your computer. These may cause the VScom cards to malfunction in your system. Said that, we can not guarantee the old products operate reliably, and also modern products may have unexpected behaviour in old operating systems. The old operating systems are just mentioned in the following.

Many VScom cards may be installed simultaneously. In fact the driver does not limit the number of cards installed, Windows does. In Windows 9x the maximum number of serial or parallel ports installed is 127, in Windows NT or later the limit is 256 ports of serial or parallel kind.

The current version of the driver is 3.1.2.

3.1 Installing the Drivers

Windows Systems perform the hardware detection by Plug & Play, you do not have to conﬁgure the card in any way. Special DIP switches as described above of course are an exception.

Windows NT performs diﬀerent, this is described later (section 3.3).

3.1.1 Install in Windows 9x1, 2000, XP and Vista

1. Install the card in your system and boot Windows.

2. Log on to an account with administrative privileges. In Windows 95/98/98SE/ME each account is appropriate, Windows NT is handled extra below.

3. Windows will automatically detect the VScom PCIex Card.

4. The “Add New Hardware Wizard” dialog box appears and searches for new drivers for the VScom PCIex Card.

Windows 95 up to Windows ME

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3 Windows Driver

5. Click on “Next”.

6. From the listed box, choose “Search for the best driver for your device”.

7. Click on “Next”.

8. If not done already, insert the driver CD into the CD-ROM drive.

9. From the generated choices, choose “CD-ROM drive”.

10. Windows searches for the driver, and detects the .inf-ﬁle on the CD. It is ready to install the driver for VScom PCIex Card. Click on “Next”.

11. On some systems Windows may claim about a “Missing digital signature”. This is not an error, just “Continue”.

12. Click on Finish.

13. Windows now detects the COM ports on the VScom PCIex Card.

14. If Windows requests the driver disk again, point to the directory named after your operating system, e.g. “Windows XP (32 bit)”.

15. Windows will copy and install the driver for the new PCI serial ports.

16. You might be asked to restart your computer in the process. We suggest to wait with until all components (cards and serial ports) are completely installed, and restart then.

3.1.2 Install in Windows 7

Windows 7 looks diﬀerent when installing drivers. It seems it is very diﬀerent from the other Plug & Play enabled versions. But this is a deception. When detecting new hardware Windows ﬁrst visits the website of Windows Update to ﬁnd a suitable driver, which shall be installed. If none is found, Windows searches the local system for the required driver, and loads it. If also there is none, this would be the time to pop-up the “Add New Hardware Wizard”, so the user can supply a driver. And this step does not happen in Windows 7, the Wizard does not appear2.

Instead Microsoft decided to have the user run an installation program for the hardware. This software will install all the driver ﬁles to the system, and then initiates a hardware detection process. This installation program in version 3.3.0.15 is available for all cards.

The following assumes the card is already installed in a slot.

1. Start the installation program. On the CD-ROM this is named vscompci.exe, and vscompcix64.exe for the x64 Edition of Windows 7. For download from download it is available as a self-extracting ﬁle, which detects the system automatically. This is the program, click on “Install”.

It is still available using some tricks

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3 Windows Driver

Figure 5: Windows 7 Installation

2. The software requests a location to install the required ﬁles.

Figure 6: Driver Installation Target

Conﬁrm the location.

3. The installation proceeds.

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3 Windows Driver

Figure 7: Windows 7 Installing Drivers

When this is completed, the hardware is recognized by Windows 7, and the drivers are loaded. This may take some time, especially for many serial ports.

It is also possible to ﬁrst run the Installation program. This will install the drivers in the same way, but they are not loaded. The system is prepared to detect a card. After shut down and installation of the hardware the serial ports are installed without further user intervention. The same happens when more cards are added to an existing system.

3.1.3 Verify the Installation

You can now verify the installation by looking at the “Multi-port serial adapters” section of the Device Manager (Go there by Start - Settings - Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager). There you will ﬁnd the new device “VScom PCIex Card” listed.

Select this, and open the properties. In the “Advanced” tab, click the “Check” button to verify the speed setting from the hardware installation. You may also rename the ports here.

About assigned port numbers In some systems the ports will receive numbers customers do not expect. For example a card with two serial ports may receive the names ’Com5’ and ’Com8’, but

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 14

3 Windows Driver

the expected ports ’Com3’ and ’Com4’ do not appear in the Device Manager. This is neither an error of the card or the driver, it is just how Windows manages port numbers.

Windows maintains an internal database3of port numbers which have been assigned to some hardware in the past. These numbers are skipped when assigning port names to new hardware. The numbers may be changed after installation of VScom hardware.

3.1.4 Removing the Software in Windows 9x4, 2000, XP and Vista

To remove installed ﬁles and Windows registry information

1. Go to the directory where you installed the driver from as described above.

2. Double click the “VSCLEAN.EXE”, and reboot your computer when asked to.

3.1.5 Removing the Software in Windows 7

To remove installed ﬁles and Windows registry information you may use the same way as in the past (above 3.1.4). Or you may use the installation software.

1. Start the installation program, and use the “Remove” option.

A Binary value in the registry: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\COM Name Arbiter

Windows 95 up to Windows ME

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3 Windows Driver

Figure 8: Windows 7 Driver Removal

2. Short time later the removal is done.

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3 Windows Driver

Figure 9: Windows 7 Drivers removed

3.2 Card and Port Conﬁguration

Each card is organized in two types of components in the system. One type is for the card itself, i.e. the basic PCI interface. The other type is for the ports. This is reﬂected in Windows and the driver software.

3.2.1 Card and Ports in Device Manager

The category where the VScom cards are installed is ‘Multi-port serial adapters’. And as expected there is the category of ‘Ports (COM & LPT)’ for the serial ports. Both categories are standard on Windows.

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3 Windows Driver

Figure 10: Cards and Ports in Device Manager

Shown here are the data of some serial and parallel VScom cards in the Device Manager. There are many cards installed simultaneously, just to show this is possible.

The 800EH is displayed as two items in ‘Multi-port serial adapters’. Because the H-series cards support two functions each card is listed as two devices. The 800EH card appears as two groups of serial ports. The same happens for the 210H card, with two serial ports in one group, and the parallel port in the other.

L-series cards like 200L or 210L put all ports in one component, so serial and parallel ports may be mixed.

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3 Windows Driver

3.2.2 Card Advanced Settings

Open the properties of a card via the Device Manager, and select the “Advanced” tab. These are the advanced settings for a VScom card, a VScom 210L UPCI in this case.

Figure 11: Card Advanced Properties

This panel displays the ports of the card, and their assigned names in Windows.

For serial (COM) ports there is the “Clock Frequency”. Some models allow to change this clock, which is the same for all ports on a card. When installing a card the driver attempts to detect the clock of the serial ports. If the system is very busy while installing the driver, the detection may yield a wrong result.

If you have communication problems after installation, click the “Check” button. The driver will measure the actual speed again, and change the entry as needed. There is no option to manually enter the clock value. Unless you have very special requests you should leave the hardware at top speed. This oﬀers higher speed and a wider range of bitrates, especially unusual conﬁgurations.

The display of parallel (LPT) ports is similar.

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3 Windows Driver

The COM- or LPT-assignments of each port may be changed from the initial values after installing the drivers. To change the assignment just double-click the entry in the “Advanced” panel.

Figure 12: Port Renaming

Then this panel is opened for renaming a port.

In some cases it may be useful to change the name from COM (or LPT) to something else. Do this only if you exactly know what you are doing. Usually you will change the number of the ﬁrst port only. With the ‘Autoenumerate’ feature enabled the subsequent ports receive the next numbers. However it is possible to assign port numbers with gaps in between.

3.2.3 Ports Conﬁguration

The available functions of the serial ports depend on the type of UART implemented on the card. Cards with 16C550A type serial ports provide less conﬁguration than the 16C950 UART. As a consequence some panels are just missing. This is not a sign of an error.

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3 Windows Driver

VScom Standard Port Settings

Figure 13: Standard Settings

This panel is well known to most users, it is similar to the panel used by the Microsoft driver for Com1/2.

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3 Windows Driver

VScom Advanced Port Settings The Microsoft driver for Com1/2 provides some control of FIFO conﬁguration. The Advanced Settings are for similar purposes, but with extended functions.

Figure 14: Advanced Settings 16C950

The VScom H- and E-series cards use a 16C950 UART to transmit data. This chip and the driver can emulate a variety of other UARTS. We suggest to use the standard value of 16950, the driver is optimized for this. If the driver is used for other VScom series, a diﬀerent UART may be implemented. The available emulations depend on this. At least a 16550 is possible with all series. The possible settings for FIFO control depend on the chosen emulation.

Here the elements one by one

UART type This is to choose the emulation. The UARTS of type 16450 and 8250 operate without

FIFO. We suggest to use the highest possible setting for best operation.

Use Memory Access Instead of operating the UART via I/O, it is possible to operate it via Memory

Access. In critical systems this can save a little amount of performance. It may be worth a try, however VScom recommends to stay with the box unchecked.

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Receive Trigger Level The time when the UART generates an interrupt for received data. It deﬁnes

the amount of data necessary to do this. With the 16950 you may select any value from 1 to 128. Other types allow only certain values. Higher values increase performance, lower values decrease possibility for loss of data. As a reference: the usual value for a 16C550A is 8, leaving space for 8 more bytes to receive.

Transmit Trigger Level The time when the UART generates an interrupt for sent data. When the

transmit FIFO contains less data than this, the interrupt is issued. This value is not available with all emulations. Higher values make a smoother transmission of data, but increase the system load.

Transmit Buﬀer Length The amount of data sent to the UART when the transmit FIFO is empty.

This is a complete software item. The value ranges from 1 to the FIFO size of the emulation. Higher values increase transmission performance. The typical value here is 16, the FIFO size of a 16550. This value must not be less than the Transmit trigger level. CAUTION: external hardware - such as a modem - must be able to handle this blocksize, very old systems may require to reduce this parameter to ‘1’.

Enable TCR The 16C950 UART used on the H-series cards has some hardware option to get very

high bit rates, up to 3.6Mbps. Of course these bit rates can not be used on RS 232, but there are other advantages. The maximum serial speed is raised, so there are more possible bit rates available in the usual range of RS 232 transmission. This allows to use some more rather unusual settings for transmission rates, some special hardware may require. Possible products with RS 422/485 line drivers can use such high bit rates. Since this option may reduce the transmission accuracy in certain environments, it is disabled by default.

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Figure 15: Advanced Settings 16C550A

The VScom L-series cards have a 16C550A compatible UART for the serial ports. The Receive Trigger Level only prvides the four steps 1, 4, 8 and 14. There is no Transmit Trigger Level, hence this slider is disabled. The Transmit Buﬀer Length ranges from 1 to 16 only. The serial port can emulate the 16C450 and the ancient 8250 UART.

Figure 16: UART Types

Remarks on the UART Emulation Modes Usually the best choice for the UART type emulation is just the best availabe, i.e. the standard 16C950 model. However some hardware options may be conﬁgured to match the functions of less advanced types. This may be required for rare and very

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special situations, though in in some of those it is even better to just change the conﬁguration of the other parameters.

8250 The FIFO is totally switched oﬀ, as are all other options. The real 8250 UART had a speed

limitation of 57600 bps, this is maintained by software here.

16450 The most common UART in the late 1980 decade. There still is no FIFO available, the

maximum bitrate is raised to 115200 bps. Sometimes this Emulation may be useful, if the connected device is overrun by the transmitted data. But usually it is better to restrict the Transmit Buﬀer length to 1.

16550 The most common UART until today. There are 16 Byte FIFO for transmit and receive

each, and four trigger levels for receive. The built-in serial ports of modern computers use this UART model, with a maximum speed of 115200 bps, which is 921600 bps on VScom cards.

16650 This UART basically has 32 bytes FIFOfor transmit and receive each, and also four trigger

levels for receive. However this emulation uses 128 Bytes FIFO for receive. Additional function is automatic Flow Control by RTS/CTS or XON/XOFF.

16750 This is another UART with extended FIFO compared to the 16550 model. In basic con-

ﬁguration ther are 16/16 Byte FIFO, which can be increased to 64/64 Byte. However as an emulation it uses 128/128 byte FIFO. Also automatic Flow Control by RTS/CTS and Xon/Xoﬀ is possible.

16850 This is another UART model with 128/128 Byte FIFO.

16950 This is the native mode the ports on the VScom cards are used. In most situations it is

better to use this mode, and restrict the options to a suitable conﬁguration.

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Enhanced Software Settings

Figure 17: Software Settings

This is a special feature of the VScom driver. In older driver versions it was simply called Overspeed.

Overspeed opens the possibility to get other speeds than the application requested for. The application requests a certain speed; this is multiplied with the value deﬁned in here. The result is set as the real speed. Possible factors range from 0.125 (1 divided by 8) up to 32 in steps of 0.125. Of course you can not get a speed which is higher than the maximum speed of the port (921600 bps /

3.6 Mbps). The normal value is 1 of course, and it should be left there. This is a feature with some risk. With a modem you very easy get a speed the modem can not handle.

Examples:

• Wrong: Overspeed is set to 8. The modem has a maximum interface rate of 460800 Baud. When the application requests 115200, the result is 921600 Baud. The modem can not handle this.

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• Wrong: Overspeed is set to 2. The application requests 38400, the result is 76800. Even when this is below the maximum speed of the modem, it does not recognize this speed in many cases. Operation is not possible.

• Wrong: Windows searches for Modems at certain speeds. Modem detection may fail, because of wrong settings.

• Correct: The application is limited to 19200. Overspeed my be 6 or 12 to get 115200 or even 230400 with a modern modem.

Automatic Software Flow Control

Figure 18: Auto XON/XOFF

This panel conﬁgures the On-Chip Software Flow Control provided by the UART. Only some UART types support the Flow Control directly on the chip. Use the 16950 emulation to allow rich possibilities.

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Transmit control Enable This enables the automatic control when sending data. If the receiving

device sends a stop (Xoﬀ) signal, transmission is halted. When a continue (Xon) signal is received, transmission continues. This reduces the probability of sending too much data to the receiver. This does not need any processing by the main processor.

Transmit control Xon/Xoﬀ Character The special characters acting as continue and stop signals

as above. Normally stop (Xoﬀ) is a ^S (dec: 19, hex: $13), continue (Xon) is a ^Q (dec: 17, hex: $11). You should not change these values.

Receive control Enable This enables the automatic control when receiving data. When to much

data is received and not read by the processor, the UART generates a stop signal to the other side. When enough data is read by the processor, the UART generates a continue signal.

Receive control Xon/Xoﬀ Character Same function as Transmit control above. Even when it is

possible to use other values than above, we strongly recommend to use the standard values.

Receive control TriggersXon The level when the UART generates the continue signal. When the

processor reads the received data, the amount remaining in the UART will eventually fall below this limit. At that time the continue signal is issued to the other side.

Receive control TriggersXoﬀ The level when the UART generates the stop signal. When this

amount of data is received and stored in the FIFO, the UART issues the stop signal to hold further transmission by the other side. This value must be higher than the Xon Trigger. Depending on the global situation (processor speed, system load, transmission parameters, transmitting device, ...) possible values can be: 32 (quarter of FIFO) for Xon and 64 (half) for Xoﬀ.

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Automatic Hardware Flow Control by RTS/CTS

Figure 19: Auto RTS/CTS

This panel conﬁgures the On-Chip RTS/CTS Hardware Flow Control provided by the UART. The function of this panel is similar to the software Flow control panel. However, the stop and start signals are provided by the RTS and CTS signals. RTS controls the input (receive) direction, while CTS controls output.

Basics of hardware ﬂow control: When CTS is asserted by the other side, transmission is allowed. If deasserted, transmission is halted. When the system is ready to receive data, it asserts the RTS line to the other side. If it needs a pause, it deasserts RTS.

RTS Enable Selects the On-Chip receive Flow control.

RTS on Function is similar to the Xon slider from above.

RTS oﬀ Function is similar to the Xoﬀ slider from above.

CTS Enable Selects the On-Chip transmit Flow control, similar to the Transmit Control above.

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Automatic Hardware Flow Control by DTR/DSR

Figure 20: Auto DTR/DSR

This panel selects the function of DTR/DSR Hardware Flow control. This function of the UART oﬀers more options.

Control kind How DTR is intended to operate.

Disabled: No Flow control for receive.

Triggered: Flow control similar to RTS Enable.

RS485 Low Active: This can be used to control a converter RS232RS485, see below. DTR

is low while data is transmitted.

RS485 High Active: This can be used to control a converter RS232RS485, see below. DTR

is high while data is transmitted.

DTR on Compare the slider of RTS on.

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DTR oﬀ Compare the slider of RTS oﬀ.

DSR enable Enables transmission control via the DSR input.

RS 485 operation RS485 very often uses a shared medium (one pair of wires) to send and receive

data. This requires the ability to disable the transmission unit. It must be oﬀ to receive data, and must be switched on when transmitting. After transmit is ﬁnished it must be oﬀ again as soon as possible.5Very often this switching is controlled via signals like RTS or DTR. But in many environments it is diﬃcult for an application to do this in a reasonable time. Now this option can help.

Figure 21: Auto-DTR Modes

The UART controls the DTR by itself. As long as data is in the transmission FIFO the DTR signal is held High (or Low). When the transmission FIFO is empty the DTR changes. An external converter may monitor this signal to act as needed.

RS 485 usage can be compared to communication over handheld transceiver, many people are familiar with this. To talk one has to press a button. If two or more persons talk at the same time, no one can hear clearly. For listening the button has to be released. Now the DTR operates like an “automatic” button, which presses itself as soon as one starts to talk. And it releases afterwards while the user is silent.

This feature is very useful for older applications. Often there are applications written for a halfduplex protocol6over RS 232. Now this must operate over a longer distance. So RS 485 is chosen to transmit the data. But the application does not know about this, and does not control the RTS or DTR signal. The driver can do this invisible to the application.

3.3 Windows NT 4.0

Windows NT 4.0 is diﬀerent from Windows 2000 up to the latest versions of Vista, and also the no longer supported7strand of 9x systems (Windows 95 up to ME). These other are all Plug & Play systems, meaning they will detect8added hardware themselves. Users are asked to provide the required driver ﬁles. In Windows NT drivers are installed, and fail to load if the hardware is not available.

The VScom drivers for Windows NT implement the Plug & Play functions in a limited sense. There is a supervisor utility, restricted to detect VScom PCI cards.

Think of it as talking by Walkie-Talkie

XMODEM and YMODEM are good examples

By Microsoft that is, they ceased support for all versions up to Windows 2000

You may even conﬁgure the hardware via Windows

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3.3.1 Installing in Windows NT 4.0

You need to have administrator privileges to install any new drivers under Windows NT 4.0. To install the driver or update the conﬁguration please log on to Windows NT 4.0 as “Administrator” or ask your system administrator to install the VScom PCIex Card and driver. Please proceed with the following steps to install the driver:

1. Switch on the computer and start Windows NT 4.0.

2. Insert the supplied CD-ROM into the drive.

3. If your system is conﬁgured for Auto-start of CD-ROM, go to the products page, ﬁnd your product and select driver. You’ll ﬁnd a link to the NT4 drivers directory.

4. Otherwise double click on “My Computer”, and choose your CD-ROM drive.

5. Double Click “Windows NT 4.0”.

6. Double Click “PCI_Driver”.

7. Double click “vsinst.EXE’’.

8. The Installer starts and requests conﬁrmation of installation. You may change the target directory for the software. If there is a space in the name, please use the short name (e.g. PROGRA~1 for “Program Files”) instead.

9. Click Yes, and Reboot when requested.

Automatic Detection of PCI Cards The system detects a new VScom Card when an Administrator logs on to Windows NT 4.0

Figure 22: NT Plug & Play

The default option is to immediately install and conﬁgure the new card. However the upper checkbox allows to delay the conﬁguration to the next logon. The lower check-box disables the check for new hardware until explicitly enabled again.

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Conﬁguration via Control Panel The installation program also adds the “VScom PCI” applet to the Control Panel of WindowsNT. Open it, to get access again to the conﬁguration panel (ﬁgure 22).

System Conﬁguration This panel opens when a new hardware is detected, or when the conﬁguration is explicitly opened via the control panel.

Figure 23: NT Device list

This is the basic conﬁguration panel for the VScom PCI driver in Windows NT 4.0; the lower check-box re-enables the automatic check for new hardware. Here is the place to revoke the change done in the detection panel.

The upper check-box enables to uninstall the drivers for already removed cards, without a complete uninstall of the drivers. Diﬀerent from other Windows, in NT all installed drivers load and check for there hardware. This is not eﬃcient when the hardware is removed some time ago, and causes error messages in the event viewer. The properties of each installed VScom PCI card and its ports are associated with the PCI slot where the card is placed. When a card is removed or displaced, it is necessary to display the settings via this check-box. Then the board may be selected and removed.

Card and Port Conﬁguration Open the panel as shown in ﬁgure 23. Select a VScom controller under “VScom Cards” to gain access to the card properties. Or select an individual port under “VScom Ports” to change its settings. The options are explained in the general sections of this documentation.

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Uninstall Drivers from Windows NT To remove installed ﬁles and Windows registry information

1. Go to the Control Panel.

2. Open the “Add/Remove programs” applet.

3. Select “Vscom drivers for ...”.

4. Click “Remove”.

5. “VScom install” requests to conﬁrm the uninstall, Click “Yes”.

6. Reboot the computer when requested.

However Windows NT 4.0 does not perform such an automated search. Users have to run the ‘VSINST.EXE’ program from the driver set, to install the cards. This installs the drivers to the system, and also a service for automatic detection of VScom PCI cards. Restricted to these cards, the usage is as handy as with modern Windows versions.

Checking Installation in Windows NT You can now verify the installation by looking at the “Administrative Tools” section of the “Windows NT Diagnostics (also called WinMSD)” (Go there by Start - Setting - Windows NT Diagnostics - Administrative Tools - Resources). There you will ﬁnd new device “vscnt” listed.

Double click on it, you will see the IRQ and I/O information.

Click on the right tab, you can see all the detailed information of IRQ, Input/Output & Memory Range used by PCI Ports.

Open the “VScom PCI” applet (see 3.3.1) in the control panel (Go there by Start - Setting - Control panel). Open “VS Cards” and double click on the detected controller to open the properties. In the “advanced” tab, click the “Check” button to verify the speed setting from the hardware installation.

You may also rename the serial ports here.

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4 Connector Deﬁnitions

The VScom PCIex cards provide various connectors for the signals of the serial ports. Either DB9 male connectors are directly available on the card, or a common connector for all ports is mounted on the bracket. This way each model only needs one slot to ﬁt in.

The signal assignment for RS 232 on DB9 male connectors is deﬁned by the term “RS 232” already. The same is for the female type, as well as for DB25 male and female connectors. Below is the signal deﬁnition for all connectors used by the VScom PCIex cards. DB9 male signals are mentioned for completeness.

4.1 DB9 male

Usually this type of connector is used by customers.

Pin RS232 Pin RS 232

1 DCD 6 DSR 2 RxD 7 RTS 3 TxD 8 CTS 4 DTR 9 RI 5 GND

Table 6: DB9 male Connector

Figure 24: DB9 male Connector

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4.2 DB25 male

This common connector is for two serial ports. So each signal name appears twice, it will have an index like (1) for the ﬁrst serial port of the card. The serial ports are neither isolated nor isolated from each other, so GND is common and has no index. “.nc.” is a no-connect pin.

Pin RS 232 Pin RS 232

1 DCD (1) 14 DSR (1) 2 RxD (1) 15 RTS (1) 3 TxD (1) 16 CTS (1) 4 DTR (1) 17 DTR (1) 5 GND 18 .nc. 6 .nc. 19 .nc. 7 .nc. 20 .nc. 8 .nc. 21 .nc.

9 DCD (2) 22 DSR (2) 10 RxD (2) 23 RTS (2) 11 TxD (2) 24 CTS (2) 12 DTR (2) 25 RI (2) 13 GND

Table 7: DB25 male Connector

Figure 25: DB25 male Connector

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4.3 DB44 female

This common connector is for four serial ports. So each signal name appears four times, it will have an index like (3) for the third serial port of the card. The serial ports are neither isolated nor isolated from each other, so GND is common and has no index.

Pin RS232 Pin RS 232 Pin RS 232

1 CTS (4) 16 DTR (4) 31 GND 2 RTS (4) 17 TxD (4) 32 GND 3 DSR (4) 18 RxD (4) 33 RI (4) 4 RI (3) 19 DCD (4) 34 GND 5 CTS (3) 20 DTR (3) 35 GND 6 RTS (3) 21 TxD (3) 36 GND 7 DSR (3) 22 RxD (3) 37 GND 8 RI (2) 23 DCD (3) 38 GND

9 CTS (2) 24 DTR (2) 39 GND 10 RTS (2) 25 TxD (2) 40 GND 11 DSR (2) 26 RxD (2) 41 GND 12 DTR (1) 27 DCD (2) 42 RI (1) 13 TxD (1) 28 CTS (1) 43 GND 14 RxD (1) 29 RTS (1) 44 GND 15 DCD (1) 30 DSR (1)

Table 8: DB44 female Connector

Figure 26: DB44 female Connector

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4.4 DB62 female

This connector is used for many of VScom products with eight serial ports. So customers can easily change from an old product for Universal PCI to PCI Express, without worrying about the external components.

The connector is common, so each signal name appears eight times, it will have an index like (3) for the third serial port of the card. The serial ports are neither isolated nor isolated from each other, so GND is common and has no index.

Pin RS 232 Pin RS 232 Pin RS 232

1 TxD (1) 22 RxD (1) 43 CTS (1) 2 DTR (1) 23 DSR (1) 44 RTS (1) 3 RxD (2) 24 DCD (1) 45 GND 4 DSR (2) 25 TxD (2) 46 CTS (2) 5 DCD (2) 26 DTR (2) 47 RTS (2) 6 TxD (3) 27 RxD (3) 48 CTS (3) 7 DTR (3) 28 DSR (3) 49 RTS (3) 8 RxD (4) 29 DCD (3) 50 GND

9 DSR (4) 30 TxD (4) 51 CTS (4) 10 DCD (4) 31 DTR (4) 52 RTS (4) 11 RxD (5) 32 GND 53 CTS (5) 12 DSR (5) 33 TxD (5) 54 RTS (5) 13 DCD (5) 34 DTR (5) 55 GND 14 TxD (6) 35 RxD (6) 56 CTS (6) 15 DTR (6) 36 DSR (6) 57 RTS (6) 16 RxD (7) 37 DCD (6) 58 GND 17 DSR (7) 38 TxD (7) 59 CTS (7) 18 DCD (7) 39 DTR (7) 60 RTS (7) 19 RxD (8) 40 GND 61 CTS (8) 20 DSR (8) 41 TxD (8) 62 RTS (8) 21 DCD (8) 42 DTR (8)

Table 9: DB62 female Connector

Figure 27: DB62 female Connector

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4.5 DB25 male RS 232

This type of connector is not available on any card, however there are adapter options providing such. The pins not mentioned are a no-connect on these adapters, or speciﬁed in the adapters documentation.

Pin RS232 Pin RS 232

2 TxD 7 GND 3 RxD 8 DCD 4 RTS 20 DTR 5 CTS 22 RI 6 DSR

Table 10: DB25 male RS 232

Figure 28: DB25 male RS 232

4.6 DB25 female RS 232

Pin RS232 Pin RS 232

2 RxD 7 GND 3 TxD 8 DCD 4 CTS 20 DSR 5 RTS 22 RI 6 DTR

Table 11: DB25 female RS 232

Figure 29: DB25 female RS 232

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5 History

March 2009 First Release of this manual

February 2010 Installation in Windows 7 added

February 2010 VScom PCIex Card User Manual 40

Vision Systems VScom 100E PCIex, VScom 200E PCIex, VScom 800E PCIex, VScom 400E PCIex, VScom PCI Card User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual