• Binkley Error message

    From Fred Riccio@1:132/174 to All on Thu Mar 14 19:30:36 2013
    Hello All!

    Any idea what this is trying to tell me?

    + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
    ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()

    Out of the blue this error message popped up in the logs. Now every time I start up Bink, this error comes up and BT exits.

    Regards,
    Fred

    --- Msged/NT 6.0.1
    * Origin: Somewhere in New Hampshire's White Mountains (1:132/174)
  • From mark lewis@1:3634/12 to Fred Riccio on Thu Mar 14 21:40:09 2013

    Any idea what this is trying to tell me?

    + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
    ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()

    seems to be saying that the com port is broken or inaccessible...

    Out of the blue this error message popped up in the logs. Now
    every time I start up Bink, this error comes up and BT exits.

    what OS?

    )\/(ark


    * Origin: (1:3634/12)
  • From Fred Riccio@1:132/174 to mark lewis on Fri Mar 15 04:37:54 2013
    Hello mark!

    14 Mar 13 21:40, mark lewis wrote to Fred Riccio:

    Any idea what this is trying to tell me?

    + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
    ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()

    seems to be saying that the com port is broken or inaccessible...

    Thats what I was afraid of. The modem (external) is making a high pitch noise (like a bad fan) too.

    Can you even buy a serial card or modem any more? Maybe at a museum?



    what OS?

    Win2K

    What little information I could find on GetCommState says error 6 is "bad file handle"

    --- Msged/NT 6.0.1
    * Origin: Somewhere in New Hampshire's White Mountains (1:132/174)
  • From mark lewis@1:3634/12.42 to Fred Riccio on Fri Mar 15 11:12:09 2013

    Any idea what this is trying to tell me?

    + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
    ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()

    seems to be saying that the com port is broken or inaccessible...

    Thats what I was afraid of. The modem (external) is making a high
    pitch noise (like a bad fan) too.

    yeah, sounds like the modem has gone... at least without looking at it closer, anyway...

    Can you even buy a serial card or modem any more? Maybe at a
    museum?

    there are places that still have the older equipment... most of it is pulls from machines being recycled... ebay might be a good place to start... or possibly your local freecycle group(s) where someone might have an older machine they will give you... i hesitate to suggest craig's list as i've never used it but some folks have had decent luck there, too...

    what OS?

    Win2K

    What little information I could find on GetCommState says error 6
    is "bad file handle"

    if we were in the DOS days, i'd ask you to dump the BIOS section with the defined ports in it from debug but ya can't really do that with windows these days... besides, it has been so long that i'd have to dig for the proper address to dump anyway... [time passes] ahh! i found it! hahaha...

    [file biostab.dbg]
    d0040:0000
    q
    [eof]

    then

    debug < biostab.dbg

    the first line contains the addresses of the ports discovered during boot... the first eight bytes are the serial ports and the next six are the parallel ports... each two bytes are reversed so an output like this

    -d0040:0000
    0040:0000 F8 03 F8 02 E8 03 E8 02-BC 03 78 03 78 02

    is actually read as

    com1 : 03 F8
    com2 : 02 F8
    com3 : 03 E8
    com4 : 02 E8
    lpt1 : 03 BC
    lpt2 : 03 78
    lpt3 : 02 78

    the only "problem" is that if there is no 03 F8, the next one may be slid down to the "com1" slot... in other words, if the first serial port is set for the "com2" address of 02 F8, it may reside in the "com1" slot... in that case, even
    though the port is set for "com2", you'd use "com1" in your settings... but that only for software that relies on the bios table... software that has a built in table would not run into this li'l wicket...

    )\/(ark

    ---
    * Origin: (1:3634/12.42)
  • From Nicholas Boel@1:154/10 to Fred Riccio on Sat Mar 16 01:03:41 2013
    Re: Binkley Error message
    By: Fred Riccio to All on Thu Mar 14 2013 07:30 pm

    + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
    ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()

    Out of the blue this error message popped up in the logs. Now every time I start up Bink, this error comes up and BT exits.

    I don't see any errors whatsoever.. ?

    Regards,
    Nick

    --- SBBSecho 2.20-Linux
    * Origin: thePharcyde_ telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)
  • From mark lewis@1:3634/12.42 to Nicholas Boel on Sat Mar 16 14:04:21 2013

    + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
    ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()

    Out of the blue this error message popped up in the logs. Now
    every time I start up Bink, this error comes up and BT exits.

    I don't see any errors whatsoever.. ?

    the SYS0000006 entry is the error...

    FWIW: the first character of many log formats indicates the line's severity... for binkleyterm, an ! indicates an error entry... many other systems followed this format, as well... i can't find a document with the ones that binkleyterm actually uses but the following section comes from frontdoor's logging setup secrrn in the fdsetup tool...

    ! Fatal errors
    ? Other errors
    $ Accounting info
    * Sent/Rcvd files
    + Brief messages
    - Trivial messages
    : Transaction info
    % Transfer messages
    # Unexpected passwords
    ~ Session information
    ~ Remote system's AKAs
    ~ Remote system's info
    = Modem responses
    ` Trivial FREQ messages

    they were used for log analysis software... it made it real easy for the analysis software to run thru the logs looking for only certain characters and then tallying those stats...

    )\/(ark

    ---
    * Origin: (1:3634/12.42)
  • From Fred Riccio@1:132/174 to mark lewis on Sat Mar 16 17:46:59 2013
    Hello mark!

    15 Mar 13 11:12, mark lewis wrote to Fred Riccio:

    Any idea what this is trying to tell me?

    + 14 Mar 18:46:59 BINK begin, BinkleyTerm/Win32 Ver. 2.60
    ! 14 Mar 18:47:06 BINK SYS00000006: GetCommState()

    seems to be saying that the com port is broken or inaccessible...

    Thats what I was afraid of. The modem (external) is making a high
    pitch noise (like a bad fan) too.

    yeah, sounds like the modem has gone... at least without looking at
    it closer, anyway...

    Weekend is here and I had more time to look it over. It looks like *both* the modem and serial card are dead.

    I get the same results even with the serial cable unplugged. The whining noise
    is coming out of the modem's speaker.



    Can you even buy a serial card or modem any more? Maybe at a
    museum?

    there are places that still have the older equipment... most of it is pulls from machines being recycled... ebay might be a good place to start... or possibly your local freecycle group(s) where someone
    might have an older machine they will give you... i hesitate to
    suggest craig's list as i've never used it but some folks have had
    decent luck there, too...

    There is an electronics recycling/second hand store near where I work. I'll be
    checking in with them to see what they have, and maybe leave my phone number in
    case thet get something in.



    -d0040:0000
    0040:0000 F8 03 F8 02 E8 03 E8 02-BC 03 78 03 78 02

    is actually read as

    com1 : 03 F8
    com2 : 02 F8
    com3 : 03 E8
    com4 : 02 E8
    lpt1 : 03 BC
    lpt2 : 03 78
    lpt3 : 02 78


    Ahhh... that is something familliar.

    Mine looks the same as yours. Four com ports detected.



    As an experiment, I changed the Com port in Binkley.Cfg

    Com1 - SYS00000006 GetCommState()

    Com2 - SYS00000002 CreateFile()

    Com3 -

    Com4 - SYS00000002 CreateFile()



    Configured for com3, I dropped into terminal mode and typed AT. To my suprise,
    I got a response of OK. ATI6 identified it as a USR internal FaxModem I had forgotten about years ago. Unfortunately, the VF side of the modem seems to be
    out to lunch. When I try dialing all I get is NO DIALTONE

    Next step: Clean out the storage closet. I *know* I have a v.everything in there somewhere.

    Thanks for your help!

    Regards,
    Fred

    --- Msged/NT 6.0.1
    * Origin: Somewhere in New Hampshire's White Mountains (1:132/174)