Original To: WINBPQ@GBR


From: G4IDE@GB7IDE.#22.GBR.EU
To  : WINBPQ@GBR


Hi,

Adding support for BPQ to WinPack, has, as expected, resulted in a lot
of people having problems getting BPQ and Windows to happily work
together.

I'm certainly no expert on the subject, because I had never used BPQ
with Windows until people started to ask me if I would put BPQ support
in WinPack. However, I'm now running my BBS in Windows, so I'm fairly
confident I understand the basics of how to make it all work.

The following describes the setup of my BBS PC - WinPack will of course
run without any problem with this setup.

The COM Ports on the PC are:-
COM    Address    IRQ
---    -------    ---
 1       3F8       4
 2       2F8       9
 3       3E8       5
 4       2E8       3

The only reason why I am using IRQ9 for COM2 and IRQ3 for COM4 is that
the cards I had got limited me to what configurations I could jumper.
Note, no attempt to share IRQs! No hacks of the cards needed!

COM1 is used by Windows, COM2 and COM3 are used by BPQ, COM4 is
currently spare. COM2 and COM3 are fitted with 16550 UARTs. If you use
unbuffered UARTS you'll probably get a very large number of RX overruns
reported in BPQ.

In SYSTEM.INI, in the [366Enh] section, I have "MAXCOMPORT=1". That
tells Windows to ignore any COM ports except COM1. THAT IS VITAL! You
can achieve the same effect with Win95 by removing the COM ports from
the hardware profile. "MAXCOMPORT=0" doesn't work, so you have to let
Windows have at least one COM port.

The port information in BPQCFG.TXT is no different to if I was running
the BBS in DOS. The IOADDR and INTLEVEL entries reflect the information
listed above. I have two TNCs on each COM port, they are run in polled
mode and are fitted with BPQKISS EPROMs. I won't waste space by
including the port information - it's all explained in the BPQ DOC
files.

I also use the BPQ ODIDRV ethernet driver. That is set up exactly as
described in the BPQ file DRIVERS.DOC.

You must put the BPQ file BPQCODE.386 in WINDOWS\SYSTEM.

The load sequence is:-
LSL          'only if you are using an ethernet link!
NE2000       'as above
ODIDRV 125   'as above
BPQCODE
WIN

When Windows loads, a one line message should appear saying "BPQ Packet
Switch Interface for Windows Version 1.0 Jan 1994". If it doesn't,
you'll probably get a rather misleading message saying "Cannot find a
device file that may be needed to run Windows ..... remove any
references to it from your SYSTEM.INI file". Don't worry, there aren't
any references to it in SYSTEM.INI and there shouldn't be any! BUT you
must work out why Windows cannot find BPQCODE.386 - which is what causes
that message.

The only addition that needs to be made for using WinPack is that the
BPQ file BPQDLL.DLL needs putting in WINDOWS\SYSTEM.

Well, I hope that helps. Could I suggest that any follow-ups to this are
sent as SBs to this topic? So that everyone interested can benefit from
the information.

73 - Roger, G4IDE @ GB7IDE

Message timed: 13:38 on 11 Feb 96
Message sent using WinPack V5 (Freeware!)

