Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!kth!enea!kullmar!pkmab!ske
From: ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MS-kermit loosing characters at 19200 bps
Summary: KEYB causing trouble
Message-ID: <688@pkmab.se>
Date: 21 Feb 89 21:57:06 GMT
References: <667@pkmab.se> <943@starfish.Convergent.COM> <675@pkmab.se> <643@uva.UUCP>
Organization: Peridot Konsult i Mellansverige AB, Oerebro, Sweden
Lines: 42

In article <643@uva.UUCP>, dik@uva.UUCP (Casper H.S. Dik) writes:
> Kermit beeps on purpose. When it gets an serial-i/o interrupt it checks
> the status of the UART and if it indicates it lost a char, Kermit
> outputs a beep. (I have the sources - I wondered what the beep meant too)
> 
> The problem has nothing to do with flow control. In the time it takes to
> scroll the screen, more than one character can arrive.
> I believe the problem lies in the disabling of interrupts during scrolling,
> Kermit calls the Bios to scroll with INT 10H. This disables interrupts.
>
> My diagnosis was more or less confirmed when I tried to use Procomm 2.4.2.
> Same problem there.

I have discovered that this character-loss problem occurs when I use a
KEYB to remap the keyboard layout for our national requirements. When I
use plain US keyboard layout, Kermit doesn't beep, and doesn't loose
characters.

I usually use the swedish layout (obviously because I live in Sweden, and
have swedish key-caps). The command is KEYB SV (except for directory names),
and i use MSDOS 3.30. I've also tried the UK layout. It had the same problem.
The US layout on the other hand, works fine, and it doesn't matter how I get
to it. I can switch to it by hitting CTRL-ALT-F1, or load it with the command
KEYB US, och just not load the swedish layout.

> Casper H.S. Dik
> University of Amsterdam     |		      dik@uva.uucp
> The Netherlands             |                 ...!uunet!mcvax!uva!dik

I suspect that most of the readers on this net, work in the US, and would
not have experienced this problem. I notice that dik@uva.uucp is writing
from the Netherlands.

Does anyone know why KEYB has this undesirable effect?

I still think that not even all users that do use KEYB have this problem.
Why? Are they just fortunate enough to have a 16550 on their serial port?
(That is not likely, I think.)
-- 
Kristoffer Eriksson, Peridot Konsult AB, Hagagatan 6, S-703 40 Oerebro, Sweden
Phone: +46 19-13 03 60   !  e-mail: ske@pkmab.se
Fax:   +46 19-11 51 03   !  or      ...{uunet,mcvax}!enea!kullmar!pkmab!ske