Hi,

I am currently trying to use an old serial comms analyser (commwatch) to
observe serial traffic via a Win2K, four-serial port PC.

However, good old DOS apps just love to steal all available communications
ports (via the DOS VM) meaning that the two remaining ports can never be
opened by other applications once comwatch is alive and kicking.

I've tried a couple of solutions to this in terms of isolating the DOS
ports:

1. Using Virtual PC running DOS with the ports mapped through to the host
machine serial ports.
Result: Works fine...but Virtual PC freezes every few hours..no good for
soak tests.

2. Using VMWare as above.
Result: VMware must be less efficient than Virtual PC as characters are
lost unless the VM is running full screen (and even then it is not too
reliable).

I've  looked at the dosbox emulator but cannot see anything suggesting that
it can use the serial ports (although it should do if it can emulate old
multiplayer DOS games)....

Anyone else managed to come up with a storming solution for this problem?
(Apart from using Linux/dual booting etc)

Regards,
Dan

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