Anyone else here running diacom under the dosshell in windows?
I made my first attempt at it while using the Romulator for the first time as a passenger:-) Ohhh what fun it is to find the knock and then wipe it out and play some more ..........thing is killer to have as a tool for figuring out tables and just trying out various combinations of strategies for tuning...

Anyhow i am curious as it seems my diacom does not like to run in dosshell(duhhh), but anyone here have it working good in windows dosshell in conjunction with the Romulator at the same time? Mine is running but seems to almost lose the link then update regualrly then slow down and it just repeats this process?

hate to have to toss it for Romulator purposes, but im not computer knowledgeable enuff to know whether its workable or not.

Its on a PIII? 700mgh with 256k mem if thats of any use and I even closed everything out excpet systray and explorer and the results are the same................

thanks
Jeremy

Lemme see if I can splain this.
You have DIACOM in a folder.
So

From Windows Explorer, go to that folder.
Then click on the .exe. and create shortcut.
Then min that screen, and just shrink it in size, not disappear it to the bottom of the tool thing.
Now with it min'd click and drag the shortcut to the background area.
Now you should have an icon when you boot on the screen for diacom, then just double click on that to open diacom.

If nothing else, bring it with you next time your by this way.

Grumpy,
Did you have to right click the diacom.exe and setup compatibilty mode .(run in 256 colors,full screen, etc)????

I am also have troubles getting diacom to run under win98se.
I have the shortcut in my desktop. The proggy does start and I can load up my existing files. I just cannot link to the ecm.

Dennis

Compatibility mode?.
Nope.
I didn't even know it existed.
Maybe it's being in black/white/gray mode that makes the difference?.

I've heard of guys having problems with different brands of laptops, not being able to link, but so far I've not had the issue.

Just being obvious, but you have tried both cables, right?.

Tried both cables??

Actually no. I moved and the other cabel is in storage

The cable currently I have connected has linked sucessfully with my previous 85(870), a 87 and 89 (165) and currently my 7730 . I have it taped where the 2 cables join. I keep the laptop in the pasenger seat. Somtimes the din plug came unplugged.

I use a old 386 20mhz pure dos laptop for my current diacom connection. Just trying to get to one laptop. Diacom+Romulator.

Dennis

Hmm,

maybe copy diacom to a bootable disc, and just see if it works that way. That I think would tell you if it will run on your machine.
If it won't run that way, your machine just might not be IBM compatible enough. The one laptop I never got to work with diacom was an IBM thinkpad.

Jeremy, when I FIRST got Diacom MANY years ago, I tried running it in Windows as a Dos Shell, and it was "unpredictable". I ACTUALLY read the manual and Diacom explicity stated that you MUST run in "vanilla" DOS. Worked like a charm.

As I understand, Diacom needs to controls the LPT port, which it cannot do in Windows. If it makes you feel good, I am looking at running 2 Laptops - if I want to retain Diacom and use the Romulator. Else, look at a different Scan Tool like Ease.

Bowtye8, I find that I MUST run the standard cable with Diacom and the 7730. The special TPI cable that you need to run with the MAF system (at 8192 baud) will not work with the 7730. I forget the part numbers and I am still unpacking junk from my recent move. Damn I hate moving. Can't find anything now (I am hoping to find the wife in one of these boxes too).

Figured that might be my worst case scenario glenn, but that darned grumpy guy:-) showed it to me working on the same laptop as using Tuner RT and Romulator on ,lol. So i did give it a whirl on mine and it doenst like my setup (maybe the actual puter has something to do with it). So I'm investigating the Moates software and AKM cable (correct?).

Have a gifted puter friend so when i can get in touch with him i can see if he has a few ideas(laptop boots miserably slow) and am thinking of completely reinstalling everything from scratch anyways.......

Ill give that a shot grumpy and see if it changes anything , until then i can run diacom on my older laptop....

thanks as always guys
Jeremy

Go through Bruce's "setup" (i.e. which LPT he's using, his version number and possible other tweaks). It may be Bruce has a parameter set that you don't. It also may be the particular computer and version of Windows that you are running.

It may be some setting or Bruce has a lucky combo of hardware/Windows version. I know one buddy has been having a heck of a time running Windows 2000 on the newer notebooks. He needs to run some old DOS applications and XP just won't work properly, so he must use Windows 2000 and it (Windows 2000) won't work on some of the newer notebooks due to lack of a video driver.

It's a pain sometimes running old DOS applications.

still chugging at it.
Yes it seems to be direct hardware. I booted up with just a dos floppy---Still no link
I also went throught all the bios settings. LPT port had some settings(normal,bi-directional,eep,ecp- last 2 looked close to that disc.)

Still no link
Went to Toshiba site for Bios upgrade. There is one but is just a small win98 fix for AC vs battery booting.

Depressing. My dos programmer works fine with the dos boot disk and LPT port on the same laptop. Argh hate to have to buy another scan/log proggy.

Dennis

Bowtye8, you MUST use the standard cable with the 7730. The Special TPI cable only works with the MAF system.

Glen,
I am using the standard TPI connector(for the 7730). With my old dos laptop I link up with diacom no problem. With the newer laptop its a nogo.
Dennis

Okay. Which LPT port are you using? On my Compaq running W98SE, I must use LPT2 (even though I only have 1 LPT).

Yep same lpt port '2'
I can switch the adress port in the bios. I tried all 3 lpt ports.

If I ahve the wrong addy picked I get NO cable present. When I ahve the right LPT port picked-- I can get to link to ecm. Hit enter and it just displays "linking to ECM"
I think its hardware. Even from a pure dos boot disk it will not link. Now I am not sure if more dos apps have to be loaded. like hi-mem or somthing to that nature.
Dennis

Those other apps only affect the amount of memory available for capturing data before you need to save it to the harddrive (if you have the + version).

When I get the"linking" but never links, it usually is the cable is not making a proper contact - especially where the two join together. Try opening the one that connects to the ALDL port at the round connector and taping the wire connections together to the cable that goes into the PC.

Also, I've heard that some PCs just don't like Diacom. I think there is some FAQs at Diacom for some of the PCs that are troublesome. It's been so long that since I've had to deal with some of the problems.

What's the computer and O/S?

Glen,
Cable is all good. I plug into my old DOS 386 and links right up.

The newer laptop is a toshiba celeron 700. Came with Win Me. Refromatted to Win XP. Then I particianed a gig for win98se. So as of today its a dual boot win98se/winXP.

Like I mentioned earilier. I booted the laptop with a dos boot disk only. Right to a "a:" the loaded up c:\diacom\diacom-p

Still nogo.
I went throught the bios and tired each LPT setting.

My programmer work this way. Its a old dos based rommaster from Xeltek. its loads up via win98SE or my Dos boot disk.

I have not tried a win98 start up disk. Not sure if that would address the port differently?

If someone has a dos boot disk that they have and diacom loads on thier laptop. Please pass along for experimentation.

Thanks
Dennis

I havent tried it grumpy's way yet, trying to find the time to sleep lol...

Mine will link to the ecm but the update rate goes from normal(diacom on pure dos) to basically stoppping to stuttering to normal etc................

gonna try the bruce way and cross my fingers

later
Jeremy

Just as a FWIW.

I'd been having problems with my Turbolink,
just every once in a while.

Was been using the same ol laptop forever on the cars. Well, I finally got around to building a lil LAN, and then went to the Win Update Site, and updated all the laptops. Gads, what a difference. The 98 machines are MUCH faster. I'd been doing the proper housekeeping on them so it wasn't a matter of just doing a defrag that was the difference. The one machine took 19 updates, and several were huge....

So if your having problems, with things acting odd, try and get the machine on line, and get the updates, it can really make a difference.

If it makes you feel good, I've never had good luck running DOS on an ME machine and I never had much luck with partioning/running dual systems or booting DOS only from a diskette.

And I have a number of buddies with tons of horror stories trying to run DOS with Windows XP. The best alternative they found was to go to Windows 2000 (though I haven't treid Diacom with Windows 2000, but I will the next time I see my buddy with is notebook & W2000).

I guess that is why I am still hanging on to my two older laptops that run W95 and W98SE. They just flatout work exactly as expected. I also agree with Bruce that constantly running all the updates is good. In fact, go to your manufacturer's website too. I have found a number of BIOS updates for my Compaq Notebook that solved some "weird problems" a while back.