PCMCIA.SYS

The Card Services driver for OS/2 provides base support for PC Cards. BASEDEV=PCMCIA.SYS

ATTENTION: Must be in front of all other PCMCIA Drivers

Parameter
Specify that card services will conform to the PCMCIA 2.0 standard. This is the default value.
 * /R:200

Specify that card services will conform to the PCMCIA 5.0 standard instead of the PCMCIA 2.0 standard which is the default value.
 * /R:500

In previous releases, this parameter disabled the hardware interrupt which was used by OS/2 Socket Services drivers to notify clients of a change in status. Neither the new Card Services nor Socket Services drivers for OS/2 use a hardware interrupt to signal PCMCIA status changes. So this parameter is no longer needed.
 * /P

Installing PCMCIA
Unpack the file PCMCIADD found on disk 17 of the OS/2 Warp install CD (directory OS2IMAGE), best into the OS2 directory on your harddisk. Then replace the line BASEDEV=IBM2TOS1.SYS with one of the following lines in your CONFIG.SYS: BASEDEV=IBM2AMB1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2AST1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2CAD1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2CMQ1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2MAT1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2NCR1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2NEC1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2SS01.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2SS02.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2TOS1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2ZEN1.SYS BASEDEV=IBM2ZOS1.SYS BASEDEV=SS2PCIC1.SYS BASEDEV=SS2TCIC1.SYS When OS/2 boots press Alt-F2 when the rectangle appears in the top left corner of the screen, and OS/2 will tell you which driver was loaded. It is possible that your machine works with more than one, you'll then have to find out yourself which one works best!

If you have specific drivers for your notebook computer

Do not install the PCMCIA support when installing OS/2 on your machine. Instead, once you are done with the installation of OS/2, chose Device Installation from the System/System Configuration folder and install the PCMCIA driver from diskette or use the installation program provided with your driver. Check the information provided with your driver before installing OS/2 Warp or the PCMCIA support.

If your driver comes only in the form of the driver files, you need to do a manual installation, i.e. you need to edit the CONFIG.SYS file yourself. In that case install any PCMCIA support (as explained above). Then copy the driver files into the directory x:\os2\boot. After that, open the CONFIG.SYS in the editor and change the line BASEDEV= PCMCIA_driver (replace "PCMCIA_driver" with the driver name you installed) into BASEDEV=newdriver where "newdriver" is the name of the driver file you got). Take care that the PCMCIA drivers precede any COM drivers.

In some machines, an additional line has to be included in the CONFIG.SYS file: BASEDEV=RESERVE.SYS /mem:nnnn mmmm (nnnn has to be replaced with the address where PCMCIA usually would start and mmmm has to be replaced with a value of 1000 or more (increased in steps of 1000)). First run rmview /mem to find out at which address PCMCIA is located. This would be the hex number that comes in place of nnnn. Then try out whether it works with 1000 (in place of mmmm). RESERVE.SYS actually prohibits the PCMCIA driver to use this area and thus avoids a conflict which otherwise arises. If 1000 doesn't work try 2000 etc.

Xircom's own drivers don't work: For some PCMCIA cards (particularly XIRCOM with their own drivers) the IBM PCMCIA socket for the particular socket in which the card is inserted has to be disabled by installing socket services with the parameter /S0=1 which will disable socket services for the second PCMCIA slot (if there are two slots; if there is just one slot it won't do any good). An alternative is the switch /ig0=1 (1 is the port number). By using a proper script, it may even be possible to go without any of these switches.

PCMCIA doesn't work: In some notebook computers the BIOS has to be modified so that the PCMCIA becomes compatible with the available OS/2 driver. The mode in which the PCMCIA functions may need to be set from Busmaster to 16-bit or PCIC compatible. Check the info for individual notebooks on this page and consult your notebook's manual!

IBM Token Ring PCMCIA adapter doesn't work: Try setting in MPTS the IRQ to 5 and the adapter type from primary to alternate (address X=20).