USBCOM.SYS: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 02:08, 12 August 2025

Product Support
OS/2 1.3
OS/2 2.0
OS/2 2.1
OS/2 2.11 SMP
OS/2 Warp 3	S
OS/2 Warp Connect	S
OS/2 Warp 4	S
OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business	S

Driver for USB modems. At the moment support is only available for some devices from IBM and US Robotics. The USBCOM.SYS driver emulates an additional COM port, this allows use of terminal or dialer software with the USB modem.

DEVICE=x:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS <parameters>

Parameters

/V: With this parameter gives the driver you some status information during the boot.
/Z: Forces CTS handshaking on in the device capabilities and then forces DSR and CTS on during communications. This allows operation with any PL23x3 device even if RTS/CTS is not wired.
/DCD: Forces DCD on. May be required for non-modem connections such as PC to PC links.

/M:<X>

X = Specifies the number COM ports to allocate. Default=1. The minimum is 1 and the maximum is 16.

/N:Value

Sets the name of the first COM port. Default is first available COM<n>. This driver cannot use a name that is already in use by another driver that was loaded before this driver. If you specified 4 ports starting at COM2, and COM5 is already being used, then this driver will allocate COM2, COM3, COM4, and COM6. If you specify a name without a number such as COM, this driver will start counting at 1 allocating COM1, COM2, ... Names allocated by this driver cannot be used by other drivers in the system.

/I:<X>

X = Specifies the input buffer size in KB. Default=32. A buffer is allocated for each of the ports specified by the /M option.

/O:<X>

X = Specifies the output buffer size in KB. Default=32. A buffer is allocated for each of the ports specified by the /M option.

Additional debugging options:

/W: Causes the debug buffer to wrap. The default is nowrap.

/COM:<port>

Causes debug messages to be output to the specified serial port.

1=0x3f8, 2=0x2f8, 0xnnnn specifies the COM port base address.

/BAUD:<baud>

Sets the debugging serial Port to the specified speed. Only valid if /COM is specified first.

Remarks

TIP: By William L. Hartzell: Know that you can assign an alias to the USB port by using /N:COMx at the end of the USBCOM driver line. Thus it becomes useable with software that does not know about USB ports. You will need one driver line per modem.

This driver supports up to 16 devices. You cannot load this driver more than once.

Examples

DEVICE=x:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS

Where "x:" is the drive letter of the OS/2 boot partition on your system. Enables one device at COM1.

DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /M:1 /N:COM8 /V

This one specify one (1) modem with the COM8 port and shows the version information on boot.

 DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /M:4 /N:COM5 /Z

Example to use 4 PL2303 devices starting at COM5

This will allocate 4 COM devices: COM5, COM6, COM7, and COM8. Each recognized USB device will attach to a COM port in the order that they are discovered. Each COM port will only work when a device is attached to it.

Versions

Date	Version	Size	Comments
2022-11-26	12.14	36,183 bytes	Arca Noae USB Drivers
2025-01-04	12.17	36,431 bytes	Arca Noae USB Drivers

Links

Arca Noae USB Documentation

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 ==Parameters==
-; '''/N:Value'''
+;/V: With this parameter gives the driver you some status information during the boot.
-: Here can you control under which COM port number the USB device is available. Value can be in the range from 1 to 9. It had to be a non used COM port number. The default value is the first non used COM port number.
+;/Z:Forces CTS handshaking on in the device capabilities and then forces DSR and CTS on during communications. This allows operation with any PL23x3 device even if RTS/CTS is not wired.
-; /V
+;/DCD:Forces DCD on. May be required for non-modem connections such as PC to PC links.
-: With this parameter gives the driver you some status information during the boot.
-; '''/M:<X>'''
+'''/M:<X>'''
-: X = Number of USB Modems to be used at the same time
+: X = Specifies the number COM ports to allocate. Default=1. The minimum is 1 and the maximum is 16.
-; '''/I:<X>'''
-: X = Size of Inbuffer in kB
+'''/N:Value'''
-; '''/O:<X>'''
+: Sets the name of the first COM port. Default is first available COM<n>. This driver cannot use a name that is already in use by another driver that was loaded before this driver. If you specified 4 ports starting at COM2, and COM5 is already being used, then this driver will allocate COM2, COM3, COM4, and COM6. If you specify a name without a number such as COM, this driver will start counting at 1 allocating COM1, COM2, ... Names allocated by this driver cannot be used by other drivers in the system.
-: X = Size of Outbuffer in kB
+'''/I:<X>'''
+: X = Specifies the input buffer size in KB. Default=32. A buffer is allocated for each of the ports specified by the /M option.
+'''/O:<X>'''
+: X = Specifies the output buffer size in KB. Default=32. A buffer is allocated for each of the ports specified by the /M option.
+Additional debugging options:
+;/W:Causes the debug buffer to wrap. The default is nowrap.
+'''/COM:<port>'''
+: Causes debug messages to be output to the specified serial port.
+: 1=0x3f8, 2=0x2f8, 0xnnnn specifies the COM port base address.
+'''/BAUD:<baud>'''
+: Sets the debugging serial Port to the specified speed. Only valid if /COM is specified first.
+==Remarks==
 ;TIP: By William L. Hartzell: Know that you can assign an alias to the USB port by using /N:COMx at the end of the USBCOM driver line. Thus it becomes useable with software that does not know about USB ports. You will need one driver line per modem.
+This driver supports up to 16 devices. You cannot load this driver more than once.
 ==Examples==
+ DEVICE=x:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS
+Where "x:" is the drive letter of the OS/2 boot partition on your system. Enables one device at COM1.
+ DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /M:1 /N:COM8 /V
+This one specify one (1) modem with the COM8 port and shows the version information on boot.
+  DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /M:4 /N:COM5 /Z
+Example to use 4 PL2303 devices starting at COM5
+This will allocate 4 COM devices: COM5, COM6, COM7, and COM8.
+Each recognized USB device will attach to a COM port in the order that they
+are discovered. Each COM port will only work when a device is attached to it.
- DEVICE=drive:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS
+==Versions==
+{|class="wikitable"
+!Date||Version||Size||Comments
+|-
+|2022-11-26||12.14|| 36,183 bytes|| Arca Noae USB Drivers
+|-
+|2025-01-04||12.17|| 36,431 bytes|| Arca Noae USB Drivers
+|-
+|}
-Where "drive:" is the drive letter of the OS/2 boot partition on your system.
+==Links==
+* [https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/usb/ Arca Noae USB Documentation]
 [[Category:DEVICE Statements]]