April 18, 1994
1. Should I install the SS/CS software provided by National Instruments?
If you intend to use National Instruments PCMCIA cards only under DOS and if your computer has Card Services (2.0 or greater) and Socket Services (2.0 or greater), you do not need to install the SS/CS provided by National Instruments.
If you intend to use National Instruments PCMCIA cards with Windows, you will need to install the SS/CS provided by National Instruments. Until the PCMCIA standardizes the SS/CS software for operation with Windows, you will need to use the software we provide.
If you do not have SS/CS for your computer or if the version of your software is less than 2.0, you will need to install the SS/CS provided by National Instruments.
2. Has National Instruments tested other SS/CS with its boards?
We have tested and verified only that our PCMCIA products will work under DOS with the following SS/CS: PC Card Manager Plus from Phoenix Software and CardSoft from SystemSoft. Any SS/CS that provides a 32 byte I/O window and an interrupt level should also support our cards under DOS.
3. What is the impact of changing my PCMCIA software to CardWare?
If you use only cards from National Instruments, there will be no impact from switching to CardWare. If you use cards from other vendors, you will need to configure the CardWare SS/CS to recognize your other cards.
4. Can I keep both CardWare and my current PCMCIA software installed?
No. Only one SS/CS driver can be loaded at a time. If you want to use multiple SS/CS drivers you need to have a CONFIG.SYS file for each SS/CS driver and load the appropriate system files when needed. This can be done only with MS-DOS 6.0 or higher. For complete information on this feature, consult your MS-DOS documentation. However, a sample CONFIG.SYS is listed below.
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[menu]
menuitem=Default PCMCIA software
menuitem=CardWare PCMCIA software
[common]
rem Place the statements that aren't related to PCMCIA here.
rem The DEVICE= statement for GPIB.COM can also be placed here if desired.
[default]
rem Place the statements for the default PCMCIA drivers here.
[cardware]
rem Place the statements for the CardWare PCMCIA drivers here.
[common]
rem Always end CONFIG.SYS with a common block (for future installations).
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With the above CONFIG.SYS, you will be shown a prompt when the computer boots. If you type "D" at the prompt, the default PCMCIA drivers are loaded. If you type "C" at the prompt, the CardWare drivers are loaded.
5. What resources are needed by CardServices?
Card Services uses a variety of system resources (interrupt levels, I/O address ranges, and memory address ranges). Whenever a PCMCIA card is inserted, it is assigned a set of resources from the pool of resources that Card Services has at its disposal. Thereafter, the PCMCIA card is accessed using these resources just as if it were an AT card jumpered for those resources. Also, the PCMCIA hardware itself requires system resources to access PCMCIA cards properly.
The minimum set of resources that are needed to use the National Instruments PCMCIA cards are :
o A 4 Kbyte memory window used by Card Services to read the Card Information Structure (CIS) contained on all PCMCIA cards. The CIS is used to identify the card's make/model and determine what resources it requires. Without this memory window, NI-488.2 and NI-DAQ cannot recognize and configure the PCMCIA-GPIB or the DAQCards.
o An interrupt that Card Services uses to detect PCMCIA card insertions and removals. Without this interrupt, the PC Card cannot be inserted with the computer powered on.
o A 32 byte I/O window used by the drivers to access registers on the card.
In addition to the resources listed above, other resources may be required in order to use more than one PCMCIA card in the same computer, especially if the machine has two PCMCIA sockets. For example, modem and LAN cards will most likely need an interrupt as well as an I/O window.
6. What are some examples of configurations for the more popular memory managers?
In the examples, we are trying to exclude addresses 0xC8000 to 0xCFFFF.
------------ EMM386
Add the following to the end of the DEVICE= line (or change if it is already there) :
X=C800-CFFF
Also, if you have Windows installed, add
emmexclude=C800-CFFF
to the [386Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI (in the Windows directory).
------------ HIMEM.SYS
No change is needed.
------------ 386MAX
Add the following to the end of the DEVICE= line (or change if it is already there) :
RAM=C800-D000
7. How do I make sure that all the SS/CS device drivers load properly?
In general, Socket Services should be loaded first, followed by Card Services, followed by any PCMCIA enablers/utilities. For example, the CardWare files should be listed in CONFIG.SYS in the following order:
DEVICE=C:\CARDWARE\PCSS.EXE
DEVICE=C:\CARDWARE\PCCS.EXE
DEVICE=C:\CARDWARE\PCRM.EXE /AUTODETECT
DEVICE=C:\CARDWARE\PCENABLE.EXE
DEVICE=C:\CARDWARE\PCDISK.EXE(Note: If you are using the PCMCIA-GPIB card, the line DEVICE=C:\GPIB\GPIB.COM should be next. )
8. What is the purpose of each device driver, and do I need each one?
All of the CardWare files listed above are required except for PCDISK.EXE. The PCDISK.EXE driver is only needed if the you want to use PCMCIA disk drives.
PCSS.EXE, the Socket Service driver, may have a different name, since Award ships different Socket Services implementations for the various PCMCIA controller chips.
PCCS.EXE is the Card Service resource database.
PCRM.EXE is required because it is the program that reads CARDWARE.INI and initializes the Card Services (PCCS.EXE) resource database.
PCENABLE.EXE driver is used by the PC Card Control for Windows utilities. You should keep it loaded so that CardWare can be used with other PCMCIA cards.
9. Can the CardWare drivers be loaded into high memory?
Yes. If you frequently run out of conventional memory, you should try loading SS/CS into high memory. But if problems occur, the first step should always be to move them back to low memory to see if that corrects the problems.