User`s guide

Installing the PCLTA-21 Card

Common Resource Problems under Windows 98

The following situations produce an additional drain on system resources

that may be hard to manage. Conflicts arising from these situations can

generally be resolved by selectively disabling devices to free up the

required resources.

• COM ports that may not have a connector, but are consuming resources and

cannot be disabled through the

BIOS

• Unused IDE controllers that can not be disabled through the

BIOS

• Unused/nonexistent PS/2 mouse ports

• Sound cards that support both 8-bit and 16-bit compatibility modes, consuming

two IRQs

An additional problem often associated with sound cards is the improper reporting of

I/O resource usage. This problem may be recognized by examining a device’s I/O

address allocation for unusual one-byte assignments (since devices typically use

more). For example, if a device’s stated I/O range is 0x201-0x201 but its actual range

is 0x201-0x204, a conflict will occur if the PCLTA-21 card is assigned an I/O range of

0x204-0x207. If this problem is suspected, manually move the PCLTA-21 card’s I/O

range to a safer location to prevent I/O overlap.

Software Compatibility

The PCLTA-21 software is designed to be compatible with LONWORKS

software. However, the following issues may arise when using the PCLTA-

21 adapter with some software.

Device Name Aliasing under Windows 98

The PCLTA-21 card should operate with most third-party LONWORKS

software. However, some 16-bit Windows applications are limited in the

device names that can be selected. For example, only the names “LON1”

through “LON9” may be available, preventing the use of a PCLTA-21 card.

This problem can be corrected through the use of device name aliasing. To

create a device alias, follow these instructions

1. Open the file named ECHELON.INI, which should reside in the

Windows directory. If this file does not exist, then create one with a

text editor.

2. Create a driver alias section in the file, by adding the following line:

[DRIVERALIAS]

3. On the following line, add the following driver alias:

aliasname=devicename

where aliasname is the device name accessed by the software, such as “LON1”,

and devicename is the device to be used.

4. Add additional aliases, as necessary.