Old School TiSoft

Hello All,

So i ran across the TI505 PLC from Texas instruments, which is under Siemens now. This is a very old PLC, and as simple as it may seem, i am having trouble going online with the PLC, specifically with a Windows 7 Operating System.

Here is my situation, customer want to upgrade computers to windows 7 operating system but first they want to test out if TIsoft can function on Win7. I'am aware that TIsoft is a DOS operating program, thus needs a DOS supported OS to work, Win 7 does not have it however their is an Emulator called DosBox, which works well.

Here is what i have tried:
I have a TI505 plc connected serially (RS232) from my desktop PC to the PLC. It is currently connected to COM1 to my PC, and when i used the emulator DOsbox and have the dos program loaded and i pressed F4 to go online with the PLC, then the communication times out. So to make sure the RS232 cable and the PLC work, i connected to another Windows XP OS and it successfully worked, so that omits the probability that the cable or PLC having any issues. I happen to have another COM port on the Windows 7 PC, i tried connecting to that port, but the same issue where the communication times out occurs.

So if anyone has faced this issue or has any ideas of how i can go online with this PLC with Windows 7 running Dosbox to emulate the TISoft program, please let me know thanks

P.S. I didn't not play around with the COM settings in device manager for the Baud rate, Data bits, parity & stop bits however they are currently set for 9600,8,none,1.

First of all I would not even wast time trying to get Win7 to communicate with the PLC. You can still open and program in Tisoft on Win7 but it will have irratic communications.
A little history: this issue started around Windows 2000 when the windows operating system became more and more relaxed on the RS232 specifications. The resulted in some older PLCs not being able to communicate beacuse of windows operating system not strictly following the specs.
You have three options that I know of: there is a windows based program that operate on Win7 and communicate with the Simatic 505s. (http://www.fast-soft.com/page.php?20) Or you can find an old laptop with Win98 or Win95 and keep that around just for communicating with the PLC. Or you can create a bootable USB that will boot into DOS and boot the Win7 computer with this for communications(http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-dos-from-usb/). We have many of these Simatic 505's in our company and use the last option. I only use Tisoft to do troubleshooting or minor changes so this is the most effective solution for me.

@ babones thanks for the detailed reply, i will try out the methods you have outlined. If you have by any chance got it going via DosBox let me know.

Aloha dbh6,

There is a configuration file for DosBox emulator. You'll need to set the following parameter:

serial1=directserial realport:com1

Check out the Dosbox Wiki: http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Dosbox.conf#.5Bserial.5D

-Chris

Another option:

I use a Win XP Service Pack 3 running in a virtual machine. I connect to the PLC via a Keyspan USB to Serial converter. Works great. You can use one of those other laptops you are retiring to make the virtual machine.

@ boxofrelays ha! i knew their was somekind of parameter to set, i just didn't know how to, However where do you set the parameter??
Example serial=directserial realport:com1, is that a parameter set in dosbox program, and if so where?? Im assuming this is done in DosBox let me know if im wrong, and thanks for the DosBox wiki

It's in a text file in my case because of the version I have dosbox-0.74.conf

My name is Chris. I'm listed as a user. For Windows 7 the configuration file is located in the folder:

c:\Users\Chris\AppData\local\DOSBox\dosbox-0.74.conf

You can edit the configuration file with note pad.

You will need to restart dosbox in order for the changes to take effect.

-Chris

@ chris thanks

Aloha dbh6,

Also you can allow multiple serial ports
I believe if you use a USB to serial port adapter as long as you can insure that the USB port enumerates to exactly the same port number -which you should be able to do with the USB driver and reserve the serial port to come up the same every time. I haven't tried a USB to serial adapter with this yet.

-Chris

thanks once again

@dbh6
Please let me know if you successfull in getting DOSBox to communicate with the PLC and if you use a USB to serial converter. This sounds like a better option than what I am using now if it works.

@ babones yes it works! The only thing you have to watch out for is to make sure your com port is not only configured correctly in device manager but also setup correctly in the configuration file within dosbox. Once I set that up and restarted the PC I never had that timeout issue and was able to upload, download to the ti505 series plc with no issue. If you follow what boxofrelays has outlined that should be it, I also used a rs232 cable from my PC to the PLC, no converters needed.

Aloha dbh6;

Great news. Pretty amazing getting an old DOS program to operate on a windows 7 PC. Even more amazing is that the DOS emulator is free.

-Chris

@ boxofrelays yes it is!! thanks for your help once again