*Summary* 

This is a beta release of the new Data Transport Agent (DTA) for eComStation.
It is meant to improve the ability to handle datastreams in eCS, DOS and Win-OS/2
sessions. In addition it will enable virtual DOS sessions to play sound via a
generic sounddriver, effectively bypassing the need for soundcard specific DOS 
drivers. 


*Legal note*

This driver is released for public testing and is in beta stage. 
It should under no circumstance be used on production systems. 
Do not distribute this driver outside the registered customer area of 
www.eComStation.com 

Support issues will only be handled through the BugTracker.

*Important bugs*

The following bug is known to crash (trap your system) which MAY lead to 
dataloss:

[playing two streams]

If you start 1 DOS session and 1 WIN/OS2 session and in the DOS session
you play an audio file by using dosapp.exe (which is included in this zipfile).
If you simultaneously play audio from the WIN/OS2 session, a trap will occur.
In other words if VIA the DTA two audio streams are played this may lead
to a crash of the system.

[DTA blocking sound from OS/2 - eCS] 

At this moment native OS/2 does not utilize the DTA. When an audio file
in DOS or WIN/OS2 is played the DTA will block MMOS/2 from accessing the audio
card.

[fwatch.sys may trap system]

If you have the driver FWATCH.SYS installed to monitor file I/O, your system
MAY trap or lockup when used in conjunction with this or older releases of the 
DTA. Generally you only have the fwatch driver installed for debugging purposes, 
so you should be aware if it is on your system.

*D.T.A. (Data Transport Agent)*

[how does it work]

The data transport agent is a project that was started to provide an 
audio driver that would provide sound with any soundcard in WIN/OS2 
that has native OS/2 support. If you have an OS/2 audio driver installed 
and you install the generic WIN/OS2 audio driver, it will provide audio 
playback and recording in WIN/OS2. The old version of the driver 
worked by taking data buffers from WIN/OS2 via a stub audio driver. 
Then via a VDD (Virtual Device Driver) the data can be accessed by OS/2 
which then finally plays it back via DART.
IBM provided this driver orginally and John Gow expanded and enhanced it.

For wave files that are played back at 16 bit and for instance
44 Khz stereo, the above described interface is too slow.
Audio breakups may occur. This is where the design of the DTA started the 
development of a new version of the generic WIN/OS2 audio driver.

With the new design data buffers are sent from WIN/OS2, via DTA.SYS
directly to your audio device driver. Everything has been done to optimize 
this process. 

With this new infrastructure it should be possible to upgrade MMOS/2 as 
well to use this new interface. This will provide less overhead and much 
more stability in handling audio streams. But that's for the future.

Although WIN/OS2 and simple wave playback are provided with this version
the code that sends audio buffers to the audio card driver is more or less
finished. In the future MMOS/2 will also use the same datapath.

[more information]

For more information and the old public released version look on the homepage:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/rwklein


*How to install the D.T.A. ?*

At this moment an easy installation procedure is not available, so please
follow these instructions closely:

You can keep the following files in the directory where you unzipped
dta.zip:

DTA.SYS
DTAD.EXE
VDTA.SYS

Copy the driver OS2WAVE.drv to \os2\mdos\WINOS2\SYSTEM.

In your config.sys add the following lines:
device=driveletter:\path\DTA.SYS
device=driveletter:\path\VDTA.SYS
run=driveletter:\path\DTAD.EXE

In your system.ini, (which can be found in \os2\mdos\WINOS2) put the following
line under th header  [drivers]:

WAVE=OS2WAVE.DRV
If there are any other entries here like AUX=drivername, MIDI=drivername remove the
lines or you can also put the character ; in front the lines that should not
be processed. ; has the same effect as REM in the OS/2 config.sys.


*How to test*

After you installed the drivers and rebooted your system:

- Start WIN/OS2. Do you hear the WIN/OS2 system sounds ? Try and use the 
Sound Recorder to record sound and play back wave files.

- Run dosapp.exe from a DOS session and play a wave file.

- Also check that normal audio playback in MMOS/2 works without locking up
  or crashing your system. (Do you have working systemssounds for example ?).

- The old version of the generic WIN/OS2 driver which can be found on 
  http://home.wanadoo.nl/rwklein has the following problem:

  Please note that when you have installed the driver and you
  don't get any sound in WIN/OS2, check the following:

  Click with the right mouse button on the icon of the WIN 16 session
  (Folder Local System->Command Prompts).
  Select the properties, click on the green tab "session",
  click on the button Win 16 Properties. A new window pops up.
  Choose "DOS memory settings" and click on OK.
  Select the option EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT and put the slider to the left (to 0).
  Select EMS_FRAME_LOCATION and choose NONE.

  We very much like to know from people if you still encounter this problem.


*How to report bugs/success ?*

Please revisit http://www.ecomstation.com/ and login with your user account
and password. Use the bugtracker to report a bug. Always include the following:

- Also please report SUCCESS cases so we know which drivers do work.

- Report WHICH sound driver(s) you have installed (which version).

- Which version of OS/2 or eComStation have you used during testing ?

- With which application did your system crash.

- If you get a trap it would be very convenient for us to have the data on 
  your trap screen.
  You don't need to type this screen over... Press CTRL ALT F10 twice
  when you get the request to insert a diskette please do so
  (please note the disk inserted will be COMPLETE wiped). After the first 
  diskette is written and you get the request to insert a second diskette
  restart your machine. When the machine has started up on the diskette
  there will be 1 file. Open this file in an editor. Use a search option
  and search for the word "trap". The second time you find the the word trap
  you will see the trap screen in the file you also had on your screen. 
  Copy and paste this information in your web browser
  into the bugtracker on ecomstation.com.


*Known limitations*

The following limitations are known to us and are planned to be fixed.

- No MIDI support in WIN/OS2 support
  This should not be much work anymore to implement this.

- Soundblaster emulation missing in DOS sessions.
  This is in development.

- No native MMOS/2 audio support via the DTA. (will be in the future)

- Soundblaster ISA 16 and AWE32/AWE64 are not, and will never be, supported.


[eof]
