THE ZOOM FIX Jan. 3, 1996 courtesy of KKSAMURAI

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU PRINT THIS FILE FOR REFERENCE!

Be advised I am not a zoom rep, have no connection to zoom in any way, and am only doing this to show you how I got my zoom 110 RPI+ working GREAT!!! I can not guarantee it will work for your setup, there are so many variables that can affect results but these instructions should help most users. I use a 486 SLC 40 with 4 meg of RAM.

REQUIREMENTS:

Zoom model 110 fax/pc 14.4 modem RPI+ w/ 1.625 or higher chipset Windows 3x Comit for windows AOL2.5 (it may work on 2.0 also...untried) Zoomt's RPIKIT4.EXE (free download thru keyword: ZOOM 386 or better COMPATIBLE systems

THINGS TO CHECK:

To check your com port uart, exit to RAW DOS (not windows dos) at the DOS prompt type this command: MSD now hit enter or return now click on C or COM now copy down all information for future reference!

To check your modem chipset go to windows program manager, double click on your TERMINAL icon. When the screen comes up type this command: ati3 now hit enter or return now copy down all information for future reference!

Print a copy of your existing windows SYSTEM.INI file for future reference! Also make a duplicate COPY of this existing file to a floppy disk just in case you want to get back to your original conditions! You could easily just copy the old system.ini file back to your windows directory later if the changes we make don't work.

BASIC NEEDS:

You must have your modem operational even at low speeds for downloads. AOL 2.5, Windows 3x and Comit must all be already loaded and operational. You must download Zooms RPIKIT4.EXE and place it in it's own directory on your hard drive. The suggested directory name (assuming your hard drive is C:) is; C:\SETRPI

DOWNLOAD PROCESS:

Go to AOL KEYWORD and enter ZOOMT and download RPIKIT4.EXE from Zooms software library. Move it to it's own directory as described above.

INSTALL RPIKIT4.EXE:

Once downloaded into it's own directory (SETRPI) go to windows file manager in the SETRPI Directory and double click on file RPIKIT4.EXE It will expand. Now double click on INSTALL.EXE This will set up the Winrpi software and create a new program group complete with it's own set of icons. Go to your program manager, make sure this new group is open and double click on the blue square MSDOS icon. This will correctly copy the new modem data files to your Comitw directory. Go to program manager and this new group of icons again and double click on the setrpi icon. A screen will come up, test your com ports for modem location and chipset. If you do not have RPI+ these instructions may not work for your modem, I've only fixed an RPI+ and therefore am not sure. Once revealed, write down this information for future reference! Now on this same screen click on driver and install the WRPI.DRV Upon doing this you may get a message that says it could not rename windapi.dll to windapi.dbk that's OK, restart windows anyway. Now go to your windows file manager, go to your windows\system directory, COPY windapi.dll to any other directory that is convenient, go to that directory and rename this copy of windapi.dll to windapi.dbk. Once this is done, MOVE this copy of windapi.dbk back to your windows\system directory. Now you've got both versions of this file installed in case you want to go back for some reason! Exit windows and reboot. Go to RAW DOS! (not windows dos)

CONFIRMATIONS:

If you have your old dosshell loaded fire it up! and VIEW your windows directory SYSTEM.INI file. If you don't have dosshell use your keyboard, change to your windows directory and type this command TYPE SYSTEM.INI | MORE Look at the [boot] section of this file, You should find some key command lines. My last 4 lines of this file say exactly this;

comm.drv=wrpi.drv keyboard.drv=keyboard.drv ;comm.drv=comm.drv drivers=windapi.dbk mmsystem.dll

If your key lines don't look like this you may have to manually fix them. CAREFULL NOW!! Don't go changing things just yet!!! I don't have multi- media so you may have more drivers! The best thing to do is to consider lines 1, 3, & 4 above to be the "key lines" for this next exercise. Your mmsystem.dll comment may be diffrent based on your setup so DON'T delete any special drivers you may be using for your system!

MANUAL CHANGES:

While in RAW DOS fire up the old editor and manually edit the "key lines" of your windows SYSTEM.INI file to conform with the "key lines above" but don't delete any special drivers you may be using for your system! Now reboot your computer.

AOL SETUP:

Go to windows and start up AOL but DON'T log in, click on the SETUP block. First edit your location speed, for the moment set it at 19200 on both phone numbers, click on save. Click on SETUP again, click on MODEM SETUP, select "CUSTOM MODEM PROFILE" and edit the string line (if you have RPI+) to the following

AT&F&C1&D2&K3+H11S95=1^M

This is your basic stringline, you may have to change it a bit later. Save all settings and exit to program manager again.

COMIT SETUP:

My Comit directory is called Comitw, yours may be something different, I don't think it matters for this exercise. Find your Comit program group and double click on COMIT. Under SETTINGS click on PORT and adjust your setup as follows:

speed 19200 hardware flow control 1, none, 8 lock baud rate carrier detect DO NOT enable V42 soft! enable nothing else it works for me! click on OK

While still in Comit SETTINGS click on MODEM select "3 MODEMS USING RPI+ FIRMWARE for Windows" Once this is done the initialization string may be blank. If it is don't worry, the selected modem will use it's default stringline in Comit anyway. Select tone, your choice of modem volume and set xmit delay to 0. Click OK and it should run thru a self test without calling up an error. Once completed exit Comit and save all new settings. Now click on Comits Modem Driver set-up utility. Click on INI-STATUS. This will report to you the stringline you should use in AOL. Write it down. Click on the -sign and close to exit. Don't worry about the other stuff on that screen, it's not important at this stage.

Now go back to AOL Setup and modify your stringline if necessary using the one just reported to you above. Don't use the ~ at the end of it, just add S95=1^M. Click all of the OK's and exit.

Exit windows and reboot your computer.

At this point, assuming AOL's mail system is working OK right now, Start up Windows, start up AOL and log on. Go to "COMPOSE MAIL" and start testing this beast out! Pick a friend, type something in all screens, and attach a small text file to the message, then send it. If that worked try it again with a small windows BMP file attached. If that worked try again with a reasonably sized GIF file attached. If that worked CONGRATULATIONS!!! You've won the battle!!!!

SPEED ADJUSTMENTS:

If everything is working OK, now is the time to mess with speed adjustments. Check your notes on the Com port test uart speed you have on your modems com port and adjust as follows:

If you have 16550 uart you can reset ALL* baud rates to 57600 If you have 16450 uart you can reset ALL* baud rates to 38400 If you have 8250 uart you can reset ALL* baud rates to 19200

*note: All-refers to speed settings for both AOL and COMIT.

For those of you that have RPI instead of RPI+, or a less than 1.625 modem chipset, I recommend you contact Zoom about an upgrade. However, if you like to experiment, you may be able to follow the same instructions outlined above and MAYBE select a different modem and stringline in Comit. However, your AOL custom modem profile stringline will most likely be the following:

AT&F&C1&D2&K3+H3S95=1^M

INTERNET ACCESS:

If you plan to access the internet through AOL you should now go to AOL, member, preferences, WWW and PURGE your existing CACHE sub-directory in its entirety, creating a brand new clean and empty one to replace it. I get the best results by doing this before I log on. If this is not done you will likely get booted off to your c:\> and be left in the dark with nothing but a black screen reflecting the glazed-over look in your eyes. Once this has been done, select preferences again and set your WWW preferences. I personally recommend NO GRAPHICS just for speed and easy access. But, if you MUST have the pretty pictures during your journey I suggest you select UNCOMPRESSED GRAPHICS, then select ADVANCED and select CACHE WEB PAGES. Unless you've got oodles of hard disk space I'd recommend using only 2 or 3 megabytes. Anything more is a waste of disk space. Click the OKs and SAVE all settings when you're done. I make a habit of purging my CACHE after every session (especially if I got bumped off the net for some unknown reason) just to get rid of any problem site files and avoid getting bumped off again in the future when and if I should happen to enter them again. You may elect to keep your cache to provide improved site jump speed but don't keep it if it is not reliable or if you make any WWW setting or computer configuration changes, it will likely no longer be reliable!

I hope the above information was some help to you. If you've follwed the instructions and still have problems, or have found a better way to do it just Email me. GOOD LUCK to all Zoom users!!!

If you find yourself getting bumped off AOL regularly and would like more information on improving your stringline, email me your request for my STRING.FIX file.

KKSamurai@aol.com or kksamurai@mci.newscorp.com