When connecting to a serial device or modem, this message means another application is using the same port. This can include mouse drivers, fax software, or another terminal emulation program. There are more programs that might be using a serial port, but these are the most common.

If nothing else should be using the specified port, close all your applications and reboot your PC. If that does not clear up the problem, you’ll need to check the active processes on the PC, looking for those that might be accessing serial ports.

On Windows NT, 2000 or XP, TinyTERM 4.x will sometimes hang after a modem connection disconnects normally. There are two possible solutions:

1. Open TinyTERM’s Session Properties and go to the Login tab. Click the Logout radio button. Delete any text in the 1st Send, Wait for, Then Send and Retry fields on that same tab. Save the changes.
2. If that does not work, update the modem drivers on the PC.

There are circumstances where neither of these solutions works. In that case, the only fix is to kill TinyTERM from the Task Manager. To get to that, right-click on a blank area of your taskbar. Select Task Manager from the popup menu. Click on TinyTERM in the list of applications, then click the End Task button. That will close TinyTERM.

Please note that there is no way to get rid of the “Remote party disconnected” message. It will come up any time the remote system closes the telephone connection. This also alerts you to premature connection losses.

CR 117
CR 187

This error means that TinyTERM isn’t detecting a dial tone. When you get this error, first check to see if other Windows programs — HyperTerminal, a dial-up Internet connection, etc. — can use the same phone line.

If not, then check to make sure the telephone line is properly plugged into the modem and the wall. If it is, try plugging a telephone into the same line. That will tell you whether the problem is in the line or the modem itself.

If other Windows applications can use the modem, first try updating your modem driver. After updating the driver, if TinyTERM still can’t use the modem, there’s a compatibility problem. You’ll need to dial the modem manually. Instructions are in our knowledge base here.

There may be times when you want to dial out by typing commands, rather than allowing TinyTERM or TERM to connect the modem automatically. To do this, configure TinyTERM to connect to the serial port your modem is attached to.

If it’s an internal modem, it will still be associated with a serial port. Check your operating system documentation for help locating the appropriate port.

Once connected, type

AT

and hit Enter. You should see an OK message come back. If there’s no response, or if you can’t see the letters you typed, try this command:

ATE1Q0

Most modems will respond to this with a clearly visible OK. You can then type the ATDT command to dial the modem, followed by the phone number. For example:

ATDT1-801-268-3088

The AT commands are all part of the Hayes modem command set. Most modems will accept them readily. For a complete list, see http://www.modemhelp.net.

TinyTERM and TERM can dial a calling card, then enter an access code before dialing a modem number. You simply need to enter the entire calling sequence as the phone number, using commas to pause the dialing for two seconds each.

For example, suppose I need to dial 1-800-555-5555 to access my calling card. Six seconds later, it connects and asks for my PIN, which is 1111. Four seconds after that, I can dial the number I need, 801-268-3088. I would enter that number like this:

1-800-555-5555,,,1111,,801-268-3088

This assumes I don’t need to dial 1 for the actual number when using my calling card. You don’t actually need the dashes in the phone numbers, either. They’re ignored when dialing, but they do make it easier to read.

This error means TinyTERM version 3.3 can’t locate its internal procedure for dialing a modem. It most often happens due to an inability to recognize long directory names, especially with spaces. So when it’s installed as a subdirectory of C:\Program Files, this can happen.

The error can also occur when the file WTERMUS.CMD, which contains the w_dialer_dial procedure, has gotten damaged or partially corrupted. In either case, the fix is the same.

Uninstall TinyTERM using the manual uninstall instructions. Reboot the PC, then reinstall TinyTERM. When it asks for a directory path, specify a DOS-style path, rather than a long one; e.g., C:\Century.

If you still get the error after installing, edit the WTERMUS.CMD file in the same manner described under the Incompatible TAPI Version item.

This error comes from using an older version of TinyTERM on Windows Me, 2000, XP or Vista. Windows TAPI changed considerably in those operating systems, so older versions of TinyTERM won’t understand it. The best solution is to upgrade. Or you can dial the modem manually.

You can configure TinyTERM Application Developer 3.3 to dial the modem. To do that, locate the file wtermus.cmd and open it in a text editor such as WordPad. Search it for the line:

setvar t_tapi true

For every instance of that line, change “true” to “false”. Save the changes, and TinyTERM will use its internal dialer instead of TAPI. This workaround is only available on TinyTERM Application Developer 3.3.

Windows 95 introduced TAPI for modem handling. TERM for Windows 7.2 and TinyTERM 3.3 can use TAPI, but will sometimes give errors instead of connecting normally. In those cases, it’s possible to turn off TAPI handling, allowing TinyTERM to use the modem as though it were on Windows 3.1 instead.

Locate the file WTERMUS.CMD in the TinyTERM directory. Open it in Notepad or another text editor. Search it for every instance of the line:

setvar t_tapi true

Change “true” to “false” for every instance. TinyTERM will no longer recognize TAPI, which will allow it to handle the modem directly instead.