No. My modem is on Com2. And I have nothing on IRQ 4 other than my COM1 port.
I just double checked my port settings and they are correct too. I'm about to recompile again. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Is it possible that's what happened to you? Using a modem that shared an interrupt with your Com1 port?

Another possibility is that the settings for Com1 weren't correct for the Empeg. Remember that it wants NO handshaking, rather than software or hardware handshaking. (Other settings are 115200 N 8 1.)