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Network over LPT or COM port

Ruud

Ruud

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Joined
Nov 30, 2009
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Location
Heerlen, NL
You have INTERSVR and INTERLNK from MS-DOS and Lantastic 4.1 that can be used to access the drives of another PC over the LPT or COM port as if they were part of your own directory. I'm quite well in programming in ASM and Pascal and I want to program such a tool myself. So I searched internet and ran into EtherDFS. Looked like a nice start but it stated that the server part should run on a Linux machine and the source for this program was not given. And my tool should be able to run on 8088/8086 machines, both server and client.

I had a look at RAMdrives. But I cannot see how to use this in combination with I/O ports. And even if I saw it, I just have the client side. How to handle the server side? or is it as simple as "just sending the info the client needs"? If the client needs the directory, what should be sent, the text as it woud appear on the screen or just some raw data?

Who is able to help me with some pointers, please?

Many thanks in advance!
 
I was forgetting Netware Lite evolved into Personal Netware too, which might be the basis in Novell DOS.
 
Have you had a look at U - N E T II? It's a full parallel port client/server network. Maybe it could give you some pointers.
 
WBST said:
Re-inventing the wheel? If it floats your boat.
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Mainly to learn HOW it is done. I can use the knowledge for other projects.

I suggest you look into Netware Lite, Netware DOS/NDOS (formerly DR-DOS plus Netware Lite).
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I have the original Novell-DOS 7.01 and I made it work so that was not the problem. But in general it takes so much time to setup the network that I rather prefer tools like Laplink or UFO.

https://www.brutman.com/Dos_Networking/
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I completely forgot about that one, thank you very much!
 
Ruud said:
So I searched internet and ran into EtherDFS. Looked like a nice start but it stated that the server part should run on a Linux machine and the source for this program was not given. And my tool should be able to run on 8088/8086 machines, both server and client.
Click to expand...

It looks like the source for both the client and server are on sourceforge?

https://sourceforge.net/projects/etherdfs/files/
 
Somewhere around here I still have some fancy cables used for parallel networking from a bit name back in the day (forget who).

The only times I got into serial networking was feeding disk images to my C1541 drive or to an Amiga.
 
WBST said:
I was forgetting Netware Lite evolved into Personal Netware too, which might be the basis in Novell DOS.
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No DRDos was the basis for Novell Dos,,, Dr Dos had a client/server com/lpt sharing set of programs iirc. If not lpt definately com port.
Just looked my DR Dos 6.0 User Guide. Filelink was the name of the program. Serial only.
 
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Eudimorphodon said:
It looks like the source for both the client and server are on sourceforge? ...
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First: I realized that I don't need the server side software at all. I'm only interested how I can integrate the obtained information of the directory structure into the directory of the client. HOW I get this info is not important. In fact I have done that before: my Commodore drive emulator not only emulates drives but my CBM computers can also directly access the files and directories of the computer running the emulator.

I downloaded the sources of EtherDFS only to find out that it does not contain any program that does what I'm looking for. I even contacted mr. Brutman and he confirmed that. He advised me to look for '"network redirector" interface for DOS'. So I will do that.

Quick edit: just googling and very promising indeed. It seems "redirector" was the keyword.
 
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Ruud said:
I downloaded the sources of EtherDFS only to find out that it does not contain any program that does what I'm looking for. I even contacted mr. Brutman and he confirmed that. He advised me to look for '"network redirector" interface for DOS'.
Click to expand...

I think the author of EtherDFS was pretty clear about how his program wasn't a standard network redirector; my recollection is that it abuses some direct storage block interface and otherwise isn't a "well behaved" network widget.

If you're working on more standard network services I'd personally love to see a direct LPT redirector to a remote TCP port. ;) I've found a TSR that seems to do a pretty reliable job redirecting LPT1 to a file, and using that I've been able to use NC.EXE from Mr. Brutman's fine TCP suite to send print jobs to my networked Laserjet, but it'd be really cool to have a lightweight widget that did that directly.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
If you're working on more standard network services...
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FYI, I'm not. Thinking about it, it will be a driver that enables a PC to recognize the directory structure of another computer as parts of its own. I would prefer a driver that can be placed on both PCs and where it doesn't matter which one is the server and which one is the client. But that is something for the future.
As the communication is 1-to-1 over the LPT or COM port, I don't think TCP/IP or equivalent is needed; IMHO it is just overhead. So I'm afraid that you can forget "standard network services".
 
Stone said:
What about using DOSBox Debugger or something similar?
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To disassemble the program? That would be one of the last options. Anyway, an article in Dr. Dobb's led me to this DOSRIF.ZIP but I couldn't download it, even after registering. Another search lead to a downloadable version plus it successor, DOSRIFS2.ZIP. I think with this and some other articles from "Undocumented DOS" should help.
 
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