Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-04-06, 18:32

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi, I posted this over at VCFed but I see the download is mirrored here as well, so I'm duplicating that post here ... Not to be too nit-picky here, but my code is GPL 3.0 and if you started with my code, then your code is also GPL 3.0. Which means you are bound by the GPL 3.0 license terms too: You …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-04-03, 16:50

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi, Passing the -ro flag to the server is fine to express the intent to not allow writes on the client side, but that begs the question - should the server believe it? If you intend to have an image be read-only, then the proper way to handle that is just to mark it read-only on the server side. …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-04-02, 23:13

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

The flow is basically this: If there is only one software interrupt specified, everything uses it. If there is a second software interrupt specified the programs will try to use it. If it specified but not in use that means NetDrive didn't install it's shim packet driver. When that happens programs …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-04-02, 21:56

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

So something I've been planning to do "someday" is a packet driver that instead of talking to an actual network card, talks to another packet driver and does very simple TCP message .. just like "raw packets", no need to detect errors/retry etc.. just pack the data into the simplest TCP message …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-04-02, 21:54

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

The message now says that it couldn't setup the packet driver. I'll add some text to say why ("There is something already there but doesn't look like a packet driver.")

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-04-02, 15:48

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi Dave: Binaries and source code can be found at https://www.brutman.com/mTCP/mTCP.html . Right now that's redirecting to a PCjr so that I can get a little extra testing on the code, so don't be alarmed at the redirect. (The PCjr is running the web server on top of NetDrive. It has no local hard …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-04-01, 21:49

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

Usually the BIOS of the machine sets those values. Zeros are the normal "this is not in use" value. Sometimes a BIOS will get clever and put a pointer to an "IRET" instruction there instead, so if somebody tries to make a call to an uninitialized software interrupt the call will not crash the …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-03-31, 21:11

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

It's just code. Anything is possible. I chose to do it this way because the secondary "shim" packet driver that NetDrive creates looks and feels exactly like any other packet driver client to the packet driver - it accesses it via a software interrupt. If I tried to take over the packet driver …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-03-31, 17:39

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

Ok, that's the problem. Unused software interrupts are normally set to 0, while on your machine they are set to F000:1805. The NetDrive code is very careful to check the secondary software interrupt to ensure that it's not stepping on anything, and that it's also not in use. You can get around this …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-03-30, 23:12

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi, Don't change cards are anything ... On the same machine (Olivetti M28 286) reboot and before you do anything, run debug.com so I can see the contents of the memory: debug -d 0:180 0000:0180 00 00 00 00 ... 0000:0190 00 00 00 00 ... If you can get a picture of the contents that will confirm a …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-03-30, 14:19

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

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Are all of the mTCP programs (including the NETDRIVE.SYS pointed at by the CONFIG.SYS) file updated? I think they have to be at least as new as last October, when I added the "shim" trick. Sometimes people forget to update the SYS file from wherever it is being loaded. Was the mTCP configuration …

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Re: mTCP NetDrive: network attached storage for DOS 2.0 or better

Posted on 2025-03-25, 20:20

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by mbbrutman

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi, I originally designed it with a text UI, and there is a kill command you can run in that UI. If you are in "headless" mode then that option isn't available. Sometime soon I'll add a "force reconnect" if an abandoned session to the same image and machine is detected. That's a reasonable work …

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Re: WD Silicondrive 512MB CF issues on 486

Posted on 2025-03-17, 18:07

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, CF cards just might not work on that combination. That's the first thing to confirm. Then you can decide on what to do next.

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Re: WD Silicondrive 512MB CF issues on 486

Posted on 2025-03-17, 17:24

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It sounds like a timing issue or an older CF card. Try to slow down the machine in the BIOS or slow down the onboard IDE controllers directly. If you can get it stable at a lower speed that would be a good data point to have. Even though they are supposed to be drop-in replacements, CF Cards are not …

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Re: DOS 3.00-3.30 limits, with a riddle

Posted on 2025-03-11, 00:10

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Did it run MS-DOS 2.11 or PC DOS 2.1? Most Jrs would have been running PC-DOS 2.1, then possibly later versions of PC DOS. Those handled the built-in ROM BASIC and the cartridge correctly. The screen is just CGA with a different pinout. I'm going to have a PCjr at an event in two weeks that is going …

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Re: DOS 3.00-3.30 limits, with a riddle

Posted on 2025-03-07, 05:08

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

So I started to dig into why I I needed 256 FAT sectors for the the 31MB FAT16 image while Linux only needed 246. It turns out I hard-coded the number of sectors per FAT so that it was safe on any size hard disk, but that can be wasteful depending on the sectors per cluster and the disk size. And on …

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Re: DOS 3.00-3.30 limits, with a riddle

Posted on 2025-03-06, 04:35

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

What exactly was the behavioral difference? As far as the created images are concerned, both have identical BPBs except the NetDrive created image has 256 sectors per FAT while the mkfs.fat version has 248 sectors per FAT. mkfs.fat fills in some more fields in the BPB that are used by later versions …

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Re: DOS 3.00-3.30 limits, with a riddle

Posted on 2025-03-05, 17:34

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

- "netdrive create hd FAT16" needs improved for compatibility with DOS 3.30 As stated above, I'll add an option to set the number of sectors per cluster to the HD create util. And probably a warning message about the older versions of DOS and their limitations. Thanks for doing this testing - it is …

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Re: DOS 3.00-3.30 limits, with a riddle

Posted on 2025-03-05, 04:29

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Microsoft has not released the DOS 3.3 source code yet. They have released the versions you can find at https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS. FreeDOS did not get started using any DOS source code. That would have been a major no-no for the project, which is an open source DOS work-a-like.

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Re: DOS 3.00-3.30 limits, with a riddle

Posted on 2025-03-04, 23:10

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by mbbrutman

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

15 bits is not working for me either ... At this point it's a DOS 3.3 limitation or bug. And it's not well documented anywhere, except possibly now in this thread.

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