Orinoco wifi card works in Win9x, but not in DOS \ VOGONS

Orinoco wifi card works in Win9x, but not in DOS

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-09-02, 21:40

keenmaster486 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2693
Joined: 2016-02-16, 02:04
Location: Gnosticus IV

So I got this pile of 16-bit PCMCIA network cards yesterday, among them three Orinoco Golds.

I plugged one of them into my Toshiba 460CDT laptop dual booting with Windows 98 and DOS. Installed the drivers for 98 and Firefox 2.0, and voila, I have internet access! Slow, but it works.

But no matter what I do I cannot get the card working in DOS. I have the standard drivers (I think) and the standard "CARDSOFT" card services, but neither of those is able to pick up the card. They both report the card as simply "not present".

This is the same problem I had with a Cardbus ethernet card a while back, except this time I was actually able to make the card work in Windows 98 with no troubles at all, but I have the same exact impassable problem in DOS.

Here's my CONFIG.SYS:

1DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
2DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-DFFF
3DEVICE=C:\CARDSOFT\SSCIRRUS.EXE
4DEVICE=C:\CARDSOFT\CS.EXE
5DEVICE=C:\CARDSOFT\CSALLOC.EXE
6DEVICE=C:\CARDSOFT\CARDID.EXE
7DEVICEHIGH=C:\WIFIDOS\DRIVERS\CAD\WVLANCAD.SYS /i=10 /b=1300 /m=d000
8DOS=HIGH,UMB

AUTOEXEC.BAT just has DOSKEY and CTMOUSE.

After booting, the output of CARDINFO.EXE is as follows:

1SystemSoft PCMCIA Card Installation Utility, Version 1.08 (2090-01)
2Copyright 1992-1994 SystemSoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved
3
4Slot 0:
5
6       Slot 0 is empty
7
8Slot 1:
9
10       Slot 1 is empty

And when I try to run WVLAN42 /L, I get:

1Wireless Packet Driver, Variant 1, v6.12 (020409)
2
3WVLAN42: No card available/No MAC address specified. Packet Driver not loaded.

I did edit PACKET.INI with the correct settings for my network (it's a college wifi network and unsecured; the same one I was using in Windows 98).

What on earth am I doing wrong? Do I need different drivers and/or card services? And if someone has done this successfully before on a similar machine, could you possibly post the correct files?

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 1 of 6, by adalbert

Posted on 2016-09-02, 21:57

adalbert Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 532
Joined: 2014-06-28, 11:40
Location: EU

When card services are used, these parameters should be removed: /i=10 /b=1300 /m=d000

I managed to get that card working on a 486 and Pentium laptop, after long struggle I prepared files which enable Internet access both under DOS and Win 3.1 (that involves lsl.com file and some novell drivers if I remember correctly), 486 laptop uses card services and Pentium laptop uses just the wvlancad driver, I remember having to find correct i=.. b=... m= parameters with help of some DOS diagnostic software (you need to find some free memory resources and interrupt for that card).
I can post those files here later but I'm away from home now.

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 2 of 6, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-09-02, 22:01

keenmaster486 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2693
Joined: 2016-02-16, 02:04
Location: Gnosticus IV

OK... removing the options on WVLANCAD.SYS has no effect; everything remains the same except that the driver now says "Card services will provide card settings".

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 3 of 6, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-09-03, 01:31

keenmaster486 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2693
Joined: 2016-02-16, 02:04
Location: Gnosticus IV

SUCCESS!

The secret was changing the PCMCIA setting in the BIOS from hybrid
CardBus/16Bit to "PCIC compatible". Miraculously the card is now
detected and the packet driver loaded with no problems!

I am now writing this post from Arachne on my now fully functional
DOS-WiFi-networked laptop. Woohoo!

Arachne looks pretty cool, although things get kind of hard to read
since not everything is rendered exactly right. VOGONS loads and runs
perfectly though!

A slight problem however: every time Arachne loads a new page it decides
to renegotiate the DHCP settings, which takes a while 🤣 Maybe I'll
try a static IP and see if that works better. But for now, it just
works.

I'll try to make all my posts from here now 😁

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 4 of 6, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-09-03, 02:17

keenmaster486 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2693
Joined: 2016-02-16, 02:04
Location: Gnosticus IV

Well, now I'm using the Dillo port to DOS, which I've been much more pleased with so far. Renders VOGONS in a much more recognizable fashion, as other sites. And it doesn't constantly renegotiate the DHCP settings.

So here's a celebratory emoticon: 😁

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 5 of 6, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-09-03, 04:16

keenmaster486 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2693
Joined: 2016-02-16, 02:04
Location: Gnosticus IV

Now I'm quadruple posting, but please, mods, make an exception for me since I'm so excited 😊

I checked my email, downloaded a large (64MB) file, posted on VOGONS and PCKF, and visited various other sites all on pure DOS on real hardware.

It's a good day 😀

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 6 of 6, by ratco

Posted on 2017-09-06, 17:32

ratco Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 68
Joined: 2015-12-01, 23:22

Hey keenmaster486!
Sorry to bother but I am on the process of maybe get a Proxim ORinoco Gold 8470-WD. I would like to ask you what files do you use to get it to work (under pure DOS, I am using FreeDOS 1.0).
Also, do you get it to connect to wpa2? Or only wep?
Btw, you seem to have gotten a good experience with Arachne. Have you tried other browsers? Like Links, Lynx, Dillo... ?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware

Main menu

Common searches