VOGONS


IPX network on MS-DOS

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Reply 20 of 53, by konc

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Kind of late to the thread, but I thought to just leave this here:
For connecting only 2 PCs in order to play DOOM, the easiest solution without setting up any network is to just use a serial cable and play a serial game. Of course it limits you to 2 computers and does not apply for other games not supporting serial connection, but it's relevant to this specific topic.

Reply 21 of 53, by dieymir

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Deksor wrote:

It's a shame that nobody did make a lightweight TSR for file sharing over TCP/IP for DOS, all you can use basically is microsoft's network client and this takes loads of RAM

Well there is an alternative to share files between linux and DOS using only a packet driver:

http://etherdfs.sourceforge.net

It worked for me 😊 . Try it

Reply 23 of 53, by DreyMIX

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Hello,
I have a Realtek 8139/810x.

I would also like to be able to configure it in ms-dos, to start games on a local network using the ipx/netbios protocol like duke3d, doom, heretic, etc...

Unfortunately the link you posted doesn't work anymore. Is there a way to recover the 3 software (LSL, PNPODI and IPXODI) for my network card?

Thank you very much!

chinny22 wrote:
To make it real easy for you (Love a bit of dos networking) download lsl.com and ipxodi.com from the link zerker gave you […]
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To make it real easy for you (Love a bit of dos networking)
download lsl.com and ipxodi.com from the link zerker gave you

Download the "Novell client for DOS" from here
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloads … &Downloads=true

copy them into a folder on your PC and load
LSL
PNPODI
IPXODI

You may also want to rem out the MS dos networking as that will take up memory and may clash with the novell networking that games use, or configure a dos boot menu.
I would also just use a switch, even a old router with multiple Ethernet connections will work, dos will ignore all the IP type stuff.

No reason to limit yourself to Doom either, any network dos game will work once you have it up and running

Reply 24 of 53, by eisapc

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No idea on PNPODI cause I never used it, but the other two should be part of any Netware client install and can be easily found in different download locations.
https://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tools/1561.html is only one of them.

Reply 25 of 53, by chinny22

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LSL and IPXODI are generic. To put in into Windows 9x terms LSL is if you install Network support and IPXODI is loading the IPX protocol.
Indeed these 2 NEED to be the same versions across all PC's

The 3rd file, in this case PNPODI is the network card driver.

I've attached all 3 in a zip here for anyone else in the future. LSL and IPXODI are the final versions, PNPODI probably is but cant confirm
lsl.com, 2.11
ipxodi.com, 3.00 Beta 5

Attachments

  • Filename
    RTL8019.zip
    File size
    43.7 KiB
    Downloads
    239 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 26 of 53, by DreyMIX

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Thx!

If I try to launch first "LSL.COM" it tells me:
LSL-211-14: The NET.CFG file was not found. The LSL use system defaults.

However, I get an error when then run "PNPODI.COM". It says "There is no LAN card on your system !!"
I see that PNPODI is the driver for Realtek 8019 and I have the Realtek 8139 instead.

Reply 27 of 53, by chinny22

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Try this the V3.80 files should be fine
https://support.advantech.com/support/Downloa … Source=Download

You want the files in NWClient\DOS folder. copy them into same folder as lsl and ipxodi
The "Missing "net.cfg" is actually here as it's part of the NIC driver, although 9 times out of 10 I don't include it and force all machines to use defaults.

Reply 28 of 53, by DreyMIX

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I copied the 3 files from the "NWCLIENT\DOS" folder (NET.CFG, RTSODI.COM, RTSODI.INS).

Now the folder contains the following files:
IPXODI.COM
LSL.COM
NET.CFG
RTSODI.COM
RTSODI.INS

I opened the NET.CFG file and except for the commented strings, these are the values set:

Link Driver RTSODI
FRAME ETHERNET_802.2

NetWare DOS Requester
FIRST NETWORK DRIVE = F
NETWARE PROTOCOL = NDS BIND
MAX IPG = 0

Is it correct or do I have to change something?
I was seeing the values set by this site (http://www.doom2.net/doom2/network.html) and omitting the value set on "Link Driver" the rest is something different.

Maybe I'm slowly figuring out how it works, but I didn't understand these values to be set on NET.CFG if they have to be the same or not for every computer.

Thank you very much for the help!

Reply 29 of 53, by Deksor

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The frame ETHERNET must be the same on each computers. From my memory, 802.2 is the correct value for windows 9x/DOS communications. (I had once a mismatch and it didn't work well at all!)

Sometimes there are other lines which can help the program to find the NIC from what I understand. (I probably sound unsure, but that's because I've not found any clear documentation on this, so this is just from personal experience).

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 30 of 53, by DreyMIX

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ok i try with the ver 802.2

I would just like to know if the values "Protocol IpxOdi" and "Protocol IPX 00 ETHERNET_802.3" (that if I understood correctly, having set it to version 802.2, it would become: "Protocol IPX 00 ETHERNET_802.2") are necessary or not. And above all, those final values are so necessary? (From "NetWare DOS Requester ..." and then to follow).

Protocol IpxOdi

Link Driver RTSODI
FRAME ETHERNET_802.2
Protocol IPX 00 ETHERNET_802.2

NetWare DOS Requester
FIRST NETWORK DRIVE = F
NETWARE PROTOCOL = NDS BIND
MAX IPG = 0

Reply 31 of 53, by chinny22

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_frame# … _raw_IEEE_802.3
Gives an idea what all this is and why. but in over simplified terms 802.3 was Novell's non standard packet while 802.2 was the standardised fall back.
Think of it like TCP/IPv4 & TCP/IPv6. Even though they are both TCP protocol, if different they are basically talking different languages so wont understand the packets been sent.
This is why both must match.

It's also why I don't have the cfg file in my setup's just let lsl.com apply defaults to your setup and you should be fine as we are just using it for network gaming, any advanced features the cards cfg file may have wont be utilised anyway. If you were connecting to a proper netware server it may be different story.

Reply 32 of 53, by DreyMIX

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Ok, I solved this:

First PC with real MS-DOS:

Protocol IpxOdi

Link Driver RTSODI
FRAME ETHERNET_802.2
Protocol IPX 00 ETHERNET_802.2

NetWare DOS Requester
FIRST NETWORK DRIVE = F

Second PC with Dosbox (DOSBox_Megabuild6-win32-installer)

Protocol IpxOdi

Link Driver NE2000
FRAME ETHERNET_802.2
Protocol IPX 00 ETHERNET_802.2

NetWare DOS Requester
FIRST NETWORK DRIVE = F

Tested with Duke nukem 3d and works great!
If instead I try to delete the NET.CFG file on both PCs and launch the 3 software sequentially, unfortunately it does not work.

Reply 33 of 53, by Deksor

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I think you don't need the NetWare lines though.
Pretty cool to know how to use IPX for games isn't it ? 😁

This topic of retrocomputing is really lacking documentation unfortunately.

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 34 of 53, by DreyMIX

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Already! It was difficult even then, it is even more difficult today that the documentation is almost gone.
But in any case it was interesting to rediscover the way of replaying in the old way. I hope sooner or later to get me a real second pc with a real MS-DOS. For now I'm happy with a virtual dos (on the second machine).

Many thanks to everyone for the help!

Reply 35 of 53, by Guybrush3pwood

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Maybe I'm being a bit of a boob here, but these instructions don't make any sense to me. There's no clear indication of what exactly I need to do to get this working. I've downloaded the NetWare DOS Client (as mentioned earlier), but never what it mentioned what I'm supposed to do with the exe. I extracted the exe and it gave me a bunch of files, am I supposed to just copy those over to my DOS pc?

So I currently have that and I downloaded lsl.com and ipxodi.com. What else am I missing?

Reply 36 of 53, by chinny22

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Guybrush3pwood wrote on 2020-02-01, 05:23:

Maybe I'm being a bit of a boob here, but these instructions don't make any sense to me. There's no clear indication of what exactly I need to do to get this working. I've downloaded the NetWare DOS Client (as mentioned earlier), but never what it mentioned what I'm supposed to do with the exe. I extracted the exe and it gave me a bunch of files, am I supposed to just copy those over to my DOS pc?

So I currently have that and I downloaded lsl.com and ipxodi.com. What else am I missing?

chinny22 wrote on 2017-09-21, 21:31:
... copy them into a folder on your PC and load LSL PNPODI IPXODI ... […]
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...
copy them into a folder on your PC and load
LSL
PNPODI
IPXODI
...

So just these 3 files to start with need to be copied over
You can run them manually or add them to the autoexec.bat.
Note PNPODI is only for the realtek card, you need the correct one for your card

Reply 37 of 53, by Guybrush3pwood

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chinny22 wrote on 2020-02-01, 11:01:
So just these 3 files to start with need to be copied over You can run them manually or add them to the autoexec.bat. Note PNPOD […]
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Guybrush3pwood wrote on 2020-02-01, 05:23:

Maybe I'm being a bit of a boob here, but these instructions don't make any sense to me. There's no clear indication of what exactly I need to do to get this working. I've downloaded the NetWare DOS Client (as mentioned earlier), but never what it mentioned what I'm supposed to do with the exe. I extracted the exe and it gave me a bunch of files, am I supposed to just copy those over to my DOS pc?

So I currently have that and I downloaded lsl.com and ipxodi.com. What else am I missing?

chinny22 wrote on 2017-09-21, 21:31:
... copy them into a folder on your PC and load LSL PNPODI IPXODI ... […]
Show full quote

...
copy them into a folder on your PC and load
LSL
PNPODI
IPXODI
...

So just these 3 files to start with need to be copied over
You can run them manually or add them to the autoexec.bat.
Note PNPODI is only for the realtek card, you need the correct one for your card

Ok, what file should I use for my card? It's a 3com Etherlink XL pci card.

Reply 38 of 53, by chinny22

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Your looking for the ODI or Netware client driver for your card

Quick google fond this site
http://files.mpoli.fi/hardware/NET/3COM
Your after 3C90X.ZIP
Inside the 3C90X1X.EXE archive you want the file
\NWCLIENT\3c90x.com
You may also need net.cfg but try without it first

So you will then load:
lsl.com (Start's networking)
3c90x.com (loads your NIC)
ipxodi.com (loads the IPX protocol)

This'll load a default configuration and should be enough for dos gaming. But if it doesn't work you may need to copy across that net.cfg file and edit it in notepad/edit or whatever to suit your setup.

Reply 39 of 53, by Guybrush3pwood

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chinny22 wrote on 2020-02-01, 15:49:
Your looking for the ODI or Netware client driver for your card […]
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Your looking for the ODI or Netware client driver for your card

Quick google fond this site
http://files.mpoli.fi/hardware/NET/3COM
Your after 3C90X.ZIP
Inside the 3C90X1X.EXE archive you want the file
\NWCLIENT\3c90x.com
You may also need net.cfg but try without it first

So you will then load:
lsl.com (Start's networking)
3c90x.com (loads your NIC)
ipxodi.com (loads the IPX protocol)

This'll load a default configuration and should be enough for dos gaming. But if it doesn't work you may need to copy across that net.cfg file and edit it in notepad/edit or whatever to suit your setup.

The 3C90x.com file as it is is named 3C90x.co_. Do I rename it to .com?