VOGONS


First post, by _Rob

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Looking for someone with a ISA NE2000 PnP adapter that can dump the PnP data. This is to enable emulation of the PnP feature.

https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/issues/1482

A binary is available to extract the data if you have such an adapter.

Reply 1 of 7, by TheGreatCodeholio

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Source code is freely available if you want to know what the program does when dumping all ISA PnP and ISA PnP BIOS information and how it works. The dumping program is dump.c.

There is also a test.c (test.exe) if you want to play around and view the PnP data interactively.

It's been tested fairly well on some old Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Pentium III systems lying around during it's development from 2011 to 2016.

https://github.com/joncampbell123/doslib/tree … aster/hw/isapnp

DOSBox-X project: more emulation better accuracy.
DOSLIB and DOSLIB2: Learn how to tinker and hack hardware and software from DOS.

Reply 2 of 7, by derSammler

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_Rob wrote on 2020-05-04, 07:06:

Looking for someone with a ISA NE2000 PnP adapter that can dump the PnP data. This is to enable emulation of the PnP feature.

There is no such thing. The Novell NE2000 had no PnP, it was first released in 1988 and sold for many, many years unchanged. There were zillions of NE2000-compatible clones later however, which were PnP cards. So what exactly are you after? The PnP data of any arbitrary NE2000-compatible card?

That feature request seems to ask for emulating something that never existed. And that just because you have to scan for new hardware in Win95 when enabling it later? That's just how it was back then with real metal, too.

Reply 3 of 7, by _Rob

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derSammler wrote on 2020-05-04, 11:02:
_Rob wrote on 2020-05-04, 07:06:

Looking for someone with a ISA NE2000 PnP adapter that can dump the PnP data. This is to enable emulation of the PnP feature.

There is no such thing. The Novell NE2000 had no PnP, it was first released in 1988 and sold for many, many years unchanged. There were zillions of NE2000-compatible clones later however, which were PnP cards. So what exactly are you after? The PnP data of any arbitrary NE2000-compatible card?

That feature request seems to ask for emulating something that never existed. And that just because you have to scan for new hardware in Win95 when enabling it later? That's just how it was back then with real metal, too.

Novell never made the NE2000 cards themselves, the were actually made by "Eagle/Anthem", and simply branded as Novell. It is a National semiconductor reference design, which similar to the IBM PC itself used off the shelf components, making it easy for "clone" cards to be created.

But should that prevent PnP support, just because there was no official "Novell NE2000 PnP" card? There were plenty of NE2000 "compatible" PnP cards by other vendors.

Here is a windows .INF file with plenty of examples:
http://davydov.phys.spbu.ru/netnovel.inf

Note: I did find references to a Novell/Eagle "NE2000 Plus", which was jumperless, and as such may have been PnP (or it was a proprietary setup).

Reply 5 of 7, by _Rob

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I think this may be the NE2000 Plus card. It includes driver disks with Novell branding.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Novell-NE2000-T- … e-/162255074592

I found a better picture of it here:
https://817-427-9000.com/catalog/images/Novel … plus%20Back.JPG

It's called a "National Semiconductor InfoMover NE2000plus", not sure if that is the actual "Novell/Eagle NE2000 Plus" card, or another clone. But both disks have Novell branding on them.

One of the disks has a 1993 copyright on it, which is a bit early for PnP support.

The "Read Me First!" pamphlet talks about a "PlusDiag" configuration program on the (NE2000plus) novell netware driver disk.

The "Plus" version apparently supports optional Shared Memory. You can find a blurb about it in this Oracle doc:
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19620-01/805-4854 … tndn/index.html

Reply 6 of 7, by _Rob

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Looking at NETNOVEL.INF from Win95 RTM (original release), it lists a bunch of pnp id's under the [Novell] heading.
pnp80d6 "NE2000 Compatible" seems to be the most appropriate, as that is what Windows 9x detects it as if you force a scan.

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Reply 7 of 7, by TheGreatCodeholio

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It seems more productive then to just fake it from then INF files.

DOSBox-X project: more emulation better accuracy.
DOSLIB and DOSLIB2: Learn how to tinker and hack hardware and software from DOS.