Yoghoo wrote on 2026-06-23, 11:08:

What is the difference between F9 and ALT-F1 btw? Both seem to do the same thing.

There is no difference 😂 Initially, I added ALT-F1 as an alternative shortcut for F9, to help support my muscle memory from Norton Commander. But as I have now also the shortcuts shown when holding ALT, the function is doubled.

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-23, 03:19:

In the remote panel, I can see the ".." ...

Are you by chance testing this under DosBox?

DOS itself (at least the versions I've seen) don't generate "." or ".." for the root directory. The FTP client would have to be generating these itself when running under actual DOS.

DosBox however does not supress "." or ".." in a "root" directory which is mounted from a subdirectory on the host.

I see a similar thing in DDLINK - I supress "." because it makes no sense to CD to self, but in the interest of making it as tiny as possible, I've not added code to test for and remove things that shouldn't normally exist, and therefore it shows ".." in DosBox mounted drives. And like DosBox if you happen to select that one(which is a CD), it does nothing. I personally don't think it's worth suppressing things just because I don't think they should be there... I trust the OS to give me relavent information.

Just released FTP4DOS v0.9.4a: https://github.com/Projanglez/FTP4DOS/releases/latest

New in this version:

• File sizes are now shown consistently using 1024-based KB/MB/GB everywhere
• Fixed: the remote panel no longer shows a ".." entry at the FTP root
• Alt+F2 "Detail" - popup with the full filename and size in Bytes/KB/MB/GB
• Alt+F5 "Refresh" - re-read the current panel (e.g. to see a new file on the server)

Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-24, 10:04:

infania wrote on 2026-06-23, 15:51:

Nice project We will test it soon. Can we have the files at our archive and refer to your site and so on? […]
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Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-15, 21:14:

Hi all, […]
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Hi all,

I'd like to share a small project I've been working on: NCFTP386, a dual-panel FTP client for MS-DOS in the spirit of the classic Norton Commander.

Left panel shows the local DOS filesystem, right panel connects to an FTP server - fully keyboard-driven. It's built on Michael Brutman's excellent mTCP stack, so it runs on real vintage hardware. I've tested it on a genuine 386DX-40, with MS-DOS 6.22 and an NE2000 compatible NIC, and it's been stable and reliant so far.

A few features:

• Two panels: local (DOS) and remote (FTP, passive mode)
• Copy in both directions (F5), including recursive directory trees
• Multiple selection with the Ins key (Norton style) for copy/delete
• Create (F7), rename (F6), recursive delete with pre-count confirmation (F8)
• Navigate directories; view files with F3 (or Enter) — up to 32 KB displayed
• Text file viewer and minimal editor (editing is local only)

It's compiled with Open Watcom for 8086+ and real-mode DOS. Source is GPLv3 (mTCP is statically linked), and the repo includes a build guide plus the exact mTCP commit it was tested against:

https://github.com/Projanglez/ncftp386

Feedback, bug reports, and testing on other hardware are very welcome. Hope someone here finds it useful!

Note: This application was developed with the help of an AI coding assistant (Claude Code).

Nice project
We will test it soon.
Can we have the files at our archive and refer to your site and so on?

Many thanks for the feedback. Looking forward to see your test results!

And yes, please go on and share the files, make references, etc. ☺

https://www.infania.net/misc1/FTP4DOS/

Just started, so in progress 😀

Works great. Don't know if you're open for more requests but it would be nice if it remembered the sort option you last selected between sessions. Also when connecting an option to set the starting directory on the FTP server would be helpful (f.e. /software/dos or leave empty to just connect to the root) .

Maybe change the name of the forum topic to FTP4DOS btw (it still says ncftp386)?

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-06-24, 10:39:

Are you by chance testing this under DosBox?

No, real DOS only.

DOS itself (at least the versions I've seen) don't generate "." or ".." for the root directory.

True.

In Unix, "ls -a" shows "." and ".." even in the root dir.
Midnight Commander, however, doesn't show them.

Normal FTP clients behave like Unix.
But from a Commander-like FTP client, I expect hiding the useless things.

Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-24, 10:14:

There is no difference 😂 Initially, I added ALT-F1 as an alternative shortcut for F9, to help support my muscle memory from Norton Commander. But as I have now also the shortcuts shown when holding ALT, the function is doubled.

How about making it more like the Norton Commander?

Alt-F1 selects what's in the Left panel
Alt-F2 selects what's in the Right panel

If the given panel is local - choose the drive letter.
If it's remote - connect to a server.

Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-24, 10:49:

[*]Alt+F2 "Detail" - popup with the full filename and size in Bytes/KB/MB/GB

I would expect such details in the "File attributes" window.
No shortcut in the original NC, but Volkov Commander and FAR use Ctrl-A.

Also, showing the gigabytes seems redundant - DOS only supports files up to 2 GB.
FTP allows for more, but this client fails with >4 GB anyway - see eg. a 10 GB file:

...and I *don't* expect a DOS client to care about such large files.

[*]Alt+F5 "Refresh" - re-read the current panel (e.g. to see a new file on the server)

Everything uses Ctrl-R.

Thanks for all the feedback and inspiration! Working on some more changes, but I'm not sure how fare I will come before my holidays. Expect more after mid of July!

In the meantime, it would be nice if some mod could change the topic name to "FTP4DOS – A dual-panel FTP client for MS-DOS"

Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-24, 21:26:

Thanks for all the feedback and inspiration! Working on some more changes, but I'm not sure how fare I will come before my holidays. Expect more after mid of July!

In the meantime, it would be nice if some mod could change the topic name to "FTP4DOS – A dual-panel FTP client for MS-DOS"

Fixed 😀

Also please check your PM

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-24, 19:41:

... Normal FTP clients behave like Unix.
But from a Commander-like FTP client, I expect hiding the useless things.

Agreed, which is why DDLINK doesn't show "." .

Keep in mind that DDLINK is NOT "FTP". I didn't design it to be like other dual-panel methods, it just happens to look a lot like many - I wrote it 30+ years ago as a means of transferring ImageDisk images (as much 1.5m/file)

ImageDisk has to run under DOS because it accesses the floppy controller directly and in non-standard/unusual ways... Great if you have a DOS system, but some don't, so I made up a DOS boot floppy that runs entirely from a RamDisk (so you can change disks to image)

Hence, all things have to be SMALL - DDLINK is a single 17k .COM that needs no networking software other than a "packet driver". It can also transfer over parallel or serial interfaces. I used my own Micro-C compiler with several modules in .ASM.
It doesn't run under Unix or anything not DOS.

I didn't want to add code to "fix" things that should never happen. Later when I discovered that DosBox incorrently shows ".." at the root of a mounter drive, I didn't add code to remove it as it doesn't cause a problem.

I think a dual-panel FTP client is a great thing ... but I personally wouldn't bloat it with code to "hide" useful things that OS would normally show (and ".." is useful - select to go up a directory) - just my opinion.

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-06-25, 00:04:

I didn't want to add code to "fix" things that should never happen. Later when I discovered that DosBox incorrently shows ".." at the root of a mounter drive, I didn't add code to remove it as it doesn't cause a problem.

Yes, if Dosbox behaves differently than real DOS, then it's a bug in Dosbox, and it's Dosbox that should be fixed.

I think a dual-panel FTP client is a great thing ... but I personally wouldn't bloat it with code to "hide" useful things that OS would normally show (and ".." is useful - select to go up a directory) - just my opinion.

But it isn't useful in the root directory - can't go up from there!
Midnight Commander does hide it even with the "Show hidden files" option enabled.

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-25, 02:49:

... But it isn't useful in the root directory - can't go up from there!
Midnight Commander does hide it even with the "Show hidden files" option enabled.

Yes, It's not useful in this one case, but that means even more code (to hide something conditionally) in something I want to be small, for a system where it will never run.

And ... if Unix shows ".." at root - do Unix users really not know you can't go"up" from there? Seems to me that if you use an OS reqularily - you should be aware of and familier with it's ideosynchronusities .... and why are users not compaining about this "useless" output from "ls" (a very commonly used command).

Like I said in previous post - a matter of personal preferance, I personally don't think it's "wrong" for a tool to be consistant with the OS it runs under.

** and I do think it's odd that Unix would have a ".." directory entry at the true system root. It's apparantly such a problem that I've never noticed it ... When I get back to my main location, I'll have to fire up a Unix system and check it out!

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-06-25, 08:41:

And ... if Unix shows ".." at root - do Unix users really not know you can't go"up" from there? Seems to me that if you use an OS reqularily - you should be aware of and familier with it's ideosynchronusities .... and why are users not compaining about this "useless" output from "ls" (a very commonly used command).

Note that "ls" alone doesn't list dot-files, "ls -a" is necessary.

Like I said in previous post - a matter of personal preferance, I personally don't think it's "wrong" for a tool to be consistant with the OS it runs under.

OK, but we're talking here about a program that runs under DOS.
In DOS, there's no ".." in the local drive root - therefore it's consistent there's no ".." in the remote root.

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-25, 09:15:

... OK, but we're talking here about a program that runs under DOS.
In DOS, there's no ".." in the local drive root - therefore it's consistent there's no ".." in the remote root.

A matter of preferance .. My opinion is that a network tool should be consistant with the network endpoint on display. Not worth the "code bloat" to fake it being like the local endpoint. but that's just IMHO

Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-21, 21:14:

I was also thinking about a site manager, but then dropped the idea, because I assumend in most retro setups, you're connecting only to one FTP server. In your case you have more?

Yes, I use my DOS machine to connect to FTP servers with retro software.

By the way I have found problems trying to download some files with long filenames. I have found problems using this server:
ftp://old-dos.ru
Login:oscollect
Pass:oscollect

But there are problems with other servers too.

Date and Time are separate criteria for file list sorting - it doesn't make sense!
YYYYMMDD and HHMMSS are just two parts of one entity, the more significant and the less significant...

Oh, and I've found that "Compare directories" is under Gray+ , which is a serious discrepancy from other NC-alikes.
No shortcut in the original NC, but it's Ctrl-C in Volkov Commander.

I have just released FTP4DOS v0.9.5:

https://github.com/Projanglez/FTP4DOS/releases/tag/v0.9.5

Did some research with those long filenames and huge remote directories. Hope you enjoy!

:: New in v0.9.5

• Site manager - save and load multiple named FTP profiles (host, port, user, password, start dir) in FTP4DOS.SIT. Open it from the [Manage...] button in the connect dialog.
• Large remote directories - listings normally hold 512 entries (with a popup when there are more). Start the program with /EXMEM and it parks the remote file list in XMS or EMS instead, so you can browse directories with several thousand files. Force a backend with /EXMEM:XMS or /EXMEM:EMS.
• Search / jump-to-name - Alt+F7 or Ctrl+F, type a prefix and jump to the next match (wraps around).
• Full-screen toggle - Alt+F8 makes the active panel span all 80 columns, handy for long file names on FTP servers.
• Long remote file names are kept in full and used for transfers; Alt+F2 shows the complete name and size.

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-24, 20:26:

How about making it more like the Norton Commander? […]
Show full quote

How about making it more like the Norton Commander?

Alt-F1 selects what's in the Left panel
Alt-F2 selects what's in the Right panel

If the given panel is local - choose the drive letter.
If it's remote - connect to a server.

I like the logic of that idea, but this would mean I'd have to switch function keys (connect/change drive) when someone switches panes via CTRL+U. Might cause confusion, so I'd rather leave it like it is.

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-24, 20:26:

I would expect such details in the "File attributes" window. No shortcut in the original NC, but Volkov Commander and FAR use Ct […]
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Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-24, 10:49:

[*]Alt+F2 "Detail" - popup with the full filename and size in Bytes/KB/MB/GB

I would expect such details in the "File attributes" window.
No shortcut in the original NC, but Volkov Commander and FAR use Ctrl-A.

Everything uses Ctrl-R.

Thanks for the info, added some CTRL-based shortcuts for convience (check readme / F1-Help in program).

vetz wrote on 2026-06-24, 10:02:

I haven't tested this application yet, but I tend to run MS-DOS 7.1 which is LFN aware. Since long files names are supported on the FTP side (from one of the screenshots in this thread), is that also supported on the DOS side currently?

I take this one in my backlog. Need to analyze MS-DOS 7.1 a bit more. Maybe a good time to check out QEMU, instead of implementing a multi-boot setup on my real hardware.

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-25, 20:25:

Oh, and I've found that "Compare directories" is under Gray+ , which is a serious discrepancy from other NC-alikes.
No shortcut in the original NC, but it's Ctrl-C in Volkov Commander.

Pretty sure it's numpad-+ also in original nc, but let me check that again.

Grzyb wrote on 2026-06-25, 20:01:

Date and Time are separate criteria for file list sorting - it doesn't make sense!
YYYYMMDD and HHMMSS are just two parts of one entity, the more significant and the less significant...

Valid point. That somehow slipped trough quality control. --> Backlog.

vetz wrote on 2026-06-24, 22:31:

Projanglez wrote on 2026-06-24, 21:26:

Thanks for all the feedback and inspiration! Working on some more changes, but I'm not sure how fare I will come before my holidays. Expect more after mid of July!

In the meantime, it would be nice if some mod could change the topic name to "FTP4DOS – A dual-panel FTP client for MS-DOS"

Fixed 😀

Also please check your PM

Thanks for renaming the topic, and also thanks for the PM. I am not yet allowed to answer a PM, so I just say it here 😉

Nice to see the start directory option. I have one problem though. When trying to download files with names like apack-1.00.zip it fails. Probably because of the extra dot in the name. It handles long file names great so maybe translate the extra . (dot) to an _ (underscore) would fix it?