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8086 laptop with Xircom parallel Port ethernet and use!umbs challenges

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First post, by skafen

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Hello folks,

I'm a regular reader of Vogons and old hardware fan.

I've got a Victor V86P laptop with a 10MHz 8086, 1MB RAM, 20MB HD and 720K Floppy in full working order.

I've been meaning to get my Xircom PE3-10BT Parallel port ethernet adapter working on it for some time so just dug it out and upgraded the machine to MSDOS6.22 so I could use the startup menu functions and edit as it had DOS4.01 and edlin only (yuck!). Even have it running Windows 3.0 for a laugh and Word 1.1.

I've got a couple of challenges with it. First off is my Xircom ethernet adapter which works flawlessly on my 386/486 machines. I have a doctored MS Network Client 3.0 disk that boots it on these machines and provides TCP/IP and Ghost 6.0 to back 'em up.

The problem I have with the Victor is that it locks up hard probably 9/10 times when doing a clean boot (F5 skip Config.sys/autoexec.bat) and running the included pe3test.exe program with it (and the NDIS3 driver if booted fully with network stack).

The parallel port works fine as I'm using it with the palmzip demo and a zip 100 drive for testing currently. I know the port is unidirectional only as trying to do anything bidirectional or epp with the test programs for the Xircom or Palmzip also visits lock up land so I'm starting the pe3test.exe with the "non" switch to force it in to unidirectional mode.

It's not power related either as the phantom power cable for the Xircom off of the keyboard port works fine as does a nice regulated 1A 5V external PSU on it.

The card will initialise maybe 1 in 10 times of a clean power up and will run the diags fine. But when you quit the program and then launch it again it will lock up the machine again until a power cycle happens and you get lucky.

It looks like a timing issue as the card has a status led on it and when the test program kicks in if it flashes quickly maybe 100ms the card initialises, but if you see it flash for longer, maybe a second then it will lock up. The Victor has nothing in it's bios to do anything to the parallel port.

I know one or two Vogons regulars such as Mike Brutman use these adapters with XT hardware so just wondered if anyone has any bright ideas, hacks or suggestions for either the Xircom or the Victor. Oh I'm using the last shipping 3.53 driver/test program for it. Anybody got any earlier version of the driver kicking about that might be a bit more 808x happy?

Second challenge is that I'm using USE!UMBS on the machine which successfully initialises and uses the D000 free segment on this 1MB machine giving me 128KB Upper Memory to load things in to. I can load things from config.sys in to it fine e.g. DOS=UMB, DEVICEHIGH=ANSI.SYS etc and even the pamzip.sys driver. Currently I have about 13K of the UMA used which all helps free conventional memory.

But if I try and LOADHIGH (LH) anything (doskey, keyb, ms mouse 6.x) from the autoexec.bat or direct command prompt I get a hard lock up there too. Again just wondered if anyone uses this driver and has seen such behavior with it. I'd like to get that to work along with the Xircom as the MS network client (with lanmanager bits for 808x CPUs) and TCP stack eats over 200K of conventional memory on the very few occasions I've actualy got it to boot fully.

Thanks in advance.

James

Reply 1 of 6, by Jo22

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Hello James, welcome to vogons! 😀

I also have an xircom ethernet adapter, but no XT class machine at hand with a proper parallel port.
If you are interested, I could check my driver disks and we could compare them, though.

I know, that's not much. The only other thing I could offer you is an advice: Try a NEC V30, if you can. 😀

In some circumstances this will solve compatibility issues with some software from the late 80s/early 90s,
since the NEC V30 supports 80186/286 (+8080) instructions also (real-mode instructions only).

A famous example were the Zip drive drivers and the VGA driver for Windows 3.0,
which wouldn't have worked with a regular 8088 (they are patched now).

Anyway, as I said, it's not much that I can do for you..

I wish you good luck, though! 😀

Best regards, Jo22

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 2 of 6, by skafen

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Hello Jo22.

Thank you, I would be interested if your driver disk for the Xircom is a different version than my 3.53 set. Even Intel have taken the link to that version down now sadly.

I'm aware of the 808x limitations that a V20/30 solves. I play with PC-EM and have the hacked Windows VGA driver on it for VGA on a virtual XT. Sadly the Victor's CPU is a PLCC chip soldered on and whilst I and my cheapo soldering iron might do a passable job on desoldering and socketing a through-board DIP chip, I think I would massacare a PLCC one!!!!

Cheers

James

Reply 3 of 6, by Jo22

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Hi, sorry for the delay - I haven't forgotten you! I'm still looking for my ethernet adapter, though.
Can't remember where I stored that Xircom package. 🙁 'til now, I only found the Sunshine LPT adapter..

Anyway, I keep looking for the Xircom! 😀

Best regards, Jo22

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 4 of 6, by Maeslin

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Considering the 'ext bus' on the back seems to be 60 pins and the sheer age of the system, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it was plain 8-bit ISA (normally 62 pins) with a few lines either merged (say, only 1 GND instead of 3) or just not provided (no +/- 12V). While it would be a pain to trace, it might allow more flexibility.

Reply 5 of 6, by mbbrutman

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You might try disabling hardware interrupts on the pe3pd driver. I think that setting IRQ=0 will do it. I have to do this on some of my older machines. It takes the interrupt handling out of the picture, so there is one less thing to go wrong.

When you do this the packet driver will poll the Xircom for new packets at each clock tick, which is every 55ms or so. So Ethernet performance is going to suffer, but it's not like you are going to set any speed records with a Xircom anyway.

Reply 6 of 6, by Jo22

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skafen wrote:

Hello Jo22.

Thank you, I would be interested if your driver disk for the Xircom is a different version than my 3.53 set.
Even Intel have taken the link to that version down now sadly.

Hello James,

Please forgive me for keeping you waiting for so long. 😢

I searched all my parts, but only found these Pocket LAN adapters..

* D-Link Pocket LAN DE-620 series
* CNet Pocket LAN Ethernet adapter CN50ET/50E/50EU series
* ShineNet Pocket LAN LCS-8834P-TB, LCS-8834PM series

I'm sorry that I wasn't able to find that Xircom..
Maybe we're lucky, though, and some of them is compatible to it ?
I mean, it wasn't unusual to sell one product under different names.

Anyway, I tried hard to keep my promise.
I'm sorry that I wasn't able to fulfill it as I wanted to.

Moderators: I hope it is okay if I attach a few of the drivers
that I got with those parallel port LAN adapters.

I included disk images of drivers/diagnostics disks
just in case their DOS installers do a label checking.
No commercial software included, as far as I can tell.

Maybe these drivers can be uploaded to vogonsdrivers.com
(if they are worth it; e.g. not available elsewhere) or
maybe they are useful for one or two future users.

Best regards,
Jo22

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

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