MSN is dead and most of the modern Internet won't work with browsers that run under Windows 9x.

That being said, the very shortened version of "if you want to try anyway":

a) Do you get an IP address on the instance of TCP/IP bound to the 3Com card (winipcfg will tell you) ?
b) what browser are you using ?You could try one of the more recent Firefox forks that supporrt Windows 9x (may need to install kernelx).
c) try sites accessible through http rather than only https. http://www.vogons.org will probably work

Cursed Derp wrote on 2024-10-04, 20:57:

Sorry I'm a dummy when it comes to 90s internet/ethernet.

There is absolutely nothing different.

K I got it working
Since yall are here rn can I get a Quake game address please?

Wow it works now I suck at Quake apparently cuz these guys are insane

zb10948 wrote on 2024-10-04, 22:00:

Cursed Derp wrote on 2024-10-04, 20:57:

Sorry I'm a dummy when it comes to 90s internet/ethernet.

There is absolutely nothing different.

Except for the number of choices. I am pretty sure that TCP/IP was not installed by default in Win95. I am trying to remember which version of Windows was the last one to expect you to select protocols in the installation - either 2000 or XP - although by that point TCP/IP was definitely the default.

At some point, everything started to come with everything already set up to do TCP/IP with DHCP.

If you want to go more retro than Win95 era, then you are very quickly at a pre-DHCP point even if your OS has TCP/IP support.

(Also, Win95/98 have interesting behaviours where they will wait 30 seconds on boot for DHCP if they're not getting a response... very scary when you don't realize that's what's going on.)

Well now I've got no sound in windows cuz of an irq conflict with the nic and my sound blaster...
Anyway how do you get this card's drivers installed in dos?
Also http://www.vogons.org didn't work for me
The password system was janky or something
Plus if you guys could recommend a better, more modern browser than internet explorer that would be awesome

Cursed Derp wrote on 2024-10-05, 13:22:

Well now I've got no sound in windows cuz of an irq conflict with the nic and my sound blaster...

Welcome to the 1990s 😀

Cursed Derp wrote on 2024-10-05, 13:22:

Anyway how do you get this card's drivers installed in dos?

Do you really want to do DOS networking? In 2024? To connect to... what?

Keep in mind - almost no one used TCP/IP, the Internet, etc in DOS. DOS has no networking built-in, in fact...

Also... 3C905 is a PCI card from the turn of the millennium. Great card. The kind of card Dell gave you back when they custom-built quality systems. Does it have DOS drivers that interplay with the rest of a DOS networking stack?

Cursed Derp wrote on 2024-10-05, 13:22:

Plus if you guys could recommend a better, more modern browser than internet explorer that would be awesome

Sure - how about Chrome, Firefox or Edge on a Windows 11 system, or Chrome, Firefox or Safari on an Apple Silicon Mac?

You are literally trying to use a vintage system for the worst possible use of a vintage system (other than maybe 3D rendering or some kind of insanely CPU intensive activity). Because, well, guess what - the rest of the world you are connecting to is running 2024 software. A 1998 OS, even running a 2005 web browser, isn't going to do too great connecting to web sites/servers running 2024 software.

I don't know if anyone has done on the Windows side what people have done on the Mac side - a bunch of Mac folks have tried to keep derivatives of modernish Seamonkey/Firefox half-usable in retro OSes. The result is a disaster. I do not see why the same thing on 98SE would deliver any better results.

In my view, vintage computers should be used offline, or on a LAN with other appropriate things they can connect to. Maaaaybe, maybe go out to the internet for period-appropriate completely retro things, if there are any that aren't huge security nightmares. But... vintage computers accessing the Internet of 2024?

Yeah but still cool
Thanks for the info
Are there any old game servers that you know of?

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-05, 01:18:

Except for the number of choices. I am pretty sure that TCP/IP was not installed by default in Win95. I am trying to remember wh […]
Show full quote

Except for the number of choices. I am pretty sure that TCP/IP was not installed by default in Win95. I am trying to remember which version of Windows was the last one to expect you to select protocols in the installation - either 2000 or XP - although by that point TCP/IP was definitely the default.

At some point, everything started to come with everything already set up to do TCP/IP with DHCP.

If you want to go more retro than Win95 era, then you are very quickly at a pre-DHCP point even if your OS has TCP/IP support.

(Also, Win95/98 have interesting behaviours where they will wait 30 seconds on boot for DHCP if they're not getting a response... very scary when you don't realize that's what's going on.)

Yeah I get your point.

In Windows 95 OSR2 you must manually enable the TCP/IP stack by clicking a checkbox and then it will default to DHCP. However there is no connection icon in the tray.
I would not say DHCP is off pre Windows95, it ceraintly works correctly and default in Microsoft TCP/IP stack addon for Windows 3.11. I do not remember how Trumpet Winsock works, I've never operated it after the day.
Also Brutman's MTCP stack for DOS is excellent and it does DHCP correctly.

I think you can get around the Win95/98 delay by disabling network logon.

Other modern operating systems like FreeBSD or pre/non networkd Linux do not default to anything. The TCP stack is of course active, but adapter default configuration is empty. The OS installer can fill up the configuration file so you get DHCP on first boot, but that doesn't constitute as default behaviour.

zb10948 wrote on 2024-10-06, 23:47:

Yeah I get your point. […]
Show full quote

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-05, 01:18:

Except for the number of choices. I am pretty sure that TCP/IP was not installed by default in Win95. I am trying to remember wh […]
Show full quote

Except for the number of choices. I am pretty sure that TCP/IP was not installed by default in Win95. I am trying to remember which version of Windows was the last one to expect you to select protocols in the installation - either 2000 or XP - although by that point TCP/IP was definitely the default.

At some point, everything started to come with everything already set up to do TCP/IP with DHCP.

If you want to go more retro than Win95 era, then you are very quickly at a pre-DHCP point even if your OS has TCP/IP support.

(Also, Win95/98 have interesting behaviours where they will wait 30 seconds on boot for DHCP if they're not getting a response... very scary when you don't realize that's what's going on.)

Yeah I get your point.

In Windows 95 OSR2 you must manually enable the TCP/IP stack by clicking a checkbox and then it will default to DHCP. However there is no connection icon in the tray.
I would not say DHCP is off pre Windows95, it ceraintly works correctly and default in Microsoft TCP/IP stack addon for Windows 3.11. I do not remember how Trumpet Winsock works, I've never operated it after the day.
Also Brutman's MTCP stack for DOS is excellent and it does DHCP correctly.

I think you can get around the Win95/98 delay by disabling network logon.

Other modern operating systems like FreeBSD or pre/non networkd Linux do not default to anything. The TCP stack is of course active, but adapter default configuration is empty. The OS installer can fill up the configuration file so you get DHCP on first boot, but that doesn't constitute as default behaviour.

I think in Win95 you have to manually go in and add TCP/IP from a list of protocols first before you can check it to bind it to the interface, but haven't tried in decades so I might be wrong.

Technically, I did not say pre-Win95 did not have DHCP, just that if you went pre-Win95, you would rapidly find yourself outside DHCP. DHCP was standardized in Oct. 1993 (RFC 1531/1541). Wikipedia suggests that the TCP/IP stack for WfW 3.11 came out after the main OS (November 1993) so that may explain how DHCP snuck in. I remember playing (in a VM) with a release of NeXTSTEP/OpenStep, I think the last for Intel before the Apple acquisition, and that seemed to be lacking DHCP.

And DHCP seems to be the default on modern Ubuntu, macOS, all the mobile OSes, Windows, etc.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-05, 16:30:

Do you really want to do DOS networking? In 2024? To connect to... what?

Keep in mind - almost no one used TCP/IP, the Internet, etc in DOS. DOS has no networking built-in, in fact...

Also... 3C905 is a PCI card from the turn of the millennium. Great card. The kind of card Dell gave you back when they custom-built quality systems. Does it have DOS drivers that interplay with the rest of a DOS networking stack?

I'm sure DOS versions 5 and above have certain clients to connect to certain networks. I've never used one.
DOS is primarily known for Novell networking. Games also use that IPX/SPX standard to connect to eachother. TCP/IP is thing from Unix that came a bit later into DOS/Windows ecosystem spotlight.

Cool that OP asks about this card, as you say it's a venerable NIC and I had a few left over from the day, they've been usable for me everywhere in recent years, DOS, Win3.1, Win95/98, old Linuxes/BSDs. I guess the only more widely supported adapters would be NE2000 compatible ones, every OS there has an NE2K driver.

On DOS 3C905TX works over 3C90xPD.COM packet driver, there are multiple versions available on 3Com CDs and some may not work. I have one that does.
With a packet driver working, you can use programs that are bound to MTCP, Watcom TCP, or other stacks made to work against packet drivers. MTCP brings you basic utilities like ping, http-get, full ftp client, full telnet client, and so on.

Getting a DOS box on TCP/IP network if you have a packet driver is as easy as downloading MTCP, reviewing the configuration file, and putting the environment variable to point to that file.
Then you have a huge bonus of moving files over the network without hassle. Get a local webserver to serve you files from modern machine or upload stuff from vintage computer over ftp.

For "Internet" usage there are some webbrowsers that can be used to get to internet information or downloads. Mostly in combination with a dedicated search engine/SSL stripper proxy such as frogfind. Arachne is most popular browser, it uses Wattcp so it will have its own configuration setup (GUI) when you launch it where you can set it to DHCP. There's also a MTCP based browser for low end PCs called microweb, that's usable on 4.77MHz XT. On such XT that I have, with Sergey's NIC, DOS 3.31, microweb+frogfind combo can load sites that aren't heavy (forums aren't) and it can download stuff from sites that are straightforward.

So if need be, you can use even an XT to dig some information or get some period-appropriate software from the internet.
On that XT the http download outperforms Kermit serial transfer N fold.
You can also use MTCP telnet to "dial in" to BBSes which is quite fun.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-07, 00:05:

I think in Win95 you have to manually go in and add TCP/IP from a list of protocols first before you can check it to bind it to the interface, but haven't tried in decades so I might be wrong.

Technically, I did not say pre-Win95 did not have DHCP, just that if you went pre-Win95, you would rapidly find yourself outside DHCP. DHCP was standardized in Oct. 1993 (RFC 1531/1541). Wikipedia suggests that the TCP/IP stack for WfW 3.11 came out after the main OS (November 1993) so that may explain how DHCP snuck in. I remember playing (in a VM) with a release of NeXTSTEP/OpenStep, I think the last for Intel before the Apple acquisition, and that seemed to be lacking DHCP.

And DHCP seems to be the default on modern Ubuntu, macOS, all the mobile OSes, Windows, etc.

Yeah, just a bit more straighforward as you do that from the interface window, so you click to enable TCP/IP on the inteface.

About the years and standards thah's also the historic reason why DOS was heavy on MSLAN and IPX/SPX and not OSI suite. Using Ethernet/IP on DOS today is more about recent(ish) developments and reusing modern(ish) tools and protocols on DOS boxes.

It would be quite, quite cool if IPX/SPX over MTCP bridge would be possible, I'll ceratinly look into that. DOSBox, the emulator, can create a Novell network between instances over IP. It's been a while, but I remember issuing IP:port commands to connect "client" to "server" and then playing Death Rally over the LAN. If a TSR or something on DOS can work in this way, it would enable network multiplayer of real DOS PCs over the internet.

I'm not sure is there any way people are doing this today, or are they even doing it, tunneling to enable native multiplayer of old network games over the Internet?

(on the DHCP/OS thing, every OS that wants to be consumer friendly will have it as default. Some OSes that favour grounds-up config for server usage such as BSDs won't. It's argued that in former case user just wants to plug in a cable and connect, in latter case the user is the sysop that knows exactly what network is and he will set it up. There, default DHCP is seen as a slight security issue also.)

zb10948 wrote on 2024-10-07, 00:22:

About the years and standards thah's also the historic reason why DOS was heavy on MSLAN and IPX/SPX and not OSI suite. Using Ethernet/IP on DOS today is more about recent(ish) developments and reusing modern(ish) tools and protocols on DOS boxes.

I remember that era to some extent, though I was a Mac guy pre-1995. Honestly it seems like PC world just had its own protocols in the late-1980s/early-1990s - Netware IPX/SPX, the Microsoft suite, LANtastic, I think Banyan Vines, etc, and then AppleTalk in Mac land. And TCP/IP was this Big Serious Expensive Thing that only Serious People who ran UNIX on Serious Hardware used. (I want to say that before Microsoft/Apple started bundling TCP/IP stacks, there were some expensive third-party TCP/IP stacks for those platforms...)

Then suddenly in the mid-1990s, the Internet went very mainstream very quickly. Win95 did not include a web browser (the first version of IE was in Plus!), barely had a TCP/IP stack (you had to look for it to enable it), came with the original MSN which was a walled-garden AOL-style "online service" (funny how everybody forgot about those), etc. Within a year or two everybody and their grandmother was running TCP/IP over PPP and using the Internet... and by the turn of the millennium if not earlier, the surviving PC network protocols had been rethought to run on top of TCP/IP.

zb10948 wrote on 2024-10-07, 00:22:

[...]

Yeah, just a bit more straighforward as you do that from the interface window, so you click to enable TCP/IP on the inteface.

About the years and standards thah's also the historic reason why DOS was heavy on MSLAN and IPX/SPX and not OSI suite. Using Ethernet/IP on DOS today is more about recent(ish) developments and reusing modern(ish) tools and protocols on DOS boxes.

Not sure I totally agree with that. NDIS supported TCP networking and it was definitely a thing by 1995 when I started studying and encountered classrooms full of DOS/Win3.x machines networked that way. Consider that any form of internet access (as opposed to just chatting to a BBS over serial) needs TCP/IP.

I'd say there are two big reasons why people today use mTCP, both related to its low footprint:
1) mTCP runs on basically any DOS system, even the very oldest hardware, and is very fast on less ancient machines.
2) mTCP is small, light and (compared to NDIS) easy to configure, and has exactly the minimal tools you would want today.

Given you only need a light packet driver resident in memory it's feasible to have mTCP operating while running demanding software (games). NDIS/ODI drivers were very heavy and tended to preclude gaming while they were present. That's the main reason early multiplayer PC games used IPX instead, not the complete absence of TCP support in DOS.

How many applications under DOS did you use that utilized TCP in the back of NDIS?
I used zero of them. This tech is from the DOS sunset. First version of NDIS spec was released in Windows 3.1 age, and it's the only version that supports DOS.

NDIS I have largely used on later on *nix systems where there were translator layers that would load NDIS driver file and wire it to the interface stack, as a workaround for lacking native network drivers for some card for that OS.

My school had upgraded 286 classroom to PS/2 486 when I was there. We didn't have any DOS networking on the PS/2s Win 3.11. On 286 there was Novell filesharing from server via BNC cables, I don't think those had HDD in.
The new PS/2 machines weren't Internet connected, LAN only from Windows. In preparation for programming competitions we often went couple of floors up, from our school to math college, where those older students would show us stuff. One of those stuff was Internet, over Trumpet Winsock.

What was your experience with networking in that age, did you actually use TCP/IP for Internet stuff on DOS and Windows 3.11 boxes? Or was it just a set-up network with couple of services such as filesharing, like in our case, with little to no internet connectivity?

In regards to mTCP the best thing about mTCP is mTCP applications. I mean the framework is useless without applications, there's no point in it. The author made great work, possible by his talent and knowledge about best practices accumulated throughout the years. Of course it's going to be more efficient than 30 year old stacks.

When I track app usage the 95% of DOS network usage is over mTCP, 5% over Wattcp...I ocassionally fire up Arachne, rest are mTCP bound programs.

IPX is quite more simple than IP, in design and in API. There is no address space, just nodes and networks. One of chief reasons for preferring it in games.

A packet driver may not be light. 3C90XPD certainly isn't. But you can load it high or wherever. mTCP is a light user lib to be included in the end executable. mTCP came out decades after last DOS games were released. I am not sure there is any patch for any game to enable it to network over mTCP. End goal of mTCP and recent packet driver developments on DOS is to bring basic modern Ethernet/IP connectivity and service access to any IBM PC. As such they stand side by side with any Novell/NDIS/... network you may install on the same PC, not in competition.

But like I said it would be great if there was a project to encapsulate IPX/SPX in UDP and move it over mTCP.