dionb wrote on 2022-01-31, 08:30:

JK1984 wrote on 2022-01-31, 02:55:

[...]

Unfortunately I dont have any ISA network cards

A lot of PCI cards can also work under DOS - if your 486 has PCI slots, of course.

In any event I'd recommend keeping an eye out for a good ISA NIC for old systems like this, the ubiquitous 3Com 3C509B/C cards are versatile, generally hassle-free and drivers are easy to find. But that's more a suggestion for the long term rather than one to help right now.

I have been looking around for an ISA NIC card. I have been seeing a few 3com 3C509B-C combo cards.. as well as 3Com 3C509B-TPO (which only has a RJ45 jack) is one or the other generally any better?

JK1984 wrote on 2022-02-12, 02:45:

I have been looking around for an ISA NIC card. I have been seeing a few 3com 3C509B-C combo cards.. as well as 3Com 3C509B-TPO (which only has a RJ45 jack) is one or the other generally any better?

They are both identical for file transferring purposes. With a 3C509B-C you can add an EPROM which you can use for XT-IDE for example. If you don't need that I would choose the cheapest. Using a couple of 3C509B-TPO myself and they work great on a 486.

Yep. The -C is slightly more versatile, both for the ROM and of course if you ever want to play around with 10Base2 or anything that uses an AUI connector. Chances are you don't though.

At same price go for the -C, but if you're just looking for simplest possible file transfers, either is fine and it's not worth paying more if the TPO is cheaaper.

Yoghoo and dionb thank you both for your replies. Currently I don't see myself needing the other features of the -C variant. I just need simple file transfers. I can get the -C variant a bit cheaper than the TPO version. However the smaller form factor of the TPO version is tempting.

I ended up getting a 3Com 3c509B-TP network card. I have the packet drivers installed as well as mTCP. I pretty much have everything set up and running. But I get the following "warning" when loading the dhcp/ftp server.

mTCP: Warning - trailing whitespace detected on line 23 of the config file.

Everything loads and runs fine though. I have transferred files back and forth between computers on my network without any issues. I have looked through the config file for maybe 30 minutes and I can't figure out what the issue is? line 23 doesn't help me much either. I'm sure I'm missing something simple. Any ideas?

I apologize about the blurry photo.

EDIT: I feel dumb. In case any one else has this issue.. It literally was an extra space at the end of one of the lines. It was hard to see in the dos editor.

Great work getting it networked. Don't feel dumb about that error, stuff like that gets everyone at some point 😁