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my IRC client is ready

Mike Chambers

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Joined
Sep 2, 2006
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i know i didn't work on this often enough, a few people have asked me about it. so here is the "lite edition" pre-release of the leetIRC client i've been working on for DOS.

it's done enough for you all to see what you think so far, i think! it supports mIRC color codes and bold codes. it keeps a 250 line log buffer that you can scroll through with PgUp/PgDown, also.

i ran it on a 286 10 MHz and it was fast enough. i tried to run it on my XT also... it was kinda slow, especially when lots of color decoding was involved, but fast enough to not get you to punch the monitor :)

let me know what you guys think! don't forget you can get in-client help whenever you need it by typing /HELP and hitting enter.

make sure you load a packet driver for your network card, and then load the included NTCPDRV.EXE before you run the client!

here's the download link: http://rubbermallet.org/mysoftware.html
source is included.
EDIT!!! this is a new link with a newer version than before. if you are still using the old one, i highly reccommend you get this one instead!
 
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Nice!

Once I get my Compaq Portable 386 (& my (I believe) XT clone, if I ever get around to working on it & getting some decent cards for it) up & running, leetIRC will be the FIRST thing I hope to run on it!

BTW, mind if I add your site to my links.shtml page?
 
Nice!

Once I get my Compaq Portable 386 (& my (I believe) XT clone, if I ever get around to working on it & getting some decent cards for it) up & running, leetIRC will be the FIRST thing I hope to run on it!

BTW, mind if I add your site to my links.shtml page?

thanks. make sure the XT has a CGA or better because it uses color and directly writes to B800h! won't work if you have an MDA or hercules in there.

and yeah you can add my page that'd be sweet, i'll add yours to mine too.
 
Excellent!!!

I'll try and run it on my 386 when I return home, then on the XT! :D

Out of interest, will the final release support mono and/or Hercules?
 
Excellent!!!

I'll try and run it on my 386 when I return home, then on the XT! :D

Out of interest, will the final release support mono and/or Hercules?

yes i was planning on it and already wrote an auto-detection routine actually
 
lirclite1.png


screenshot.
 
I've got it working on my XT... BUT...

I can connect to a server... and I can connect to a room no problem. However just before the screen changes to enter the room the computer just hangs there. It does think for a few minutes, and 4 minutes later it freezes.

But I can see on my laptop with mIRC that the XT's user entered the room.

Maybe the XT is just way too slow :lol:

I'll go try it on my 486 now :)
 
I've got it working on my XT... BUT...

I can connect to a server... and I can connect to a room no problem. However just before the screen changes to enter the room the computer just hangs there. It does think for a few minutes, and 4 minutes later it freezes.

But I can see on my laptop with mIRC that the XT's user entered the room.

Maybe the XT is just way too slow :lol:

I'll go try it on my 486 now :)

well, you cannot use hostnames :(

if that's what you were doing, that's why... TCPDRV doesn't support DNS resolution. i'd have to program that myself, which i will likely do later... for now, you'll have to get a server's IP address and type that in!

like for one of the dalnet servers: /SERVER 149.9.1.16

see if that works any better
 
Why not just /SERVER 68.184.216.98
aka retrobox.scieron.com
:D
 
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I wasn't using hostnames, I was using IP addresses as suggested! The software tells me I connect sucessfully, but doesn't display anything after I attempt to connect to a room...
 
It is working perfectly on my 386DX-40 with 3C509 network card!

I am very much looking forward to the final release :D
 
It is working perfectly on my 386DX-40 with 3C509 network card!

I am very much looking forward to the final release :D

awesome! glad to hear it :)

yeah, i had a problem on my XT also until i changed the code to allow more space for the incoming TCP data buffer... before, the screen updates and log buffer processing were too slow and caused all the data coming in to build up in a string which eventually crashed it. after allowing it more space, it was able to store it all and then process it after the screen stuff was done.

don't know why it isn't working right on yours.... sigh, damn quickbasic can be so slow for some things. i need to learn a real language :|

i have no problems at all when i put it on my 286 10 MHz, and i also have a 386 DX/40 that it does run great on.



Okay, the link's up! (I'm in a hurry so I kinda rushed the description...)

sweet! thanks, i'll make a links page on my site tonight and put you on it. i was checking out your site a bit last night, cool stuff!
 
if anybody checks it out, i'd love to hear some feedback on the user interface. it'll be improved in the future too, with the drop down menus... there will be a boatload of features in the options menu when i make that

btw, you'll see some minor bugs in the prog at times... i fix all bugs i see immediately though. sometime next month i'll be putting out a major update.
 
if you go back and look at my original post in this thread, you will see i have edited it with a new download link containing a newer version.

it's MUCH faster. runs just fine* on XT's now! :)

also fixed some both major and minor bugs.



DISCLAIMER: "just fine" really means "useable" :)
 
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Was planning on trying this thing out tonight, seems to work okay, except I can't seem to get NTCPDRV.EXE to load, it keeps staying.....

Trumpet TCP version 3.1 Interrupt = 0x61
Copyright (c) 1992 by P.R. Tattam, all rights reserved
Installing TCP
EtherExpress 16 Packet Driver version 11 26
Attempting BOOTP type <space> to abort **********
Unable to perform bootp

So far I've been surfing around and have not been able to find anything. I can't see what's going on. Oddly enough, I can connect to the internet just fine via DOS using my regular TCP/IP packet driver, but loading ntcpdrv.exe does'nt work.
 
Update

Update

Well, I got it to load, problem was I did not set my IP address, gateway, subnet mask, and DNS and so fourth.

[Added/Edit]

Well, I got my ol' oc'd 286 on.

Ah, figured it all out. Had to set the IP Address and all that.....here's the long and the short of it

I'm running an EtherExpress 16 without bootp (hmm, maybe THIS is why DHCP does not work on my LAN with the 286).

What I did was created a batch file for NTCPDRV.EXE to run it all the needed commands automagically.....

NTCPDRV -ip=127.0.0.1 -netmask=255.255.255.0 -gateway=127.0.0.2
-dns-host=127.0.0.3

Of course, those are not the actual numbers I used. -ip is where that computer's IP address on the network is put, -netmask is your network host subnet mask, -gateway is the device of which you connect to the internet with (in my case, my cable modem/router on the other end of my switch), and -dns-host is the nameserver's IP, which in my case with a regular small home lan with a cable modem/router combo with a switch on it would be the cable modem itself.

so in short

-ip = your machine's IP
-netmask = your internal netmask
-gateway = the computer/device that connects you to the internet
-dns-host = the ip address of your nameserver or cable/dsl modem

I just put this up for people who might find it a little harder to set this up. Either way, I'm always up for learning more about networking and how internet apps work.

So far this App rocks, really intuitive interface, and very quick on my 286 for an internet application. Se ya'll on IRC.
 
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hey mad-mike! glad you liked the app, i just want to let you know the one you downloaded is not even close to the finished version! you should get leetIRC v1.1 which i just compiled the other day. here's a direct download link:

http://rubbermallet.org/download/lirc11.zip

TONS of differences... there are a lot of bug fixes compared to the one you tried. also, it now supports DCC file receives and it has an integrated server list and a nice dialog box to select between them (you can also add and delete servers right from the selection screen)

let me know what you think of the new one!! :)
 
hey mad-mike! glad you liked the app, i just want to let you know the one you downloaded is not even close to the finished version! you should get leetIRC v1.1 which i just compiled the other day. here's a direct download link:

http://rubbermallet.org/download/lirc11.zip

TONS of differences... there are a lot of bug fixes compared to the one you tried. also, it now supports DCC file receives and it has an integrated server list and a nice dialog box to select between them (you can also add and delete servers right from the selection screen)

let me know what you think of the new one!! :)


Yeah, I just upgraded to the new one a couple days ago, that old 286 has been on Gammaforce.org for 19:12:26 so far (19 hours, 26 minutes, and 26 seconds), no crashing or anything. It's a pretty sweet little app.

I'm still amazed at the raw speed of this thing on my 286. I'm going to have to put it on the 8088 when I get it's RAM upgraded and get the machine on the Network, it should be pretty good considering it had a pretty high score on video refresh for a machine that old.
 
hehe good luck with the speed on an 8088. the screen update is sluggish even when i have mine on 8 Mhz mode! it's because i'm using the quickbasic POKE command to write buffer data to the screen. it was the easiest way to store and retrieve all the attribute byte data for the text (colors data)

it works okay, but it might get annoying. i had an idea for a different way of doing it that should be a little faster (maybe a lot, we'll see) - let me know how it works on that old machine though, maybe you'll get lucky or something!
 
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