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Internet access on a 286, WFW 3.1, 10M Ethernet

There is a Win3.x copy of Trumpet (iirc), as well as the DOS one (likely what you tried) that should work, but I have no idea what apps are available.
 
There is a Win3.x copy of Trumpet (iirc), as well as the DOS one (likely what you tried) that should work, but I have no idea what apps are available.

Any chance of a link to a copy of this (that is verified to actually BE this), or at least a filename to look for?

And btw I more than likely had the Windows copy. Attempting to run the installer from DOS, without starting Windows yet, caused Windows to run first then the installer attempted to after, so it's a Windows mode program.
 
Hi,

This has already been pointed out, but just to make sure it is clear ..

The best way to look at mTCP is as a collection of TCP/IP enabled applications. Each application (FTP, Telnet, Netcat, Ping, etc.) is a stand-alone program designed to run under DOS. The TCP/IP stack is built into the program - it gets loaded with the program, and it is only available while the program is running. It is designed for DOS only.

For Windows you want a TCP/IP stack that adds TCP/IP to windows for all applications to use. This means that each application can reuse the one DLL or loaded piece of code, instead of each application having their own copy of the TCP/IP code. That makes it an extension of the OS, just just part of a single problem.

For DOS the closest you can get to a reusable TCP/IP stack would be a TSR that programs can access via a software interrupt. The TCP/IP code gets loaded once into memory, and then the applications use the copy in memory. The applications know how to call the TCP/IP TSR and they don't include a copy of the TCP/IP code themselves. Trumpet (NTCPDRV) does this, but it is a difficult to make this code bug proof and high performance.

Two examples:

  • My IRC client uses my TCP/IP code, and has it built into the program. After you load the packet driver you load the IRC client, and off you go ..
  • Mike Chamber's IRC client doesn't have TCP/IP built into it, but it expects to find the Trumpet TCP/IP TSR in memory. You load the packet driver and Trumpet, and then run Mike's program.

With Windows 2000, XP and probably later versions you can use a special build of "DOSbox" to run mTCP programs under Windows. It's just emulating a DOS machine, and the mTCP code thinks that it is on a real machine. DOXbox emulates a machine with an NE2000 card, and routes the NE2000 traffic through whatever network adapter you actually have. In this setup the DOSbox gets it's own IP address and simulated MAC address, and it is essentially a separate machine.

Under Windows 95/98/Me you can also run this code - there is a piece of code out there that resembles a packet driver, but instead of sending packets out to a real Ethernet device it uses the existing operating system TCP/IP stack to send and receive the packets. This allows you to run DOS apps that use a packet driver, funneling the traffic through the standard TCP/IP stack on the system. It is not a separate emulated machine like DOSBox, so you get to share the same IP address as the main OS. Fred Macall (of DosLynx fame, http://www.users.ohiohills.com/fmacall/ ) pointed this code out to me.

another nice thing about windows 9x and win 3.x is that if you have a spare NIC and a slot for it, you can have a packet driver for a second ethernet card loaded into RAM before windows starts. then DOS programs in a DOS console window can use that as long as you don't let windows use the card. i do that on an old P1 of mine with windows 98, it's great.
 
There's a packet driver emulator for newer (NT) oses too, so you can test and dev (or just use) packet-driver-based apps through your ordinary network card under NT.
 
I've no intention of "using" (that is, applying a functional use) the machine on the internet. I just want it connected for a photoshoot, and crappy antique browsers are half the fun.
It seems to me that if it's for a photoshoot all you need is a picture viewer. You can show a .png of any screen you like. :p Hehe

Anyway, if you do get a socket going, then I've got a copy of what I think is the ultimate antique browser: Cello 1.01. It's marked March16, 1994 and even supports gopher! AFAIK it was the first web browser for Microsoft Windows.
 
Well, lol, perhaps not just for a photoshoot. Ultimately I just wanna do it for the sake of doing it, and grab a photo or two of it butchering some websites in the process.

Slightly O/T but relevant enough: Since PHP is handled server-side, won't even the oldest browsers get along with it, assuming the code being sent back to the browser is old enough?

I'll take a look at/for Cello like you've suggested...can't hurt to try it.

---

Again I ask, since it seems to have been put aside earlier, can someone direct me to a TCP/IP stack that will integrate with Windows for Workgroups 3.1? Perhaps you have a copy of one and can send it? This can't possibly be as difficult to find as it's proving to be...
 
kishy: Since PHP is handled server-side, won't even the oldest browsers get along with it, assuming the code being sent back to the browser is old enough?
It is _supposed_ to create clean and valid semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages which is supposed to mean the a browser which reads HTML won't know the difference.

As for Cello, having been locked away in a box for 16 years, when you open the door to the modern web, will probably pee itself when it sees what's there now. Haha. I guess you'll be the one to tell us if it works. :)
 
It is _supposed_ to create clean and valid semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages which is supposed to mean the a browser which reads HTML won't know the difference.

As for Cello, having been locked away in a box for 16 years, when you open the door to the modern web, will probably pee itself when it sees what's there now. Haha. I guess you'll be the one to tell us if it works. :)

That'd be the problem lol, I don't want it to be spitting out valid current HTML. It needs to spit out 15-or-so year old HTML if it's going to work.

It just occurred to me that Simtel might be a good place to look for "antique" windows stuff. I only go there for DOS, but try their Windows 3.x winsock collection:
http://www.eunet.bg/simtel.net/win3/winsock-pre.html
or even their Windows 3.x internet collection:
http://www.eunet.bg/simtel.net/win3/inet-pre.html

Edit: I see they have both trumpet winsock, and the alternative twinsock.

I'm definitely going to check that site out; thanks for the links. Hopefully I can find a winsock that'll work, since the Windows version of Trumpet seems to not work (could it be because I only have 2.6MB of RAM? Who knows...)
 
Getting a little OT here but
That'd be the problem lol, I don't want it to be spitting out valid current HTML. It needs to spit out 15-or-so year old HTML if it's going to work.
I don't understand what you're talking about. Valid HTML is what you want because it is backwards compatible. I spend a lot of time in DOS and often use a simple renderer from the earliest days of markup, and it works just fine on "modern" code. :)

BTW, I looked around some more and found the Advisory Group on Computer Graphics which also has a good page on World-Wide Web Browsers where they mention the EINet and GWHIS Browsers.
 
Well to be clear, in a modern context, I'd think it's implied that "HTML" emcompasses HTML, CSS, and perhaps JS and of course PHP. Anything a browser is likely to run across in the course of daily internet travels, is what I had meant.
 
Well to be clear, in a modern context, I'd think it's implied that "HTML" emcompasses HTML, CSS, and perhaps JS and of course PHP. Anything a browser is likely to run across in the course of daily internet travels, is what I had meant.
To me those are very different protocols serving different purposes. Some browsers under current development don't do all those. Web pages can look unrecognisably different in different browsers because it is, by definition, up to the client to chose what information it wants to use and how it want to show it. Anyway, we still need to get an internet connection before any of that comes into play. :)
 
I have a 286
I think this is your problem.
While it's not a problem to use TCP/IP under Windows 3.1 running on a 386 (you can even run fairly modern stuff on that, like Netscape Communicator 4.x), but I've never seen any Windows-based networking on a 286.
I've even checked the ancestor of all GUI web browsers - NCSA Mosaic 0.6b (1993): "We more or less require running Windows in Enhanced Mode, so you will need an absolute minimum of an 80386SX-based machine."
 
There's plenty of ways, but they all involve using DOS programs afaik.

What I'd do is just go crazy trying every browser you can get your hands on: Opera 3.62, Netscape 4, IE3, IE5, and so on - to see if they will install and run. If any of them will, you're set. The documentation is likely sparse for this kind of thing, which is why I suggest trial and error.
 
I'm thinking to not bother with installing if I get a successful TCP/IP stack going...installers may refuse to install based on not finding an OS they want, but it's possible the application itself may still run (perhaps with a low level of stability), so maybe install a bunch in a virtual machine with Win95 then copy the program folders over.

But yeah, finding a stack first, gotta keep things prioritized. I'm sick and school obligations are buiilding up, so this might be on pause for a while.
 
Opera 3.62, Netscape 4, IE3, IE5
On a 286? Sorry, but I can only laugh at this idea :mrgreen:
If there is any chance of running TCP/IP with 286 Windows, you need the really early stuff. I've found some such stuff here:
http://www.vectorbd.com/bfd/winsock/index.html
Start with "winsock.zip 120569 bytes Peter Tattam's Trumpet Winsock ver 1.0" - this is the oldest Winsock implementation I managed to find. If it works, then start trying applications like ftp, telnet, and so on...

But don't expect much, back then modern Windows software usually required 386 Enhanced Mode.
 
On a 286? Sorry, but I can only laugh at this idea :mrgreen:
If there is any chance of running TCP/IP with 286 Windows, you need the really early stuff. I've found some such stuff here:
http://www.vectorbd.com/bfd/winsock/index.html
Start with "winsock.zip 120569 bytes Peter Tattam's Trumpet Winsock ver 1.0" - this is the oldest Winsock implementation I managed to find. If it works, then start trying applications like ftp, telnet, and so on...

But don't expect much, back then modern Windows software usually required 386 Enhanced Mode.

I'll 2nd that. I was able to log on to a XP or Vista share and download and upload from my 5170 using win3.1 standard mode with a DOS based manager. I have not been successful with opening a share on the 5170 to log on to from a Vista, XP or any other OS. I just got a copy of WFW3.1 which might allow that to happen but do I want to mess with what I currently have. I can ftp to different internet sites and download also. I wasted lots of time with old browsers if you have a shot it will be with an old DOS based browser. Don't expect to see much.

my thread is here http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?20079-286-win-3.1-networked-to-Vista

framer
 
For everybody's reference I've used Windows 3.11 for Workgroups *quite* a lot in modern environments, and it works perfectly fine as a server for newer systems to connect to as clients. Windows 3.11 for Workgroups can also connect to newer machines as a client, but has trouble with Vista and 7 due to new hashing and such. I don't recall if it worked well with XP or not, but it's possible to get it to work with even the latest iteration by dumbing down the security to not require a password, as the username authentication part of the process remains the same from Win3.11fw->Win7.
 
...which spawns the question of what exactly differs between WFW 3.1 and WFW 3.11? Obviously there were some differences, given that the second refuses to run unmodified on a 286, but the first will.
 
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