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Arachne with PCMCIA Wireless Card?

T

Tupin

Experienced Member
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Jun 7, 2009
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Is this possible on a laptop? I tried on DOSBox with built-in wifi on my laptop and I couldn't get it to work, but I figure it would be easier on a native DOS system.
 
I assume you're using Morelo's dospppd in which case you need to set up EPPPD.EXE which emulates a class 1 ethernet connection. The PPPD is for serial only. You have to set up both the WATTCP.CFG and PPPDRC.CFG files and you should be good to go as long as you have a packet driver installed.

I haven't used Arachne in some years and it probably has some automatic configuration built in now. However, it may still be easier to just do it by hand as per the previous paragraph. Good luck! Arachne is a great browser.
 
WiFi came well passed the end of DOS's lifecycle. I don't believe there's a card out there that has a native DOS driver. Also there's the complication of needing to detect WiFi hotspots and handle encryption etc. It's just not well suited to the environment. However, check out this mod done to an 8088 luggable. It's not really as nice as what you're thinking of, but an in-between device with a DOS compatible Ethernet card is probably your only chance.
 
Come to think about it, I have an extra cable modem lying around and that would work just fine, I'll just need an Ethernet card that works with DOS, which I'm pretty sure exist.
 
I recommend you look into the Lucent/Orinico 802.11b PCMCIA wireless card. From knowledge it is one of the most common 11b cards on the planet and works on almost anything.
 
For wireless Internet from an old machine, you might be able to use a Bluetooth serial port bridge to connect via another computer. For example:

http://aaxeon.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2224/.f

These devices are a bit pricey but I think you could make something similar for somewhat less. What I'm not sure of is whether you can get enough power from a regular serial port or would have to rig something to power them.

If the host computer has built-in Bluetooth you'd only need one adapter, since you can create a Bluetooth serial port.

Google gives me a number of examples of doing this for various handhelds, not DOS laptops, but as long as you can get the DOS PPP configured correctly, it seems like it should work the same way.
 
Tupin said:
Yeah, I think it has auto setup, but I'm not sure what they mean by packet driver.
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Your networking software only needs to know the packet vector (ie 0x60) and all will be fine there. However, if you don't know what a packet driver is, I really suggest you read a bit about the fundamentals before you try something as sophisticated as wireless. :) Perhaps just try a regular hookup first and then add more modern complexities from there.

I recommend Mike Brutman's page on TCP/IP Networking on DOS. That is short and sweet. If you want a lot more, try Wisdom Tree.
 
Understand it slightly better and know that the drivers come on a CD supplied with the card, if I have problems I will post again.
 
That is indeed the card.
The things are rebadged and sold as anything from access point wi-fi modules to AirPort cards.
The black plastic housing with two green LEDs and an antenna jack on the end is normally a dead giveaway.

ori_edge.jpg


The original ones came in Bronze, Silver, and Gold but a simple hack and a reflash and you got a Gold Orinoco card which supports better encryption.
With the exception of AirPort and a handful of other rebadged OEM cards, you can reflash ANY of these orinoco cards the same way.
 
I'll be looking forward to hearing about the wireless. :)

Not having used it in years, I thought this would be an opportunity to load up Arachne. (Thanks for the inspiration Tupin!) The auto setup is a bit complicated, but I found that I just had to set it to use Wattcp. After that it went right on the net and it felt like old times! Lots of fun. Now I remember why I hadn't done this before, it prefers a mouse which I never use. However, there's a setting in the ARACHNE.CFG file called "smoothscroll" which, if you set it to "No" will allow the cursor keys to work.

Arachne found the packet driver without any configuration, so I would think that if the driver for the Orinoco card presents itself as a standard packet driver on the client side then things should go smoothly.

Edit: Regarding the PC Memory Card for transferring files between PCs. If you have a network card on each PC then that takes care of ALL your file transfer problems. Unless you really need the exercise, why use sneakernet when you can have wires or radio?
 
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Well it's not just about the card being recognized, but does it have a utility to set access points and such?
 
southbird said:
Well it's not just about the card being recognized, but does it have a utility to set access points and such?
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That's a good point. In years of scouring the net for DOS internet utilities, I've never come across such a thing. However, Tupin seems to think that it's on the CD. - hopefully he's right.
 
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