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Parallel port data transfer

Caluser2000 said:
A lot of dos programs run in an XP terminal. Of course long file names are mangled and ports etc are vertualised.
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No problem running many/most DOS programs in XP, the issue is talking to ports.

That just looks like ZIP on a Windows system showing a directory on the same Windows system, but can it talk to a DOS box via the parallel port, which is what we're curious about?

What's an XP terminal?
 
Stone said:
D could be a FAT16 drive.
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That almost goes without saying, but what is he running on the XP box, and is it actually running XP? The ZIP author says that it doesn't work on any Windows later than 98, which is what I would also expect, so how/what is the OP using?
 
As I said the server boots to Microsoft Windows XP and zip221 transferred file from 386 to XP. This XP computer runs all DOS programs.
 
MikeS said:
No problem running many/most DOS programs in XP, the issue is talking to ports.

That just looks like ZIP on a Windows system showing a directory on the same Windows system, but can it talk to a DOS box via the parallel port, which is what we're curious about?

What's an XP terminal?
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Wording things so Ole might understand what I'm on about as he has know knowledge of things WindowsNT based. Some dos comm programs do indeed run fine on XP. The OP obviously runs zip221 without issue and stated so in the first post.
 
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Dusann has stated

1. Partition D is accessible to remote DOS via parallel port
2. He plans to run the XP machine as a headless server.

XP operating environment is irrelevant here.

Assuming he wants to retain XP capability on the server for some other purpose, my original suggestion stands, that he boot from a DOS floppy. Autoexec.bat can launch InterSvr. The client 386 machine launches InterLnk and points to partition D.

Rick
 
Dusannn said:
This XP computer runs all DOS programs.
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In that case just run INTERSVR.EXE on the XP machine and it should work. According to others you apparently can't put it in your autoexec.bat to get it to run on boot, but I assume XP has some way to program the boot sequence so you can.

Caluser2000 said:
Wording things so Ole might understand what I'm on about as he has know knowledge of things WindowsNT based. Some dos comm programs do indeed run fine on XP. The OP obviously runs zip221 without issue and stated so in the first post.
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Thanks Cal. :) :) The problems, whatever they really are, seem to be about bridging operating systems in this case. The usual solution these days is to use ethernet which is made to overcome that problem.

MikeS said:
And if it's just going to be a headless DOS file server, why bother with Windows at all?
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Yes, it could be so simple.
 
RickNel said:
Assuming he wants to retain XP capability on the server for some other purpose, my original suggestion stands, that he boot from a DOS floppy. Autoexec.bat can launch InterSvr. The client 386 machine launches InterLnk and points to partition D.
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That's assuming XP is on a FAT16 partition. If it's on a FAT32 or NTFS partition the DOS boot disk will ignore it and partition D will actually be partition C.
 
Dusannn said:
As I said the server boots to Microsoft Windows XP and zip221 transferred file from 386 to XP. This XP computer runs all DOS programs.
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So then what's the problem? Just put ZIP in the Startup folder with the right options and away you go.

Sounds good. I'll have to give it a try myself when I get back to the office; I haven't had much luck with parallel port file transfers DOS<>XP, and the author of ZIP himself didn't think it would work:

ZIP no longer seems to work under Windows ME, but can still be run from
DOS alone after rebooting from a floppy disk. ZIP has worked reliably for
some Windows NT users, but not for many others; chances of success are
probably no better under Win2000 or XP. LFNs would not be preserved.
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Caluser2000 said:
He didn't say it would'nt work, but states the possiblity of it working on NT based windows would be hit and miss.
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OK, shoulda said 'probably wouldn't work'; to me 'hit and miss' and 'working for some but not working for many' == 'not working' or at least not worth possibly wasting a lot of time on. But apparently worth looking into in this case.

Still don't get why you'd want to run a headless DOS file server in XP though...
 
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MikeS said:
Still don't get why you'd want to run a headless DOS file server in XP though...
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Me neither. There's better ways to do it as mentioned earlier.

We still don't know if the "D" partition is fat16 or fat32 either despite zip221 making files on it accessible to the 386 from the XP box. It could be just another NTFS partition with dos files stored on it.

Edit-reading the first post again it is mentioned dos can read "D". I think I'll have a lay down.................
 
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I started intersvr on xp and interlnk on 386 and when I tried to access files from 386 intersvr suddenly crashed.
Can windows 98SE boot disk run intersvr?
 
Drive D: on XP machine is FAT32. I can establish connection using win 98se bootdisk, but INTERSVR doesn't like fat32. Is there any other program for transferring files from fat32 to fat16?
 
Dusannn said:
Drive D: on XP machine is FAT32. I can establish connection using win 98se bootdisk, but INTERSVR doesn't like fat32. Is there any other program for transferring files from fat32 to fat16?
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Try running zip221, as you are already familiar with that via autoexec.bat file on the boot disk using switches to set it up to serve the directory you want to access. The info to do this should be the zip221 instruction file.
 
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I got it working! I started zip221 in autoexec.bat using /V option for server mode, and it works perfectly!
 
Dusannn said:
I got it working! I started zip221 in autoexec.bat using /V option for server mode, and it works perfectly!
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Excellent. Well done!

I'm sure other members will find this useful as well. Including those with an extensive dos background ;)
 
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Caluser2000 said:
Excellent. Well done!

I'm sure other members will find this useful as well. Including those with an extensive dos background ;)
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... as long as they look past the incomplete, misleading and downright incorrect posts... ;-)

Since AFAIK XP does not run anything in autoexec.bat I'm going to assume that contrary to the original post the OP is finally actually running a version of DOS (including 7 & 8 ), which is what has been suggested all along...
 
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