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Open source equivalent of INTERLNK / INTERSVR

Ruud

Ruud

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Joined
Nov 30, 2009
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Heerlen, NL
I'm using MS-DOS's INTERLNK / INTERSVR so now and then and I was wondering if somebody wrote an open source equivalent. I think that it is hard to do because FreeDOS hasn't an equivalent available yet, AFAIK.

I'm looking forward to any pointer!
 
DDLINK is not using directories as INTERLNK / INTERSVR does. INTERLNK / INTERSVR creates a kind of mini-LAN where the complete file system of the server is visible and available through drive letters. I'm looking for open source so I can see how it is done and maybe I can write my own version.
 
I think this might be what you want. It contains the source, but I'm not sure about how well it works:

https://cyberside.net.ee/files/util/system/dosrif.zip

Also, I think there hasn't been interest among the FreeDOS developers to duplicate this functionality, but it has been done outside of Microsoft. While not open source, there is the freeware DOSRIFS2 (rename the file with a .zip extension):

http://svardos.org/repo/?a=pull&p=dosrifs

Some programs providing similar features, but for DOS <-> Linux use, are the open source EtherFlop and EtherDFS.

http://ethflop.sourceforge.net
http://etherdfs.sourceforge.net or https://github.com/BrianHoldsworth/etherdfs-server
 
acgs said:
I think this might be what you want. It contains the source, but I'm not sure about how well it works:

https://cyberside.net.ee/files/util/system/dosrif.zip

Also, I think there hasn't been interest among the FreeDOS developers to duplicate this functionality, but it has been done outside of Microsoft. While not open source, there is the freeware DOSRIFS2 (rename the file with a .zip extension):

http://svardos.org/repo/?a=pull&p=dosrifs

Some programs providing similar features, but for DOS <-> Linux use, are the open source EtherFlop and EtherDFS.

http://ethflop.sourceforge.net
http://etherdfs.sourceforge.net or https://github.com/BrianHoldsworth/etherdfs-server
Click to expand...

Via via I ended up here yesterday evening: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/system/dosrif/

But thank you for the links anyway because Cyberside and Svardos contain a lot of other goodies.

I knew about ethflop and etherdfs because ethflop regurlary pops up in "PC and clones" asking for debug reports. But I'm not a Linux user (yet, it will change: I already have my misgivings with W10 but I don't want W11 at all) and "Dos packet drivers" does ring a bell but that's all.
 
Ruud said:
Via via I ended up here yesterday evening: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/system/dosrif/
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by "Via via", but at least you found an alternate (FreeDOS) source. I knew I'd seen the programs somewhere before, but couldn't remember where. So, a new search turned up the other sites.

But thank you for the links anyway because Cyberside and Svardos contain a lot of other goodies.
Click to expand...

Anytime. Please keep us updated on your progress, I'd love to see an improved INTERLNK/SVR available as open source!

I knew about ethflop and etherdfs because ethflop regurlary pops up in "PC and clones" asking for debug reports.
Click to expand...

I figured you probably did, being that you're a long time member here. But I felt I should mention it because the DOS side of those projects might have some clues on how to do the client part of your program. FYI: Svardos is maintained by the author of Etherdfs & ethflop.
 
FWIW, between EtherDFS and EthFlop it's EtherDFS that's a closer analogy to INTERLNK; ethflop hooks onto the "block-device" BIOS calls so unless you want on the server side to dish out raw image files or raw access to a DOS FAT12-formatted disk device it's probably less useful. But the client side of EtherDFS should definitely work as a template for writing your own Interlink replacement, since it links onto the file-level disk APIs. It happens to use a packet driver as the communication medium with the server end but I don't think there's any good reason you couldn't rewrite it to use a serial link or whatever.
 
If any one is interested to have a look at it:
I unpacked the sources of version 2. First I'm a Pascal guy so C is not my favorite programming language. To run the makefile I used Borland C 3.0's MAKE. I added the full path to the TCC and MAKE commands. ((I think there is a way to tell what the path is but at the moment I have no idea) I ran MAKE and found out that the ASM files were not assembled so I created a liitle BAT file to do that for me. Ran MAKE again and ended up with error messages that pointed to routines found inside the various ASM files. But here ends my knowledge.

Anyone interested to have a look at it? Thank you in advance!

My reason: I like to tinker with old PCs, preferably 8088 machines. And, if possible, I want to use my own tools, written in Pascal (because that's fun for me). So I'm going to convert these C files into Pascal. If I get it to work in Pascal, I can use it as basis for other tools. Maybe far fetched but you never know: what about a little network based on RS-232? BTW., for peer-to-peer I prefer the LPT port so that's another reason to alter/convert the program.
 
acgs said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "Via via",
Click to expand...
If I use "Google translate" for just "via" it says: by the way of. "Via" is also Latin for "road". In Dutch "via via" is used like "I went here, went there, was pointed there and as result ....". Another rough translation: "To make a long story short".
 
It took me a while to find this thread again, but @voidstar78's recent RS-232 thread made me think of it, especially post #47.

The FMLINK.TXT attachment in that post and this QuickBASIC program:

https://archive.org/download/DOSWorldQBASIC/DOS World QBASIC.zip/DOS World QBASIC/Disk1/PORTAL.BAS (source)
https://archive.org/download/DOSWorldQBASIC/DOS World QBASIC.zip/DOS World QBASIC/Disk1/PORTAL.EXE (executable)

should go a long way to helping turn EtherDFS's framework into an INTERLNK/INTERSVR clone. The FMLINK file contains the source to File Maven's Turbo Pascal unit for file transfers.

Hope you still have interest in pursuing this project. Good luck with it, if you do.
 
Having a interlink/interserver replacement that handled fat32, ntfs and any operating system combination would be nice.

I used to keep a windows 98 system to be the go between to setup ancient dos systems so I didn’t need floppy disks, Ethernet or a disk emulator .

The ancient dos system in that case was always the server. Doing it this way has certain limitations obviously
 
Well, there is the "$25 Network". It came out in the late 80s and I used it to map drives between my DOS machines over RS-232 and it worked great. I 'think' there is an archive of it on http://www.winworldpc.com. If not, I have some stuff. I have the manual, but it seems to be too big to post here.
 
I found the software and would be interested in the manual. If you can scan the manual, http://www.winworldpc.com would be interested in hosting it as an addition to the software.

You can send it to me and I will take care of it. You can use DropBox, WeTransfer or what ever. TIA!
 
new user here. Please be kind to me :)

I was about to mention $25NET, but it has already been mentioned. I found another side that also claims to have it. IIRC it comes with a readme file. I haven't got anything installed to peek into IMG files (I tried 7zip which as expected didn't support IMG files). If you want to, have a go at it:
I vaguely remember that it used odd error messages for certain situations, like out of paper on device G: and so on.
I assume that it uses the serial port hardware directly, as it would be impossible to achieve any decent speed using BIOS calls. This makes it not trivial to modify it to for example use parallel port.

I remember some site/thread somewhere where someone did what I would call an ADHD attempt at reverse engineering the INTERSVR/INTERLNK protocol, but only had a look at what must had been a few percent, I.E. the first handshake phase or so. It would be nice if someone took the time to reverse engineer the full protocol.


If you want to use the parallel port you could use a PLIP packet driver and network software that supports packet drivers.
I don't know of any shim that allows makes a packet driver be used with network software that expects a NDIS (Microsoft) or ODI (Novel) driver, so you'd have to set up something like a NFS client. Perhaps a bit too much work.

Sorry if I'm captain obvious here, but have you considered using a Xircom pocket ethernet adapter or similar?

Also, what happens if you try running INTERLNK/INTERSVR on something that isn't MS/PC-DOS?

Btw although I assume you want to share files rather than disk images, it's worth knowing that the XTIDE Universal Bios has a built in client for disk image sharing over the serial port, intended to be able to boot an emulated floppy image. Also there are at least two different ways of loading XTIDE Universal Bios from a bootable floppy, so to try this out you don't even have to have XTIDE Universal BIOS as a ROM.
 
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