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Running programs from server on an XT

JT64

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2008
Messages
402
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Sweden
What is the best program to use if you want to store and run data from nonlocal harddrive, my client is an XT.

I know there is NFS clients that work on 8086, i do not know the name or protocol for windows network shares. Am i correct that some of you guys program a client for windows shares that will work on an XT?

I guess many do not have ide controller cards for their vintage XT, but maybe networkcards.
How do you store and reach your software?
I plan to use an NFS server if i can not get windows network shares to work.

Does HTTP servers support windows network shares, samba or NFS?

JT
 
JT64 wrote:

What is the best program to use if you want to store and run data from nonlocal harddrive, my client is an XT.

I know there is NFS clients that work on 8086, i do not know the name or protocol for windows network shares. Am i correct that some of you guys program a client for windows shares that will work on an XT?

I guess many do not have ide controller cards for their vintage XT, but maybe networkcards.
How do you store and reach your software?
I plan to use an NFS server if i can not get windows network shares to work.

Does HTTP servers support windows network shares, samba or NFS?


Perhaps not quite on topic with what your client is after, though a few years back now I remember using an interesting DOS freeware program called RIFS (look for DOSRIFS2.ZIP) which allowed anyone to hookup one computer with another over a Serial line. I did this with an XT and a 386 Notebook - which seemed to be straight foward. The only hitch I had was the Serial line on my 386 was 9 Pin and I suspect it wasn't as fast as the 25Pine Serial Line on my XT - which mean it wasn't ultra quick, a fast computer now by running using the Command prompt in XP or Vista may change that - though I'm not sure, since this program I mention may not work and needs the generic DOS to work within. I found it worked just fine with Small programs though.

But anyway - RIFS is purely a program which allows you to access a remote Hard Disk over the serial line, nothing fancy, though useful and maybe worth a look into - networking made simple I guess! :-D
 
Does Mike Chambers' Quickserv work on an XT? Check it out. It does both FTP but it will also serve web pages. It works for me but I'm using x86 machines.
 
Does Mike Chambers' Quickserv work on an XT? Check it out. It does both FTP but it will also serve web pages. It works for me but I'm using x86 machines.

the FTP part isn't 100% relayable, but the HTML part is neat stuff. It does work on an 8088.
 
Okay. Long post. Get ready...

I've used a few different methods in the past to get my old 8088 systems to run programs located on a more modern machine. One of the simplest methods is to use a null-modem serial cable or a file-transfer parallel-port cable and INTERLNK/INTERSVR. It comes with DOS 6 and later versions. There are big caveats to this, however (no support for FAT32/NTFS, requires using a virtual machine on the server computer if running Windows XP, things like that).

I like the link that Jorg posted; the info on that page works very well if the server computer is running Win9x and the client computer has a working hard drive.

The latest method I use is using MS Lan Manager to connect an 8088 system to an even more modern machine. In fact, I wrote an article on how to network a PCjr to a Windows Server 2003 computer using only 1 bootable floppy disk. My PCjr runs PC-DOS 3.30 and uses the NetBEUI protocol, which can be installed in every version of Windows. Because the PCjr doesn't have any easy way to install a network card, I use a Xircom PE3-10BT parallel port ethernet adapter and it works fine. Even works on my XTs, too.

With using the LAN Manager technique, I can now run programs located on my server using the 8088 machines (and access terabytes of data). No Samba configuring required, and yes, you can use standard Windows shares. It takes work to get it all running, but it's worth it in the end. Personally, I'm not fond of the HTTP/FTP client/server method on the older machines (especially the floppy-only computers).

By the way, JT, I have some questions for you:

1. Does your XT currently have a working hard drive in it?
2. Which version of DOS are you now using in your XT?
3. Which version of Windows are you using on your server computer?

Also, if anyone here wants to help me test out the article, feel free to PM me.

Thanks for letting me ramble on, and I hope all of this helps! :-D

Jon
 
Is it really for XT machines. I'm not sure what processor i have but it is not an 286 or never.

JT

Well, it ran fine on my 5160 XT with a NE2000 8/16 bits NIC.
I just deinstalled it because I wanted peer to peer, so I use Novell Lite now.
 
Okay. Long post. Get ready...

I've used a few different methods in the past to get my old 8088 systems to run programs located on a more modern machine. One of the simplest methods is to use a null-modem serial cable or a file-transfer parallel-port cable and INTERLNK/INTERSVR. It comes with DOS 6 and later versions. There are big caveats to this, however (no support for FAT32/NTFS, requires using a virtual machine on the server computer if running Windows XP, things like that).

I like the link that Jorg posted; the info on that page works very well if the server computer is running Win9x and the client computer has a working hard drive.

The latest method I use is using MS Lan Manager to connect an 8088 system to an even more modern machine. In fact, I wrote an article on how to network a PCjr to a Windows Server 2003 computer using only 1 bootable floppy disk. My PCjr runs PC-DOS 3.30 and uses the NetBEUI protocol, which can be installed in every version of Windows. Because the PCjr doesn't have any easy way to install a network card, I use a Xircom PE3-10BT parallel port ethernet adapter and it works fine. Even works on my XTs, too.

With using the LAN Manager technique, I can now run programs located on my server using the 8088 machines (and access terabytes of data). No Samba configuring required, and yes, you can use standard Windows shares. It takes work to get it all running, but it's worth it in the end. Personally, I'm not fond of the HTTP/FTP client/server method on the older machines (especially the floppy-only computers).

By the way, JT, I have some questions for you:

1. Does your XT currently have a working hard drive in it?
2. Which version of DOS are you now using in your XT?
3. Which version of Windows are you using on your server computer?

Also, if anyone here wants to help me test out the article, feel free to PM me.

Thanks for letting me ramble on, and I hope all of this helps! :-D

Jon

I have a working 1024 MB HD (it is really 10 GB), 2 partitions one primary and one extended. I know this should not work but somehow does (maybe until trashing the FAT).
My controller is an ISA 8-bit ADP50L.

So one HD and one ide2compactflash adapter, the controller only able to recognise upto 512 MB compactflash drives.
Seem there are different version of the logic in the CP flash, since some work faster/better than others. Currently i have one 512 MB and one 2 GB. But i only partition them as 480 MB do get them work reliably.

Right now i run MsDos 6.22 (minimal system transfered from bootdisk) i've not had the time to expand the apps that comes with it (it is tedious one by one).

And erhm the copy protection did not like the installation of MsDos 6.22 to run from directory. Unfortunatly i can not get installation of DrDos/OpenDos and FreeDos working from directory either.

DrDos installation actually start install from CF directory but it will not find the systemfiles in the directory(maybe because i could not extract the images correctly because of the system file attributes.

So if anyone have a 720 boot image for freedos, i will jump in joy. Same goes for DrDos/OpenDos. Unfortunatly i do not have a 1.44 floppy reader and i am unsure if the bios would support it.

And changing my 1.44 to 720 in bios doesn't work, same problem for WMware emulation. The XT just can not read the disks, and same the other way around.

Well that was a lenghty answer.

JT



Is MSLan included in MSDOS 6.0?

I do not have any networkcard yet, but when i get i will have a fileserver running first thing on my 32-bit Vista machine. I have installed WMware so i can run emulated OS on it.
 
MS Lanman

MS Lanman

JT64 said...Is MSLan included in MSDOS 6.0?
LANMAN used to ship with Windows Server, if you can get your hands on a NT Server 4.0 cd-rom, there's a tool called NCADMIN that'll help you make a client boot disk to connect to Windows.

patscc
 
LANMAN used to ship with Windows Server, if you can get your hands on a NT Server 4.0 cd-rom, there's a tool called NCADMIN that'll help you make a client boot disk to connect to Windows.

patscc

And will work in an XT sounds fantastic?

JT
 
ncadmin

ncadmin

No, you run it on windows( in a cmd window ), but it creates the disks for you. I'll run down a copy and try it out just to refresh my memory and make sure I'm actually talking about what I think I'm talking about.

patscc
 
As i said i have an "XT client" it will not run any Windows higher than 3.0 if even that.
I know for sure it will run win286 because it support 8086 instructions(inspite of naming), at least that what i've read on internet.

But you said it was a bootdisk, you make me confused?
A bootdisk with/for what window version?

JT
 
No, you run it on windows( in a cmd window ), but it creates the disks for you. I'll run down a copy and try it out just to refresh my memory and make sure I'm actually talking about what I think I'm talking about.

patscc

Ok i get it windows is for creating the bootdisk, but what exactly is on the bootdisk?

8086 client software and what operating system?

JT
 
What is the best program to use if you want to store and run data from nonlocal harddrive, my client is an XT.

I know there is NFS clients that work on 8086, i do not know the name or protocol for windows network shares. Am i correct that some of you guys program a client for windows shares that will work on an XT?

I guess many do not have ide controller cards for their vintage XT, but maybe networkcards.
How do you store and reach your software?
I plan to use an NFS server if i can not get windows network shares to work.

Does HTTP servers support windows network shares, samba or NFS?

JT

Microsoft Net Client 3.0

you can download it from MS for free, do a quick google search. the TCP/IP driver that comes with it requires at least a 186, but you can use NetBEUI. that's what i do, it works fantastically. it's very fast. faster than having a hard drive in the machine. my server for it is an XP machine. i have two network cards in the 8088, an NE1000 generic to communicate with the windows share, and then a 3com 3c503 that i use with a packet driver for other software.
 
MS-DOS Lan client

MS-DOS Lan client

JT64, here are the requirements for the DOS client. The ncadmin tool makes you a set of install disks, or a boot disk to boot into the network. Mike's post is basically a quick intro of the possibilities.

Microsoft Network Client for MS-DOS (3.0)

The following table describes the minimum configuration requirements for a Microsoft Network Client for MS-DOS.

Category Minimum requirement
Microprocessor 8088 or higher.
Memory 640K of RAM.
Hard disk space 1 MB of free disk space.
Network card One supported network card installed.
Operating system MS-DOS version 3.3 or later.
Optional component Microsoft Windows version 3.1.

This is from the client that ships with server 3.5
I'm still digging around for my 4.0 disk. Nothing like being a disorganized slob when it comes to looking for something you haven't used in a while.

Probably easier to deal with is a download from Microsoft, as Mike pointed out.
You can get the clients here.
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/Clients/LANMAN/
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/Clients/MSCLIENT/

I'll fiddle with it too, good practice, been a while since I've done it and I'm not even sure what client version they have up there.
I've got all the Server versions from 3.1 upwards, so I'm sure somewhere in the is a version that'l work on your box.

NetBEUI, by the way, is IBM's contribution, which Microsoft gleefully took up, and is an old non-routable transport protocol from way back when. It's a transport & sits on top of the driver. While limited in it's way, for raw speed, as Mike pointed out, it's hard to beat for speed.

patscc
 
Use NetBEUI for what?
1. Instead of the driver,
2. or in addition to it,
3. or instead of a computer????
I guess it's time for me to google. :)

it sits on top of the NIC driver... pretty much in place of TCP/IP. it does a great job for simple things like file sharing on a LAN.
 
it sits on top of the NIC driver... pretty much in place of TCP/IP. it does a great job for simple things like file sharing on a LAN.
Thanks Mike, that's kinda what I thought. I have been doing some googling and gotten a little closer to understanding this. What I didn't know is that this is not a universal format like TCP/IP so it's kind of a limited setup like Interlink. Of course I still don't grok the whole thing yet, so I'm likely wrong. :) I don't know about other OSes, but it looks like Linux needs a kernel recompile and a Samba install in order to connect but that's probably irrelevant to most folks.

I just downloaded MS Net Client 3.0 and its 2.5Megs so it'll take a bit of pruning to get on an XT or 360K diskette! Thats not where I'd use it, but this is looking like a pretty complicated setup compared to plain TCP/IP which (in DOS) generally only needs 3 relatively small files - and thats including the application. I'll be looking forward to seeing how people are doing it. Perhaps patscc's next post will enlighten me. :)

BTW, I found a couple of good and relevant sites:
DOS Networking HOWTO
Networking software for DOS and Windows 3.x
 
I have a working 1024 MB HD (it is really 10 GB), 2 partitions one primary and one extended. I know this should not work but somehow does (maybe until trashing the FAT).
My controller is an ISA 8-bit ADP50L.

Okay. The reason I asked about the HD is because I've been working with some people on the floppy-only-system networking stuff lately. With a working HD setup, MS Net Client 3.0 should work fine with your 8086. As others have said, make sure to use NetBEUI.

I just downloaded MS Net Client 3.0 and its 2.5Megs so it'll take a bit of pruning to get on an XT or 360K diskette!

Try this link here. Worked great for me in getting Net Client onto my XT using the old floppies.

I do not have any networkcard yet, but when i get i will have a fileserver running first thing on my 32-bit Vista machine. I have installed WMware so i can run emulated OS on it.

A big thing to remember with Net Client (and LAN Manager) - if your server computer is running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you may have to change some Group Policies or else the server computer might not authenticate with the client software (which could mean a security risk). Remember, there have been a couple of authentication "updates" to networking security in MS software between the early '90s and now. And because I'm at work while typing this, I don't have the links in front of me that talk about those issues.

Hope this helps! :mrgreen:

Jon
 
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