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Windows 95 direct cable connection to Win XP / 7 using USB to Serial cable

S

Simke

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
34
Location
Brisbane, Australia
Hi everyone,

I've got an old Toshiba T2100 laptop, onto which I've installed Windows 95. It has both serial and parallel ports and I'm trying to set up direct cable connection, but not having any luck so far.

I have two host machines that I tried using, one is a Sony Vaio laptop running Windows 7 Home Pro x64, other an older generic desktop machine running Windows Server 2003 32 bit.

Windows Server computer does have parallel port, and I have tried setting up DCC over it, but that didn't work. A while ago I have also purchased a dual serial port PCI card (High Speed PCI Serial Port) and put it in the box, but that didn't work either.

Today I decided to give DCC another go, and went to purchase USB to serial adapter. Tried on Win 7 machine first, plugged in the cable and the driver for FT232R USB UART installed automatically. Then I set up an incoming connection (had to add legacy driver for cable connection via device manager), but still couldn't connect from Win 95. Then did the same on Windows Server 2003 PC, making sure port settings (speed and flow control) matched on both guest and the host, but no luck.

Any help in getting DCC to work is much appreciated, either over USB to Serial, or over in built parallel or PCI serial card.

Cheers
 
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For DCC to work, you need at least one network protocol binded to it. Back in the old days I used to just use NetBEUI, but that isn't supported by anything newer then Windows 2000. I think TCP/IP will work if you manually configure IPs. My preference would be to use a program like Laplink which natively supports both platforms, or if you can find one, just get a PC Card Ethernet controller and hook the laptop up to the network.

It looks like Vista and above don't support DCC via serial or parallel at all (built-in or even via Laplink), so stick with XP if you can.
 
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I did try with a null modem serial cable at first (after adding PCI serial port card to Windows server box), and the USB to serial cable that I got yesterday is supposed to emulate null modem cable.
Don't think I've tried to set up connection using NetBEUI, I had TCP/IP protocol set on both host and the guest. Will give this a go tonight when I get home from work.
I also guess that serial to parallel converter won't work with null modem cable (i.e. try to connect using parallel ports)?
 
Is there a perticular reason you are trying to do this via serial when you could just add an Ethernet card to the t2100 and have 10 or even 100mbps transfers instead of 128kbps serial? PCMCIA NICs are not expensive or hard to find.
I have a t2130 and use a 10/100 wired NIC and a 802.11b wifi NIC with, no issues and no slow transfers ;-)
 
RWallmow said:
Is there a perticular reason you are trying to do this via serial when you could just add an Ethernet card to the t2100 and have 10 or even 100mbps transfers instead of 128kbps serial? PCMCIA NICs are not expensive or hard to find.
I have a t2130 and use a 10/100 wired NIC and a 802.11b wifi NIC with, no issues and no slow transfers ;-)
Click to expand...

I was thinking of getting a 16bit PCMCIA network card off eBay, however floppy drive on T2100 died a month or so ago, so I'd have no way of installing the driver.
 
ibmapc said:
NetBEUI will work with XP, but the files for it are not installed by default. They must be copied from the install disk or some other source. Check this link
Click to expand...

Installed NetBEUI (had to use Win XP CD, as its not included with Windows Server 2003 - still works), but when I go to add a protocol on incoming connection, it doesn't give me an option to use NetBEUI (I can see it if I try to add it to network card).
 
I have gotten the direct cable connection to work going between a Win 95 machine and a Win XP machine. I used the same null modem cable I use for INTERLNK/INTERSVR between DOS machines.

After connecting the cable and booting both machines...

On Win XP, I do the following:

1) Add an incoming connection (can't remember which network protocol needs to be installed - I think it's TCP/IP)
2) Insure the services REMOTE and SERVER are started
3) Share the folders I want accessable to Win 95

On the Win 95 machine, start the direct cable connection program. It will try to connect and fail because for some reason it cannot acquire the host name (the name you gave your Win XP computer). When prompted, supply the host name and the connection should be made.

When you are done, it is then your decision as to whether or not you go back and undo the changes made to the Win XP machine.

Hope that helps.

Joe
 
Simke said:
I was thinking of getting a 16bit PCMCIA network card off eBay, however floppy drive on T2100 died a month or so ago, so I'd have no way of installing the driver.
Click to expand...

Simple solution to that: PCMCIA to CompactFlash adapter (about $2 from china) and a CF card. Many modern PCs these days have CF card readers (10-in-one multi card reader), if yours doesn't, a USB CF reader is about $5-10. Copy drivers to CF card and BAM :)
 
Simke said:
I was thinking of getting a 16bit PCMCIA network card off eBay, however floppy drive on T2100 died a month or so ago, so I'd have no way of installing the driver.
Click to expand...
Are you sure the drive died? Maybe the heads just need cleaning. Did it stop reading while a disk was in it? If so, it's possible that a bad disk fouled the heads.
 
Stone said:
Are you sure the drive died? Maybe the heads just need cleaning. Did it stop reading while a disk was in it? If so, it's possible that a bad disk fouled the heads.
Click to expand...

And as usual I have to mention Interlink etc. as a way to transfer files when no compatible disk drives are available (but serial ports and a null modem cable are). Everyone who plays with old computers should have a null modem cable and RS-232-capable server or tweener anyway.
 
MikeS said:
And as usual I have to mention Interlink etc. as a way to transfer files when no compatible disk drives are available (but serial ports and a null modem cable are). Everyone who plays with old computers should have a null modem cable and RS-232-capable server or tweener anyway.
Click to expand...
While this is true, most newer machines have LBA drives that DOS and Interlink, etc., just can't deal with. IOW, if you manage to boot to DOS will you be able to see your HD? And that is why we all should have tweeners.
 
Stone said:
While this is true, most newer machines have LBA drives that DOS and Interlink, etc., just can't deal with. IOW, if you manage to boot to DOS will you be able to see your HD? And that is why we all should have tweeners.
Click to expand...
A tweener is definitely the answer, but a DOS-bootable USB stick with the necessary files on it can usually provide the bridge between Interlink compatibility and NTFS etc.; DOS doesn't need to see NTFS or terabyte drives but AFAIK Win8 can still read DOS-compatible USB sticks.

Lack of legacy com & lpt ports is usually a bigger issue.
 
RWallmow said:
Simple solution to that: PCMCIA to CompactFlash adapter (about $2 from china) and a CF card. Many modern PCs these days have CF card readers (10-in-one multi card reader), if yours doesn't, a USB CF reader is about $5-10. Copy drivers to CF card and BAM :)
Click to expand...

Thought about that the other day, but not sure if anyone makes 16bit ones.
 
Stone said:
Are you sure the drive died? Maybe the heads just need cleaning. Did it stop reading while a disk was in it? If so, it's possible that a bad disk fouled the heads.
Click to expand...

When trying to read a floppy all you can hear is faint buzz, looks like the heads are not even trying to read the disk. Its possible that a bad disk caused damage, however all of the 3.5" floppies that I was using on that machine were less than 12 months old (3M, found a shop that still sells them).
 
smeezekitty said:
There is a utility bouncing around called "NTFS4DOS" that allows rudimentary NTFS file system access in DOS
Click to expand...

As a matter of fact I do put NTFS4DOS on my DOS USB sticks but it hasn't always worked for me, so I prefer to use the 'server's Win OS to copy files to/from the USB stick.
 
Simke said:
Thought about that the other day, but not sure if anyone makes 16bit ones.
Click to expand...

Most are 16-bit, you actually have to go out of your way (and pay through the nose) to find cardbus ones. Viking and Delkin were the only ones I've ever seen that made CF to Cardbus, and sadly my Viking one has no driver support past XP, which sucks because it was fast as hell lol.
 
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