On 4/24/2024 11:33 PM, Brandon Taylor via Freedos-user wrote:
I'm not looking for anything out of Qmodem specifically. I'm searching
for a TSR that handles dial-up networking in the background while I
use TCP/IP utilities like PING, TRACERT and FTP; and/or a web browser
like Arachne.
In that case, what you need is one of two things.
either the crin packet drivers (already mentioned by Frank), which is
probably the most useful option here,
or
something like rlfossil which pretends to be a fossil driver, that
allows your programs to pretend to dial out to the internet even though
none of that is necessary. Both have their advantages, depending on
what you're doing, but it sounds like for you, the packet drivers are
what you want/need. With those loaded, and configured properly, you
should be able to run your other software as desired without worrying
about the connection at all.
The key words here are configured properly, because there are separate
configuration items for software that uses a config file to read it's
options (like some dos software does), and those that expect the
connection to already be live when you open them.
For what it's worth, there is actually a third option, you can run a
program that contains multiple protocols built in already. there are
programs that do this, but they were pretty nitch programs. There's
also something like KA9Q which was a piece of software that could turn
your dos box into an internet server, providing things like email, ftp,
early web access (I believe they only support version 1.0 of the http
protocol). but it doesn't sound like a server is what you're after.
For your case, (as mentioned above), you'll most likely want to load the
packet driver associated with your network card (most can pretend to be
a ne2000 card, so just try that driver first, if it works, then you
won't need to play around with anything else. Many 3com cards are also
emulated these days, so if the ne2000 driver doesn't work, try the
various 3com ones, one of those may do the trick for you.
I can't recall the name of it now, but there was a package someone put
together to allow you to use your packet driver to make the connection,
then drop back to dos, with batch files to run the various programs,
including ftp, email, and web browsing (using archne browser (apologies
if I get any of the names wrong, it's been a while).
If you want to go the fossil driver route, then you can use qmodem, but
unless you're connecting to another machine (such as a shell account),
this will be of extreme limited use/capabily. To use the rlfossil
driver, you just type atdt <hostname> and it will make a telnet
connection to the hostname of choice (you can provide a port number as
well). This was handy for playing muds back then, or for logging into a
unix shell, but beyond that, it's use was pretty much useless, but it's
there if you want to mess around with it.
This is likely more information than you needed, but maybe something in
here will trigger some wish to experiment or something.
Basically, the packet drivers are what you want unless you want to do
something specific that isn't covered by their use.
I.E. running nettamer for irc chatting.
Hope this helps, and good luck making it all work. I wish I still had a
real dos machine operational, but I lost my last one in a forced move a
bit over 2 years ago, so I can't actually try any of this stuff anymore
sadly.
_______________________________________________
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
