DOS ain't dead

A new version of mTCP is available in the usual place: http://www.brutman.com/mTCP .

If you are on an older clone machine and you have not been able to make the larger apps run correctly, then you want this version. The Watcom compiler runtime that I am using now was incorrectly flagging some machines as NEC PC9801 compatible, which was crashing machines that were not PC9801 compatible. Some of the machines that were hit by this bug were the Compaq Portable and the Epson Equity series. It is a priority to me to make sure that these older machines run well.

(If your clone machine does hot have a normal looking copyright date in BIOS at FFFF:0005 then you were probably being hit by this bug. DHCP would work fine, but the bigger apps like FTP, IRCJR or Telnet would crash when sounding the beeper or reading the keyboard.)

There were some minor TCP/IP changes too to make it more robust if the apps run out of buffer space. This version is built using Open Watcom 1.9; previous versions of mTCP were built using Open Watcom 1.8.

One last note - if you have any problems at all, just drop an email. Also, if you are using mTCP on your machine I'd like to know what kind of machine it is - I'm compiling a list of machines that I know it works on. That will help me with compatibility testing so that I can avoid hiccups like the one above. The partial list at the moment is the PC, XT, AT, PCjr, Epson Equity, Compaq Portable, generic 386-40, Victor Technologies 'Vicky', generic 286-12, generic Pentium class machines, DOSBox (using the Hal-9000 builds), VMWare and VirtualBox.


Regards,
Mike

And another update ... this one includes a new FTP server!


Mike

---
mTCP - TCP/IP apps for vintage DOS machines!
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP

And another round of updates!

- IRCjr rewrite to support multiple channels and virtual windows
- A small change to the FTP server to make it friendlier to FileZilla
- Some bug fixes to the core TCP/IP library (nothing too serious)

For those of you not familiar with mTCP, it is a set of TCP/IP applications that include:

- IRC client
- Telnet client
- FTP client
- FTP server
- Netcat
- DHCP client (optional; static config is supported too)
- SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol) client
- PING

All of these run well on the oldest and slowest PCs you can find as well as DOSBox and virtual machines (VMWare, Virtualbox, etc.)


-Mike

---
mTCP - TCP/IP apps for vintage DOS machines!
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP

> And another round of updates!

Thanks, Mike! Very nice! Disclaimer : gave only a first glance!
>
> - Telnet client

Clent checked OK of course, on not so old PC.
Noticed slight typo in documentation : Alt-E (not Alt-B) toggles local echo
status.

> - FTP client
> - FTP server
> - Netcat
> - DHCP client (optional; static config is supported too)
> - SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol) client
> - PING

Going to test these too - and their docs :)

> All of these run well on the oldest and slowest PCs you can find as well as
> DOSBox and virtual machines (VMWare, Virtualbox, etc.)

Mike, did you consider adding a (simplified, I'd guess) IPv6 stack ?


--
Ninho

> > And another round of updates!
>
> Thanks, Mike! Very nice! Disclaimer : gave only a first glance!
> >
> > - Telnet client
>
> Clent checked OK of course, on not so old PC.
> Noticed slight typo in documentation : Alt-E (not Alt-B) toggles
> local echo status.

Eeek! I'll fix this. Good documentation is important to me, and I spend a lot of time trying to make it accurate and readable.

<snip>


> Mike, did you consider adding a (simplified, I'd guess) IPv6 stack ?
>
> --
> Ninho


Eventually. I've looked into IPv6 but it is not widely deployed here in the United States, and that makes testing more difficult. When I find *the last bug* in the current code I'll be ready to move to IPv6.


Mike

---
mTCP - TCP/IP apps for vintage DOS machines!
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP

> Eventually. I've looked into IPv6 but it is not widely deployed here in
> the United States, and that makes testing more difficult.

How's that difficult ? You don't need "native" IPv6 provided by an ISP,
as soon as you have albeit one modern Linux, Windows (XP or later), Mac...
and more, they can and will act as an IPv6 router/gateway for your LAN.

Should you start considering the IPv6 stack for DOS, I'd suggest the
following simplifications :
- no IPsec
- do not heed router advertisements, use static configuration.

> When I find *the
> last bug* in the current code I'll be ready to move to IPv6.

Ha! ha, right...! :=)

Cheers

--
Ninho

> > Eventually. I've looked into IPv6 but it is not widely deployed here in
> > the United States, and that makes testing more difficult.
>
> How's that difficult ? You don't need "native" IPv6 provided by an ISP,
> as soon as you have albeit one modern Linux, Windows (XP or later), Mac...
> and more, they can and will act as an IPv6 router/gateway for your LAN.
>
> Should you start considering the IPv6 stack for DOS, I'd suggest the
> following simplifications :
> - no IPsec
> - do not heed router advertisements, use static configuration.


What works with a stack in my house is not what necessarily what works everywhere else. One of the keys to success is good testing. So I would prefer to have native IPv6 and access to a few different environments to test it in before getting serious.

Anybody else who has written a TCP/IP stack recently can debate with me about how difficult or easy the task is. ;-0


Regards,
Mike

---
mTCP - TCP/IP apps for vintage DOS machines!
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP

>> following simplifications :
>> - no IPsec
>> - do not heed router advertisements, use static configuration.

>
> What works with a stack in my house is not what necessarily what works
> everywhere else. One of the keys to success is good testing. So I would
> prefer to have native IPv6 and access to a few different environments to
> test it in before getting serious.

OK. I was thinking aloud along the lines of a quick'n'dirty IPv6 mockup,
not something /serious/.

>
> Anybody else who has written a TCP/IP stack recently can debate with me
> about how difficult or easy the task is. ;-0

Point well taken...

Regards,

--
Ninho

Ninho,

No worries - I have you signed up for testing when the time comes.

I think that in many ways IPv6 will be easier to implement than IPv4. The options are much easier to parse, which was slow an inefficient on IPv4. But I'm really waiting for my ISP to give me native IPv6 connectivity - just simulating it on the home LAN is where I will start, but the key to good code is testing, testing, testing ...



-Mike

---
mTCP - TCP/IP apps for vintage DOS machines!
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP

> Ninho,
> I have you signed up for testing when the time comes.
- Amen!

> I think that in many ways IPv6 will be easier to implement than IPv4. The
> options are much easier to parse, which was slow an inefficient on IPv4.
> But I'm really waiting for my ISP to give me native IPv6 connectivity -
> just simulating it on the home LAN is where I will start, but the key to
> good code is testing, testing, testing ...
- AMEN !

:=)

--
Ninho

Come and get it! http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/

In this version:

- CTCP support in IRCjr (you can do "/me" now!)
- DHCP client enhanced to do multiple retries and give better error messages
- Fixed a parsing error in the FTP server
- Telnet can now work with servers that do not accurately interpret TELNET newlines
- Miscellaneous improvements in all of the applications


Enjoy!
Mike

---
mTCP - TCP/IP apps for vintage DOS machines!
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP