ethflop - a network-backed floppy emulator for DOS

[mateuszviste]

I feel like I should actually write something in plain C with ncurses so that the interface's requirements don't exceed that of ethflopd, which I imagine can run on some pretty old Linux distributions?

Personally I'd target PHP so the interface is web-based, hence does not depend on ncurses, GUI or anything else. +it could be accessed from a smartphone, might be useful if the server is a headless raspberry pi in the attic, while the user is sitting in front of his 386 PC in the living room downstairs.

Also, just curious, what's your goal for declaring ethflop to be version 1.0?

There is no goal. I started with v0.5 because it seemed an ambitious project at the time, but ultimately v0.6 was perfectly good already. That being said, I have a new version of the ethflop TSR in the oven, should be out within a couple of days. Changes are related to stack management - the TSR's resident size can be decreased to 1.4K with most packet drivers. Not sure if I will keep the x.x.x versioning yet. Maybe I will switch to the date-based YYYYMMDD scheme, just like ethflopd.

 

[mateuszviste]

new version of the ETHFLOP TSR (DOS client) released today.

ver 20240920
 - checking that B: is not a phantom drive before hooking it
 - ethflop signals the TSR's drive letter to the server (nicer messages)
 - transient code checks the health of TSR's stack (stack overflow detection)
 - configurable stack size ($1-$9), can lower TSR footprint to 1.4K, see doc
 - maximum stack usage during TSR lifetime can be consulted via "ETHFLOP !"
 - when displaying messages, ethflop terminates them with proper CR/LF
 - env seg in PSP is zeroed before going TSR (just in case, suggested by ECM)
 - TSR closes all its handles to avoid potential SFT leaks (thx ECM)
 - improved validation of answer frames (ECM)
 - versioning scheme changed from x.x.x to YYYYMMDD