• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

XT-clone data exchange

I'm not sure if this is really something you'd want to try, but Weirdstuff is selling deadstock parallel port 3.5" IDE cases for 4.95 right now. They use the old Onspec controller chip which I'm pretty sure is compatible with XT-class machines and will gladly descend to nibble-style I/O. Indeed, the driver setup program has support for CGA and Hercules. This would be slow, but *should* give your machine an easy way to store literally gigabytes worth of data on reliablish spinning platters or a Compact Flash card . Data that can be easily used (quickly, 250 kilobytes a second) by any newer PC running DOS, OS/2, Windows 95/98 or NT.

I plan to do this. I've gotten the case, but the power supply board has a faulty trace. It springs to life when I poke on a big input-side safety cap with a chopstick. I can say I have an old Adaptec CD-ROM case with the same Onspec controller chip. Works fine under Windows 95, though I've not tried it on an XT-class machine.
 
lutiana said:
Can you do this with Interlnk?
Click to expand...
Absolutely!

It's only one-to-one, using a parallel cable may prevent sharing printers, the server has to be dedicated (although I suspect that it might be possible to run it in a virtual machine), and it can be a little slower than a 'real' ethernet network.

On the other hand, serial and/or parallel ports are still fairly ubiquitous so you won't need a network card or adapter, installing Interlink is a snap, and if you don't have compatible disk drives or some other common media it may in fact be the only way to get data from one system to the other in the first place.

Suppose you have a single-floppy-only PC and an old laptop, possibly with a broken screen and/or keyboard but with a good hard drive with, say, 3 partitions: C, D and E. Put Intersvr on the laptop and configure it to autostart (and exclude the floppy, if any), make a boot disk for the PC with Interlnk in the config.sys, and connect the two with a parallel or floppy cable.

Boot the PC and presto, you've got drives C, D and E just as if they were on a hard disk in the PC itself; copy files back and forth, load and run programs from the remote system, etc., everything except low-level stuff like formatting the remote hard disk, etc.

Of course the server could be on your desktop or any spare box, but broken old laptops do make fine external hard disks (headless file servers).
 
Last edited:
Indeed, Interlnk is very good. And yes, you can run executables off the networked drives. I'm always surprised when people chose larger and more cumbersome solutions. This is DOS after all. Things are supposed to be small, fast, and easy - though some people might disagree with that. :)

Anyway, just for the record, I did a little speed test now. Using xcopy, I transferred 31,244,288 bytes (in 605 user files) from one computer to another and it took 5 minutes and 58 seconds. That's a transfer rate of 85.2 Kb/sec which is very practical in a DOS environment. Choice of utilities (I normally use cp) and HDD characteristics may change the speed slightly but the average DOS file will still transfer in a fraction of a second.
 
Ole Juul said:
Indeed, Interlnk is very good. And yes, you can run executables off the networked drives. I'm always surprised when people chose larger and more cumbersome solutions. This is DOS after all. Things are supposed to be small, fast, and easy - though some people might disagree with that. :)

Anyway, just for the record, I did a little speed test now. Using xcopy, I transferred 31,244,288 bytes (in 605 user files) from one computer to another and it took 5 minutes and 58 seconds. That's a transfer rate of 85.2 Kb/sec which is very practical in a DOS environment. Choice of utilities (I normally use cp) and HDD characteristics may change the speed slightly but the average DOS file will still transfer in a fraction of a second.
Click to expand...
A "Duh!" moment: Of course Interlnk lets the client print on the server's printer (if the port is available and not used by Interlink itself).

I did a speed test as well and came up with about the same speed, 88.2KByte/sec; at 10bits/byte that's equivalent to about 880,000baud, compared to the maximum serial speed of 115,200bd (11,200Kbyte/sec. actual in my test)

Considering it's free with later versions of DOS, works with all versions back to 3 and can remote-install, I've always thought it was underrated, especially in this community. I'm sure there are free dual-pane file manager shells out there that could make it look & feel like NC or Laplink if that's what you want.

O.J.?
 
MikeS said:
A "Duh!" moment: Of course Interlnk lets the client print on the server's printer (if the port is available and not used by Interlink itself).
Click to expand...

The default is to redirect all printers, but there is a /NOPRINTER switch.

I did a speed test as well and came up with about the same speed, 88.2KByte/sec; at 10bits/byte that's equivalent to about 880,000baud, compared to the maximum serial speed of 115,200bd (11,200Kbyte/sec. actual in my test)
Click to expand...

Not too shabby.

Considering it's free with later versions of DOS, works with all versions back to 3 and can remote-install, I've always thought it was underrated, especially in this community. I'm sure there are free dual-pane file manager shells out there that could make it look & feel like NC or Laplink if that's what you want.
Click to expand...

What's particularly important to me is the the size. I like to be able to fit all OS, utility, and user files on a 360K diskette, even when I have more space available. I consider it gross to use bigger programs in DOS. Then I might as well throw in the towel and use BSD as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, to me the dual pane thing is a "pain", and would rather avoid anything other than the command line for copying, moving, and running files. That's another thing about Interlnk, it doesn't actually have _any_ interface other than DOS itself. It is completely transparent since all it really does is mount the server computer's file system on the client's.

O.J.?
Click to expand...

without the Simpson :)
 
Eariler in the thread somebody stated that an XT class machine cannot go beyond NC3. Maybe it's because my machine is equipped in NEC V20 chip, but I was able to run NC4 and get parallel connection going! :D

About Interlnk stuff - to each his own ;) The first machine I ever owned was a 286-class clone. Since then I have always run NC and I'm so used to it, that missing NC is like a missing hand :p
 
Arabski said:
Eariler in the thread somebody stated that an XT class machine cannot go beyond NC3. Maybe it's because my machine is equipped in NEC V20 chip, but I was able to run NC4 and get parallel connection going! :D
Click to expand...

That was me. I never tested 4 actually, only 5, 5.5 and 5.51. Thanks for the correction, I'll throw 4 on my 5160 (which does have a V20 in it). Let us know what kinds of speed you get over the parallel cable.

Arabski said:
About Interlnk stuff - to each his own The first machine I ever owned was a 286-class clone. Since then I have always run NC and I'm so used to it, that missing NC is like a missing hand
Click to expand...

I completely agree.
 
MikeS said:
Anyway, I thought it'd be worth while to extol its virtues since I think even you (Lutiana) were unaware of some of its features.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this thread has been a learning experience. I intend to play with Interlnk at some point just to check it out, it does sound quite a bit more powerful than I ever gave it credit for. Another tool for the tool box I think too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top