DOS Networking Software


mTCP TCP/IP Applications

I have been working on writing my own TCP/IP stack from scratch for the last four years. In the last year and a half it has progressed to the point where I could concentrate on writing applications. The first applications were a simple version of Netcat and an IRC client (IRCjr). Today there is also a DHCP client, Ping, FTP, and a beta version of Telnet.

Requirements are very modest - everything will run in a 256KB machine with DOS 2.0 or better. Even less that perfectly compatible machines like the PCjr should have no problems running these applications. I took great care to keep the memory usage low and to squeeze the most performance that I could out of the machine.

The mTCP home page is http://www.brutman.com/mTCP. You can read up on the details, see screen shots of the applications and download the code there.

NCSA Telnet

NCSA is a great Telnet program for DOS. Features include:  Stated requirements are DOS 2.0 and a 286 or better CPU, although it runs fine on 8088 class machines.

NCSA Telnet has it's own TCP/IP software built in to the application, so a separate TCP/IP stack such as Trumpet is not necessary. NCSA Telnet can use a packet driver, or it can talk directly to several different Ethernet cards without the need for a packet driver. (They switched to a packet driver interface when the variety of Ethernet cards mushroomed.) And one of the great things about NCSA Telnet is that the source code is readily available for download - with the correct build environment, you can modify it!

The NCSA Telnet home page is gone, but the files can still be downloaded using ftp at ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Telnet/DOS/ .

Trumpet for DOS

Trumpet is a DOS TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) that adds TCP/IP functions to your system. On one side it talks to a packet driver to move data in and out of your Ethernet card, while on the other side it provides TCP/IP functions to your application. Applications wishing to use Trumpet communicate with it using a software interrupt, in much the same way that Trumpet or other TCP/IP stacks talk to a packet driver.

Trumpet came with some sample applications including an FTP client, IRC client, and a finger client. Other applications were written to use it too. Trumpet published the programming interface to their TCP/IP stack, but the source code is not available. So you can use it, but you'll have to live with any bugs and limitations.

Unfortunately the web pages for Trumpet are gone now. Search for tcp201.zip to find an archive of it on the Internet.

WATTCP

WATTCP is a TCP library that is linked with specific applications.  There is a 16 bit real mode version for use on the older machines, and a 32 bit protected mode version.  The 32 bit versions compile under a variety of C compilers.

WATTCP is one of the oldest DOS TCP/IP implementations, and one of the most widely used.  I don't have a lot of experience with WATTCP (yet) because I got sidetracked with writing my own TCP/IP.  I had a fairly long email conversation with Erick Engelke about my TCP/IP implemention and the lessons he learned, and it was suprising how much of his work I duplicated. :-)

WATTCP can be found at its new home:

http://www.erickengelke.com/wattcp

Created August 13th 2007 last updated December 1st, 2009
(C)opyright Michael B. Brutman, mbbrutman@yahoo.com