DOS Networking
 

I have a friend who is using a DOS program I wrote for him years ago. We are running out of hardware and would like to move from Lantastic to Win98se or WFW 3.11 running in DOS mode. This gives us access to additional hardware, especially network cards.

I am have trouble gathering all the information about the parts of DOS I need to start the network under Win98SE. The network is pretty simple. One server and two workstations. The program is written in Clipper.

Thanks for all help and advice.

Bill Mahaffey

HI Bill,

I know what you mean about running out of hardware to run an old network -- ISA card slots, NE-2000 network cards, and 10BASE-T networks are a rare sight these days.

I have moved a number of clients running multi-user DOS applications programs successfully to Windows XP. There aren't too many situations where you cannot make a DOS program run successfully in a DOS (aka CMD) Window. Many DOS programs will still run in a CMD Windows under Windows 7 32-bit. In fact, the applications I have dealt with are far more stable under Windows XP than they were under DOS.

Depending on the requirements of your Clipper application, you may still have to contend with specific printers connected to an LPTn: port, or needing PS/2 connectors on your keyboard and mouse. There are workarounds for most of these issues without needing to touch the application.

Do yourself and your friend a favor and step up to Windows XP. You can buy a refurbished HP P4 3Ghz 1GB Ram, 80GB drive, SFF case, parallel port, PS/2 connectors, USB ports, network card, and Windows XP Professional installed for $100 to $200.

Hope this helps.

Malcolm

Malcom,

Please help me out here, printers. We are using dot matrix printers and I use some DOS commands to change fonts and page sizes. Can I make XP send the same commands to the printers as the Clipper program? If so, where do I find
the information?

If I could use XP if would be great. I have enough legal copies of XP and the expertise to install and maintain them.

Thanks,

Bill

Bill,

By the sounds of it, your Clipper program isn't controlling your printer setup. I make the assumption that you are using either the Print or Copy command in DOS to send a file with some ESCape sequences prior to running the application. You can do the same from a CMD prompt or batch file in XP. For example:

copy filewithprintercommands /b LPT1:
YOURPROG.EXE (start application)

In fact you don't even have to be tied to a parallel port. Your application still needs to talk to your dot-matrix printer (e.g. Okidata 320) but if your computer doesn't have a parallel port adapter, it is possible to work around this. Read an article I wrote for further details:

Windows 7 In the News: Connecting Parallel Port Printers via USB to your new Laptop or Desktop

Hope this helps.
Malcolm