etherdfs-client and MS-DOS 6.22 on PC 486SX!

[AmintaMister]

Hi!

I've downloaded the official Dos Tools for networking on AO486 core here https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_M ... s_ftpd.zip.

In AO486 I've installed MS-DOS 6.22 on a VHD partition, I've launched PPPDD.EXE and I've got correctly a 192.168.1.254 ip on my local ethernet network.

Because I have a Retronas (https://github.com/danmons/retronas) instance active on a Raspberry PI4 I've successfully installed an EtherFDS server (https://github.com/danmons/retronas/wiki/EtherDFS), associated to the "dos" mount point a fat32 image and then, on MS-DOS 6.22 on AO486, I've successfully launched the client EtherFDS that "finds" my Raspberry and maps the "dos" drive to the letter X:

Problem is that, when I type "X:" and "dir" I get a "file not found" error even if in the "dos" partition there are files...

Any suggestion?

[AmintaMister]

no one?

[mdkoehn]

I'm not familiar with this particular software, but I'd guess from the programmer's description of EtherDFS that it won't work on anything other than real hardware with a real Ethernet card connected directly to a real, wired, Ethernet network.

Per the EtherDFS Read Me, EtherDFS works directly with Ethernet packets and doesn't use any higher level protocol.

AO486 doesn't emulate a network card. Instead, it uses PPP to transport higher-level protocols (IP, IPX, etc.) via an emulated serial link. Then, the MiSTer hard processor system at the other end of the PPP link places that traffic on the attached Ethernet or WiFi network.

So, from the EtherDFS client's perspective on AO486, there's no Ethernet card with which to interface. You'll need to use a different protocol. FTP would be the usual way to send files, but for a drive mount, your best option is going to be either SMB (LanMan/SAMBA) or IPX/SPX (Netware). I'm not sure if either of these play well with PPP.

Again, I'm not an expert, and I'd love to be proved wrong, but that's how I see it.

[AmintaMister]

Thanks!

I hope one day Ethernet card will be implemented in ao486... Is that difficult?

[Bas]

Maybe not particularly difficult, but the core is running out of space as it is.