TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done!

[Michael B. Brutman]

der Mouse wrote:
>> TCP/IP on an 8088 class machine isn't particularly new and exciting,
> 
> Oh, I don't know; *I* think this is Pretty D*mn Cool!
> 
> Well, okay, TCP on an 8088 may not be exciting.  TCP using your own
> code on an 8088, that rocks!
> 


And thanks again for the testing - I watched some of your sessions in 
real time by looking at the tcpdump output.

I started this project about a year ago by trying to get the packet 
driver for a Xircom PE3 10BT (parallel port Ethernet adapter) to send a 
packet.  That worked pretty well - I had to learn how to mix x86 ASM in 
my C code, but it worked.  Receiving packets was a different story - the 
dang Xircom packet driver was written in a non-friendly way, so 
interfacing to it was not as easy as it should have been.  After two 
days of disassembling code, hacking, and experimenting I finally got 
data in and out.

After that I needed ARP.  Then I went to UDP.  TCP scared me, so I 
procrastinated quite a bit.  I still have a bit of cleanup and testing 
to do, but I'm finally over the hump again and it's back to being fun.

About six months ago I found a good ISA bus adapter for the Jr and I 
tried out that Western Digital card.  Wow ..  compared to the Xircom on 
the parallel port, it's a rocket.  The Xircoms are a good solution for 
limited machines, but I definitely need to reproduce the adapter card.

At some point when it is a little more polished and tested I'll put a 
web page up and release it to the universe.  There are a handful of 
TCP/IP stacks out there already, but I think mine is going to be the 
fastest by a pretty wide margin.

Part of the joy of coding is seeing others make use of the code.  I'd 
like to see some new/refreshed TCP/IP apps for older machines.  I was 
intending to do a telnet BBS, but that's going to take a lot more effort 
and the audience for that is fairly limited.


Mike