A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

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keenmaster486
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A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

Post by keenmaster486 »

I return to the forum to announce a discovery I have made.

You can play NetKeen on real DOS hardware over WiFi.

Your WiFi card just acts like an Ethernet packet transport mechanism from the perspective of your software. It doesn't care what medium the packets are transferred over.

The WiFi link is also protocol-agnostic. You can run any protocol over it. This I did not realize until I tried it.

Furthermore, you can run multiple protocols over the same local LAN.

I have a DOS laptop with an Orinoco WiFi card, connected to my home WiFi network, which all other connected devices are using for regular TCP/IP. With no changes made to the router, and everything else still using TCP/IP, I can load up the IPX protocol on that laptop, load up the IPX protocol on another machine connected to the router directly with Ethernet, and play NetKeen and other IPX DOS games all day long.

I may post a picture later if I get the chance.
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Nisaba
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Re: A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

Post by Nisaba »

:O
this actually is mind-blowing news!
who would have thought... awesome discovery!

thanks for sharing
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Re: A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

Post by Soul Monster »

Great find Keenmaster! It's great that people like you are still finding out about all these insane capabilities of DOS!
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Re: A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

Post by Benvolio »

Pls post video. In my noobness I fail to understand, is this only for modern computers running dos or can this actually be made to work with vintage kit (e.g. 1990s).

All I really want from life is just once more to browse Keen, Star Wars and Pokemon websites using Netscape Navigator.
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Re: A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

Post by proYorp »

I'm most intrigued by the fact that you have a WiFi card in a DOS laptop in the first place. DOS is older than Wifi, isn't it? Was the card added on later? And DOS can interface with it just fine?
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Re: A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

Post by namida »

proYorp wrote: Thu Mar 17, 2022 8:14 I'm most intrigued by the fact that you have a WiFi card in a DOS laptop in the first place. DOS is older than Wifi, isn't it? Was the card added on later? And DOS can interface with it just fine?
If I'm not mistaken, DOS can use third-party networking drivers. You'd also need a third-party app to handle connecting to the wifi. Once you've got that out of the way though, it's just like any other network.

On the hardware side of things, PCI (not PCIe) wifi cards were a thing, as were PCs with PCI slots that were nonetheless old enough to run DOS (late 486s in particular).
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Re: A tech tip for Keen Day 2022

Post by Quillax »

Wow, DOS is capable of Wi-Fi!? :O That's incredible! Now we can play NetKeen with people around the world while using authentic hardware! I'd love to see a picture!
Benvolio wrote: Tue Mar 15, 2022 10:00 All I really want from life is just once more to browse Keen, Star Wars and Pokemon websites using Netscape Navigator.
Would this interest you? It comes with a Netscape simulator.

https://theoldnet.com/

(I can't believe it's been over a month since someone posted in the Misc section.)
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