How do I write a DOS network driver?

NTDEV
1

This is probably a very stupid question…

but how do I write a DOS network driver?

I know how to write an NDIS driver for
NT and W2k, but how do I port it to DOS?

Is there a DOS DDK? How do I allocate memory?
Register interrupts? Compile? Link? Where
do I get header files? Does DOS support 32-bit
drivers? I am clueless on all of these issues.

Thanks

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2

First question is why. Second question is what kind of hardware. Is it a
current motherboard with tons
of memory or is it barely beyond 640k, the amount that Bill Gates judged
the maximum ever needed.

A good start is to go to a used book store and try to get your hands into
The MS-DOS Encyclopedia
ISBN 1-55615-049-0.

George Blat
mailto:xxxxx@ntrealtime.com

At 04:15 PM 3/27/01 -0800, you wrote:

This is probably a very stupid question…

but how do I write a DOS network driver?

I know how to write an NDIS driver for
NT and W2k, but how do I port it to DOS?

Is there a DOS DDK? How do I allocate memory?
Register interrupts? Compile? Link? Where
do I get header files? Does DOS support 32-bit
drivers? I am clueless on all of these issues.

Thanks

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3

> Is it a current motherboard with tons

of memory or is it barely beyond 640k, the amount that Bill Gates judged
the maximum ever needed.

I don’t think you can blame Microsoft or Bill for this. You might blame
Intel (for designing the 808x processor) or IBM (for choosing the 808x
processor over the Motorola processor). My understanding is IBM choose the
Intel part because it was going to save $10 or so per system. There might
have been questions about Motorola’s ability to deliver sufficient volume
of 68K processors too.

Back in 1985, 640 KBytes of memory cost real money. As I remember, it took
a full size AT form factor card to even hold 256 kbytes of memory chips,
and it sucked a significant amount of power. It was a plus to use 16-bit
code, as it’s density was higher than 32-bit code. Actually, I would have
voted for some sort of virtual machine, as it’s density was a LOT higher
than 16-bit native code. I seemed to remember writing application code that
ran on virtual machines back then with very sufficient performance (UCSD
Pascal).

I see Fry’s is selling 512 Mbyte SDRAM for $179 today, so who should we
blame because most current PC’s can ONLY address 4 GBytes. Buying 4 GBytes
today may be cheaper than buying 640 KBytes in 1985.

I’d actually blame the adoption of silly programming languages, like C, as
the most evil thing. Many languages have no concept of a “memory address”
so have no problem with evolving hardware architectures. For example, I
believe there are Java virtual machine implementations that execute the
same binary code on 8051 microcontrollers through 64-bit processors. Having
to “reboot” our software base every 5-10 years seems pretty unacceptable.
We don’t build new roads every 10 years, which all our current cars can’t
drive on.

Microsoft’s .NET architecture seems like the latest incarnation of
rebooting. Is everybody aware that COM components are about to be classed
as “that old legacy code”.

  • Jan

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