Transfer files to a 386. Easy: USB/RS232 cable, 86box serial passthrough, Norton Commander!

[-]

SavageAcres@reddit

This is how you get shit done! Great work!

[-]

zippy72@reddit

Brings back memories... there was a time when RS232 and Centronics cables and LapLink disks were essentials in my bag

[-]

ragsofx@reddit

Me and a friend used to share files with a rs232 cable until I discovered a parallel cable was way faster. Iirc we could get 25-50kbps which seemed really fast at the time.

We used to also do direct dial connections with our modems which got as fast as 3kbps when we upgraded our modems.

I still get a thrill out of setting up a weird network connection and sending data over it.

[-]

DarthRevanG4@reddit

Does it have SCSI? I feel like BlueSCSI would be easier

[-]

DarthRevanG4@reddit

It’s a legitimate question most computers of that era used SCSI as the main interface. Not sure why that gets a downvote

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

I didn't downvote it. But afaik only Macs of the era predominantly used SCSI, on PC that was way less common - only for workstations or servers, never saw it in a laptop or desktop.

[-]

DarthRevanG4@reddit

That makes sense - I have mostly Macs from this era. I think the oldest PCs I have are my Pentium 120 Packard Bell and Cyrix 6x86, both newer than this and use IDE

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

Norton Commander, but I'm sure laplink would work too

[-]

I did pretty much the same thing back around 2001 - except I used a null modem cable. The victim was a Pentium 1 laptop with a dead CD-ROM drive. No USB, no 44-pin IDE adapter - this was my last resort.

I didn't actually have a null modem cable, just a regular serial one. So I ended up cutting and manually rewiring the damn thing. Wasn't even sure I'd done it right - you should've seen my face when that transfer bar actually started moving!

My girlfriend at the time was watching the whole operation. Let's just say she wasn't exactly confident when she saw me hacking the cable together with electrical tape...

[-]

Temetka@reddit

We need more info on the Gridcase!!

Those things are awesome.

Glad to see Norton Commander still being used. I loved that software.

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

It's actually a lovely 1550sx maxed out (max ram, 387, 160mb HDD). I replaced the backlight (shown in a previous post), replaced the motherboard batteries and that's it.

[-]

pinksystems@reddit

super clean, beautiful vintage setup!

[-]

FozzTexx@reddit

Much easier with a FujiNet RS232. Just plug it in, install the driver, and mount a remote SMB or TNFS server as a mapped network drive and copy files back and forth.

[-]

thetarasque@reddit

Any guides for this?

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

I didn't write a guide because it just worked. Get the USB-RS232 cable (mine is from cablecreations), plug it in (no drivers required, windows 11 just recognized that as a serial port - can check in the device manager), run Norton Commander on the vintage computer and on an emulator, use NC's "link" ability to connect the two.

As an emulator here I'm using 86box, and I already have a dos HDD image with everything I care about installed there. 86box in the settings for ports can make given serial port "passthrough" a physical one, and that's what I did, the emulated COM1 is set to passthrough COM3 (which is how the usb cable shows on my system).

The only snag I hit was that on the gridcase, the first serial port is COM2, not COM1 (that's the internal modem!) - initially that made me think this whole thing was a bust, until I noticed in one of the diagnostic software that COM1 was the modem :)

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

Can't be easier than this tbh... Could be faster though, I could have use a parallel cable instead.

I was tempted by this other thing too, maybe one day https://www.tindie.com/products/theoldnet/rs232-serial-wifi-modem-for-vintage-computers-v4/

[-]

FozzTexx@reddit

Can't be easier than this tbh...

I dunno, being able to move files as if they were local seems a lot easier to me

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

Norton commander's link does exactly that though, it allows you to browse the remote machine as it was local, you can even manipulate the files there, view them etc...

Sure, it is only within NC and not dos in general, and it does require NC on the other end too, but as I said, the upside is that you are connecting dos with dos, and it is handy to have a dos system on the modern machine as lots of things that I need to do to prepare the files for transfer require using dos.

[-]

DeepDayze@reddit

You could boot the host machine with something like FreeDos. map the data drive and send away to the GRiD!

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

No, because you'd need then drivers for the usb->rs232 cable. Also, it would be a lot more complex overall :)

[-]

AyrA_ch@reddit

The easiest solution is FastLynx, because it can run on modern Windows natively

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

Running natively on windows is not a feature for me, it is handy to use an emulator because it allows me to have dos on the modern machine with which I can install, test etc the programs before I transfer them over. Also, emulators can just mount a windows folder transparently, so it's not that you even lose any functionality.

[-]

NaoPb@reddit

I can't find that for sale anywhere. And seems to be still in the prototyping stage.

If you can get me one, please let me know.

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

CableCreation USB to RS232 Adapter with PL2303 Chipset

[-]

ChipChester@reddit

Plus a null modem adapter/cable, I trust...

[-]

c0de517e@reddit (OP)

I think the usb-to-rs232 cable acts as a null modem cable - whatever it is, it just works :)

The 86box is just to be able to use norton commander on the modern computer, as I'm using NC's link. You could use a ton of other solutions too, from dos interlink to laplink etc

[-]

ddrfraser1@reddit

Upvote because Gridcase