Category : Network Files
Archive   : PKTD11.ZIP
Filename : CHANGES.DOC

 
Output of file : CHANGES.DOC contained in archive : PKTD11.ZIP
Summary of changes in the 11.x release:

New drivers: Aquila, Kodiak, Eagle NE2100 (&NE1500), Exos 205T
Thomas-Conrad TC5045, Parallel port to Parallel port,
Ottawa PI, Vaxmate, Racal-Datacomm es3210, 3Com
EtherLink III, SMC (formerly Western Digital)/IBM
Ethernet/A, Zenith Z-Note, Cabletron DNI Exxxx and Mylex.
New utility: pktwatch.
New switches added (-p to disable promiscuous mode, -u to
uninstall, -i to select class 11 if available).
Intel Netware driver (PDIPX) is now included.
Parameters changed: 3c503, 3c505, 3c507, winpkt

Versions:

If you already have an older packet driver, you may wish to upgrade.
You should base this decision on the contents of the "Changes..."
section below. The major version (currently 11) goes up with every
release. The minor version (.x, different for every driver) goes up
with every significant change in the device dependent part. Some
drivers (at&t, 3c507, 3c523, exos205t, ncret105, ubnicps2, ni5210,
and ni9210) depend on 82586.asm, so they have a subminor version
number which is the version of 82586.asm. Some drivers (ctrondni,
ethiie, es3210, hppclan, hppclanp, ne1000, ne2000, 3c503, and smc_wd)
depend on 8390.asm, so they have a subminor version number which is
the version of 8390.asm. If the minor version hasn't changed, then
chances are very good that no significant bugs have been introduced.
Sometimes the file is changed without changing the version number.
This is done only when an identical change is made to all drivers to
fix a bug that appears in every driver.

3c501.asm version equ 2
3c503.asm version equ 6
3c505.asm version equ 1
3c507.asm version equ 1
3c509.asm version equ 0
3c523.asm version equ 1
82586.asm i82586_version equ 3
8390.asm dp8390_version equ 3
aquila.asm version equ 0
ar450.asm version equ 0
arcether.asm version equ 1
arcnet.asm version equ 0
at&t.asm version equ 1
at&t_lp.asm version equ 1
at1500.asm version equ 1
at1700.asm version equ 1
ctrondni.asm version equ 1
davidsys.asm version equ 5
de600.asm version equ 1
delay.asm version equ 0
depca.asm version equ 3
dk86960.asm version equ 4
dk86965.asm version equ 1
en301.asm version equ 2
es3210.asm version equ 0
ethiie.asm version equ 0
exos205.asm version equ 1
exp16.asm version equ 5
express.asm version equ 4
hppclan.asm version equ 1
hppclanp.asm version equ 2
ibmtoken.asm version equ 16h
intel.asm version equ 0
ipxpkt.asm version equ 3
irqtest.asm version equ 0
irqtest1.asm version equ 0
isolan.asm version equ 2
isolink.asm version equ 3
kodiak16.asm version equ 0
kodiak8.asm version equ 0
kodiakk.asm version equ 2
lance.asm lance_version equ 1
localtlk.asm version equ 3
multitst.asm version equ 1
mylex.asm version equ 0
nb.asm version equ 4
ncret105.asm version equ 0
ne1000.asm version equ 5
ne2.asm version equ 5
ne2000.asm version equ 4
ne2100.asm version equ 1
ni5010.asm version equ 2
ni5210.asm version equ 2
ni6510.asm version equ 1
ni9210.asm version equ 0
nti16.asm version equ 0
pi.asm version equ 2
pktaddr.asm version equ 1
pktall.asm version equ 0
pktchk.asm version equ 1
pktmode.asm version equ 2
pktmulti.asm version equ 1
pktsend.asm version equ 1
pktstat.asm version equ 1
pkttraf.asm version equ 0
pktwatch.asm version equ 0
plip.asm version equ 0
skeleton.asm version equ 0
slipmerg.asm version equ 7
smc_wd.asm version equ 7
t7231.asm t7231_version equ 1
tcenet.asm version equ 0
termin.asm version equ 1
tiara.asm version equ 4
trace.asm version equ 1
ubnicpc.asm version equ 1
ubnicps2.asm version equ 1
vaxmate.asm version equ 0
wd8003e.asm version equ 0
znote.asm version equ 5

Back issues:

Back issues of the packet drivers are available from Crynwr Software.
See SUPPORT.DOC.


Changes from version 10.x to 11.x of the drivers:

Every driver now reads its ROM Ethernet address once, in the
initialization code. After all, the ROM isn't likely (or
supposed to) change, now is it?
Every driver now has a pool of memory it can allocate memory out of
(if it needs to). This has made the driver's file size more
closely resemble its size in memory.
The skeleton now detects the processor type, and provides is_186,
is_286, and is_386 variables.
The skeleton now detects the bus type, and provides an is_eisa variable.
Per request by the UK people, we match on IEEE 802.3 classes, then
types. For all others, we match on type, then class. This
lets their software work without breaking BLUEBOOK type
length=0 clients.
The 8390 and 82586 drivers used to crash if they received traffic
during initialization. No more.
Drivers have the opportunity to hook into the timer IRQ chain if desired.
Every driver now says where it used to say .
Every driver now returns an error message from it's etopen routine
instead of printing the message.
The packet driver specification allows changing the segment registers, so
the utility programs (pkt*) now preserve them.
The send wait loop in 8390.asm changed to execute with interrupts
enabled, giving lower packet loss and higher throughput.
Any 8390 transmit errors are reported as CANT_SEND on the next send
attempt and that send is then ignored.
Kai Getrost wrote a Cabletron DNI Exxxx driver.
??? <> discovered that the 8390 drivers were scarfing keystrokes
on some machines because they were doing a "in ax,61h"
instead of the proper "in al,61h".
Hans-Juergen Knobloch found and
fixed a bug in pkttraf's traffic counting algorithm.
Russell wrote a 3Com 3c509 packet driver.
Russell wrote a Zenith Data Systems Z-Note packet driver.
The Western Digital packet driver now works on the SMC and IBM Microchannel
adapters. The driver is now called smc_wd to reflect SMC's purchase
of Western Digital's Ethernet card division.
SMC_WD now uses movemem. Gives you 10% better performance.
Pktaddr now has an option, -c, to compare the board's Ethernet address against
that given on the command line. For use by batch files, it
returns a nonzero error code if the addresses don't match.
Pktall has three new options:
-v dumps the received packet in hex.
-p puts the driver into promiscuous mode.
-a filters out all but the given Ethernet address.
Pktsend now has an option, -d , that inserts a delay between
packet sends. Pktsend has also been internally restructured
to make it work properly with a delay.
Trace had its own private copy of the library routines.
Russell wrote a very simple packet watch program.
Many drivers would happily send oversize packets.
IPXPKT was changed considerably because of the memory allocation routines.
The 3c501 and ni5010's I/O routines were moved to io8.asm.
The ni5010's receive mode setting code was cleaned up.
The 3c505 didn't use its mem_base parameter so it has been removed.
The 3c507 now operates with a 16K, 32K, 48K, or 64K memory window size.
The 3c507 had two parameters removed (int_no and base_addr) because
it asked the board for them anyway.
The 3c507 now works even if another 3c507 is present in the system.
slip8250 would use the (broken) fifos on a 16550, even though it
should only use the fifos on a 16550AF.
Julian Byrne found that the tiara and en301 drivers didn't clean out
their FIFO's properly, and suggested that it clear the
underrun status.
Peter Karrer and Erik Olson
independently merged the
ethersl source with slip8250, so Ethersl should be more reliable.
Phil Burns added hardware handshaking back to slip8250.
The 82586-based drivers (see Versions) now report the amount of
memory they find.
The skeleton now checks the time on the executable program to see if
it is 05:06:08 AM. If it is not, then a message is printed
saying that it has not been released by Crynwr Software.
More of Glenn Talbott's 8390 reliability changes have been
incorporated.
Peter Tattum found that winpkt
was gratuitiously incrementing the packet size, so that the longest
packets could not be received. He also submitted changes to run
winpkt on the same software interrupt as the existing packet driver.
Russell fixed the D-link de600's -n switch support.
Dana fixed a bug in the Kodiak driver.
Russell made the Aquila packet driver work.
Mike submitted a NE2100 packet driver.
Russell fixed the depca packet driver's
promiscuous mode.
Russell wrote a parallel port packet driver.
When used with a "LapLink Turbo" (parallel) cable or clone,
it appears to be a 2-node Ethernet network.
The IBMTOKEN packet driver displays a message while it's waiting to
initialize. In addition, the code was cleaned up.
ISOLINK driver completely discarded and reimplemented using ni6510 code.
Russell wonders if anybody ever reads this stuff. If
you see this, please send him some mail.
ISOLINK and NI6510 now work with -d switch.
The ARCETHER packet driver now works over Accton's LANSoft network OS.
The DEPCA packet driver formerly required 64K mode. It now works in
64K, 32K, or 2K modes.
Joe Rosenfeld found that the David Systems
driver didn't advertise itself as an IEEE8023 packet driver.
FTP Software found and fixed a bug in the LANCE-based
packet drivers (ni6510, ne2100, and DEPCA) that caused
packets to be four bytes too long.
Russell wrote a Thomas-Conrad TC5045
packet driver.
Dirk Koeppen wrote an EXOS 205T packet driver.
Russell fixed the 3c503 I/O mapped code so that it works
with memory disabled.
Russell added code to the 3c503 to automagically select
the correct interface.
Dave Perry VE3IFB submitted an AX.25 packet
driver for the Ottawa PI board.
Russell fixed the following bugs in the Intel
EtherExpress 16 packet driver (exp16): It rounded the
transmitted packet length up to even word lengths. It had
the wrong driver type (was 255, is now 91). Didn't report
all error messages as it should. When send_pkt was called
from the upcall, the driver went deaf. On new boards with
10Base-T transceivers (identified by horizontal LED's), it
didn't enable the twisted pair port. Error messages used
Exp16's project name instead of EtherExpress.
Russell wrote the hppclanp driver, which works on
the new hp27247B and hp27252A.
Markku Toijala submitted changes to ibmtoken to
make it co-exist with Microsoft LAN Manager, but the method
probably works also with IBM LAN SW and Novell Netware.
The ICL EtherTeam16 was writing one too many bytes when it received
an odd-length packet.


Changes from version 9.x to 10.x of the drivers:

Markku Toijala submitted a packet driver for
the ICL EtherTeam16 (formerly Nokia Data).
Markku Toijala submitted some fixes for
IBMTOKEN to make it cooperate with software sharing the TR adapter.
The IBMTOKEN driver has the debug flag turned off.
Chris Elmquist submitted a Multitech EN301 driver.
Martin Wilmes submitted modifications to the ARCNET
driver to make it a simulated Ethernet driver, calling it ARCETHER.
Michael Martineau submitted modifications
to the SLIP8250 driver to make it a simulated Ethernet
driver, calling it ETHERSL.
Russell Nelson wrote an Intel
EtherExpress driver.
Mark K. Darby wrote a driver for the new AT&T
adapters that use the AT&T T7231 Ethernet controller.
Roger James wrote winpkt, which forces upcalls into
the correct virtual machine.
Marc Dye wrote a driver under contract to David Systems Inc (DSI).
Jeff Douglass submitted a driver for the
David Systems cards.
Michael Martineau changed the nb driver
from class 6 to class 1 by faking ARP. It's now very useful
with Lantastic. See NB.NOT.
Jim Noble submitted modifications to align
the LocalTalk packet driver with MacIP standards for IP over
LocalTalk; it also contains a few bug fixes including one
that caused the packet driver to report the wrong packet
address on the second receiver upcall.
The 82586 drivers no longer do a TDR test. It isn't reliable and just
confuses people when it fails.
The 82586 drivers now test for a reasonable memory address. This will catch
people who enter an absolute address such as 0xd0000 instead of a
segment address such as 0xd000.
The DEPCA driver now works on the Rev. E DEPCAs, the DE-100, and the DE-200.
The DEPCA driver no longer reports that it implements promiscuous mode.
Promiscuous mode didn't work and needs to be fixed.
driver_info() always returned the first driver_class (BLUEBOOK) as
the class of the driver. It now returns the driver class
of the handle that driver_info was called with.
set_multicast_list() didn't pass the right number of values to the
driver-specific code.
pktmulti added one junk multicast address for every real multicast address
it added.
Glen Talbott submitted some improvements to the 8390.asm and
head.asm to make it more reliable on fast machines.
Glen Talbott noticed that the interrupt handler was being re-entered
due to a rare hardware problem, and added a semaphore to avoid
the re-entrancy.
Glen Talbott improved the hppclan driver to support the HP 27247A.
Ismo Salonen suggested increasing the ARCNET timeout.
Alan Barrett improved the IPXPKT driver.
Gary Spanswick at BICC improved the isolan driver by adding
timeouts to its otherwise-infinite loops.
Gary Spanswick at BICC fixed the "isolink" driver. The name "isolink"
is actually the name of a network OS, but we'll keep using it
anyway.
Joe Doupnik fixed slip8250 by doing transmit in a busy-wait
loop.
termin.com now uses a two-byte type code to keep dis_pkt happy.
The tiara driver had its parameters backwards from its usage message
and from the convention set by other drivers.

Changes from version 8.x to 9.x of the drivers:

Some 8.x drivers complained about int_no needing to be greater than 2.
Using the -n switch caused the driver to go deaf.
The set_address() routine was broken.
The set_rcv_mode() routine no longer returns an error if the requested
mode is the same as the current mode.
Some NE1000 manufacturers use invalid manufacturer codes in their
Ethernet addresses. They are invalid because the multicast bit is
set. The driver will reset the bit and whine at you about it.
The wd8003e usage message didn't include the -o switch. The error
message for non-responding memory mentioned IO addresses wrongly.
Brian Fisher sent in code for the tiara driver to read the POS registers.
Pktaddr, pktmode, and pktstat used to use a completely bogus packet type
of length 8. That confused Joe Doupnik's dis_pkt (packet driver over
NDIS driver) converter. I changed it to use a bogus type of
length 2.
Mark Power found a few bugs in the ibmtoken
driver.


Summary of changes in the 8.x release:

New drivers: HP Ethertwist, 3Com EtherLink Plus, UB NIC/PS2,
ARLAN 450, NCR ET-105, D-Link DE-600, Mitel Express,
NE/2, DEPCA, BICC Isolink (4110-2/3) (buggy).
Bugs fixed: pktchk, 3c523, ibmtoken, tiara, ne2000, ubnicpc.
All class 1 drivers can also act as class 11 drivers.

Changes from version 7.x to 8.x of the drivers:

Russell Nelson wrote an HP Ethertwist driver. This covers the HP27245
HP27250 HP27247 but not the HP27246 (MCA). We could not get
the latter driver working by release time.
Russell Nelson wrote a 3Com EtherLink Plus (3c507), UB NIC/PS2 driver,
ARLAN 450 driver, and NCR ET-105 driver.
Glenn Talbott suggested that the hardware be
terminated after the interrupt was masked off, to avoid
spurious interrupts during the termination process.
D-Link donated a DE-600 driver.
Dave Price wrote a Mitel Express (ISDN) packet driver.
Eric Henderson wrote a NE/2 packet driver.
Sylvan Butler fixed two bugs in ubnicpc.
The handle check on get_address isn't necessary, and so was removed. The 1.09
spec says that it's required, but that will be removed in the 1.10
spec, as I'm told.
Doug Smith wrote a DEPCA packet driver, and Russell Nelson finished it
off.
Russell Nelson and Tobias Reber fixed the 3c523 driver (yay!).
Renamed ubnic to ubnicpc to make it clearer which adapter it's for.
Reinhard Strebler added code to wd8003e to read the POS registers prior
to parsing the arguments.
John A. Murphy fixed a problem in the 8390 driver whereby it could
lose the interrupt on an incoming packet.
Gregory T Small found a bug in the packet interrupt verification (tail.asm).
Bill Rust rewrote the 8259a interrupt acknowledgement
code to use specific EOIs, which gets around the C&T bug (see
8259.not).
There is a new helper file called printnum.asm, that prints a label,
then a dword number in hex, then in decimal.
There is a new helper file called verifypi.asm, that verifies that a
packet driver exists at the given interrupt.
A few messages were reworded for more clarity.
The machine type (ISA versus MCA) is now determined before the call to
parse_args. This is so that MCA drivers can read the POS
registers to supply defaults.
The set_rcv_mode function will only change the receive mode if only one
handle is open. This prevents Novell and KA9Q users from running a
netwatcher, which confuses both of them.
All drivers for boards using the 82586 (see Versions above) have had
code added to compensate for some bugs in the 82586.
Reinhard Strebler found a serious bug in the 82586 where it didn't
wait for the results of a command properly. This fixes the bogus
TDR reports.
All drivers for boards using the 8390 (see Versions above) have had
the 8390-specific code consolidated into a single file.
Eric Henderson and Colin Cook's class 11 changes have been
incorporated. They let a single driver appear as
multiple-class drivers.
Russell Nelson modified their code so that packet watchers still get all
packets.
Don Provan and Jan Engvald fixed a bug in the -n switch handling.
When -n is used, DIX Ethernet (aka Ethernet II aka Blue Book
Ethernet) frames shouldn't be passed on as-is. Don's fix dropped
them, Jan's converted them to 8138 packets. Jan's was a
better idea.
The 3c503 driver has some code added to use the board in I/O-mapped
mode. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to get it working.
It'll have to wait for the next release.
The helper file movemem.asm will use 386 memory move instructions.
The helper file getnum.asm didn't always reject invalid digits.
Brian Fisher fixed ibmtoken to flush the RIF cache using a LRU algorithm.
Russell Nelson cleaned up the multicast handling in the ni6510 driver.
Russell Nelson worked on pktsend: didn't properly check for trashed
memory on machines with less than 640K. Also prints the
address of the trashed memory. It also now prints 'R' when a
packet is received, and 'T' when a packet is transmitted.
Denis DeLaroca changed the way the 16550A is detected in slip8250.asm.
The tiara packet driver didn't work properly with the -n switch.
The ne2000 packet driver didn't work properly with the -n switch.
Russell Nelson cleaned up trace internally, no difference to the user.
John Baird wrote some ipxpkt documentation.


Changes from version 6.0 to 7.0 of the drivers:

Summary:
New drivers: UB PC/NIC, LocalTalk, Tiara, NTI.
Bugs fixed: 3c505, 3c503, wd8003e, nb, ne1000.
Bug found but not fixed: 3c523.

*** The 3c523 driver is semi-broken.*** If you run the 5.x release of
the 3c523 driver (3c523_5), terminate it, then run the 7.x release (3c523),
it will work. This need only be done once after powering-up the computer.
This will be fixed in the next release.

Drew Perkins made a bunch of changes:

pktsend now takes a length argument, (-l) so that you may send packets of a
given length with unknown contents.
pktsend now skips blanks between the -f switch and the filename.
pktsend now takes a packet count argument (-n) which is the count of packets
to send between keypresses.
pktsend now takes a switch to be quiet (-q).
pktsend now takes a switch (-a) to send using as_send_pkt, for testing of
asychronous packet sending.
getnum now parses very large numbers correctly.
wd8003d now has 16 bit support for the WD8013EBT card. Also "high
performance" changes to WD8003E.ASM and HEAD.ASM.
fixed hangs or other errors caused by incorrect function in some 8259
clone ICs.
enabled slave interrupts on the master 8259. Apparently some early IBM
BIOSes didn't do this.

John Mann submitted some code to delay the etopen and convert between
Novell's pseudo IEEE 802.3 packets and Ethernet packets.
Jan Engvald made Mann's changes optional by adding two switches.
The -d switch delays the initialization, and the -n switch
converts Novell packets. The n option converts the type 8137
packets from the BYU packet driver IPX into Novell ISO-like
packets. The d option delays initialization until it gets the
first call. Together these options make it very easy to run
packet drivers in a PROM booted LAN PC.
Jan Engvald improved the 3c501 and ni5010 drivers, which were only
implemented to look at the two bytes in the type field, and
for n-option to work one has to look at at least 4 bytes.
Jan Engvald implemented Stop Function (8) that clears in use flags of
all handles. See README.BOT for more details.
Jan Engvald found and fixed a few coding errors in occupied.asm,
tail.asm and wd8003e.asm.
John Mann improved the ne1000 driver. It didn't handle large Ethernet packets
(between 1454 and 1472 bytes of data (total packet size 1496 and
1514 bytes). He also changed a few hard-coded numbers into symbols.
Katie Stevens wrote a LocalTalk driver.
Katie Stevens added code to head.asm to prevent snarfing a hardware interrupt
if the packet driver doesn't use one.
Anto Prijosoesilo, who fixed a bug related to DMA in the ni6510 driver.
Paul Kranenburg added routing support to use Novell bridges (netwide
broadcasting and hacks to find out about IPX net addresses).
Paul Kranenburg added support for IPX node address with less than 6
significant bytes. (through the `-n ' command line
option).
Paul Kranenburg added auxiliary program (ipxstat.c) to display route
table information and a couple of other statistics (define
STAT when compiling the driver to use this option)
John Breeden found a bug in the AT&T driver where it didn't report
the type of an unknown card correctly. He also added a new
card to the list of AT&T cards (StarLAN-10 R3).
Russell Nelson fixed a problem in dump.exe where it reported the names
of function numbers >=20 incorrectly.
Steve Wallace added a hack to let the packet drivers run under Windows.
This is not to be construed with the proper solution, which is
to write a TCP/IP package for Windows. This hack is enabled only
when you use the '-w' switch.
Russell Nelson added promiscuous mode to the ni5010 driver.
Martin Knoblauch found that the ni5010 driver was resetting the receive
mode after each packet was received.
Russell Nelson added code to 82586.asm to allow runts to be upcalled in
mode 6 (promiscuous mode).
Eric Henderson added Carl Beame's fix to his ne1000 driver, and he also
copied the receive mode support from the wd8003e driver.
Reinhard Strebler added a success message to termin.asm, and an error return
to the f_terminate call.


Changes from version 5.0 to 6.0 of the drivers:

Summary:
New drivers: ni6510, at&t, arcnet, ipxpkt, nb, ne2000.
New utilities: pktmulti, pktsend, pktstat.
Bugs fixed: 3c505, 3c503, wd8003e.

Carl Beame found a bug in his National 8390 drivers which was also present
in the drivers based on the 3c503. To wit, when the buffers
overflowed, there was a chance that there were no buffers present.
Trying to read one of these buffers would cause a crash. This
affects the 3c503, wd8003e, and ne2000 drivers.
James A. Harvey fixed a problem in the first beta test release that caused
some machines to incorrectly determine the number of interrupts,
and fixed the lockup problem in the 3c503.
Russell Nelson changed the skeleton to enable compliance with version 1.09
of the packet driver spec.
Russell Nelson wrote the following drivers: ni6510, at&t, and arcnet.
Russell Nelson wrote the following utilities pktmulti, pktsend, pktstat.
The following drivers now implement promiscuous mode: 3c501, 3c523, ni9210,
ni5210, at&t, ni6510, wd8003e.
Jan Engvald enhanced HEAD.ASM to properly sense the second 8259a.
Denis DeLaroca fixed the 16550a support in slip8250.asm.
Glen Marianko's ROMREL program is now included for Novell users.
All of the programs may be assembled with Borland or Microsoft (5.1) products.
Some of the programs may be assembled with Microsoft v4.0 products.
The set_address function refused to change the address if there was one or
more handles open. One handle is allowable.
The 3c501 driver now sends large broadcast packets (i.e. BOOTP) correctly.
The routine get_multicast_list has been obsoleted by doing the same function
totally within HEAD.ASM
The terminate routine now gets called on the f_terminate calls.
f_terminate now checks for any outstanding handles before terminating.
The parameters are now printed separately from being parsed. This is to let
programs determine the parameters dynamically.
The 3c503 driver was enabling interrupts when it shouldn't have.
Some drivers would return a parameter error if some of the parameters
weren't specified.
The bus type in 82586-based drivers is now a variable rather than an equate.
The 82586-based drivers now have multicast partially implemented.
The 3c523 driver reads the POS registers before parsing the parameters.
The 82586-based drivers disable interrupts prior to being initialized. Some
of these drivers would generate spurious interrupt, which caused
crashes when interrupt 2 was used. The BIOS enables interrupt 2
automatically.
The 82586-based drivers now sense the amount of memory automatically, even
though they still only use 8K. This means no problems with 386
memory mappers.
The maximum number of handles was increased from 8 to 10 (MAX_HANDLE).
The .286 directive was removed from DEFS.ASM so that no 286 code accidentally
slips in.
The function dispatch routine in HEAD.ASM was changed for version 1.09 of the
PDS.
As promised in the version 4.x notes, the unique handle creation code went
away.
If a driver sets int_no to zero, the timer interrupt won't get masked off. 🙂
Dave Horne changed the 3c503 driver into a ne2000 driver.
Dave Horne changed the way upcalls are called so that the upcall handler can
exit using either a far return, or an iret.
David E. Johnson fixed the 3c505 driver.
Joe Doupnik improved HEAD.ASM by adding some comments and he brought it closer
into compliance with the PDS. He also changed access_type so that it
would let driver users ask for all packets even though other driver
users were asking for some packets.
Joe Doupnik added packet driver support to PC/IP's netwatch.
Many useful subroutines were split out into separate files, rather than
being duplicated in every program that used them. These routines
are in the public domain.
The various packet driver clients (pkt*.com) were changed to use these
separate files. They also now use a macro to call the packet driver.
They also report any and all errors that may occur. They also ask
the driver for driver_info, then uses it to access_type.
The packet receive tester, pktall, test to see if the driver is writing too
much or too little, or in memory that it doesn't own.
SLIP8250 now requires a command-line switch to enable hardware handshake.
TAIL.ASM now prints the arcnet address, if the driver is an arcnet driver.
Jan Engvald improved the wd8003e driver:
The wd8003e driver now supports the E EBT EB ET/A and E/A boards.
The wd8003e memory base default was 0xc400 and is now 0xd000.
The wd8003e driver supports multicast modes.
The wd8003e driver has a better test for occupied memory, and a switch to
disable the occupied memory test in case it loses.


Changes from version 4.0 to 5.0 of the drivers:

Summary: New: 3c505, ne1000, ni9210, ibmtoken. Bugs fixed: all drivers.

Krishnan Gopalan and Gregg Stefancik wrote a packet driver for the 3c505.
Brian Fisher wrote an "Ethernet" packet driver for the IBM Token Ring Adapter.
Eric Henderson wrote a packet driver for Novell's NE1000.
Russell Nelson modified ni5210 to be a ni9210 driver. This entailed some
changes in 82586.asm.
Russell Nelson wrote pktmode, a utility to set the receive mode.
Russell Nelson wrote pktaddr, a utility to set the Ethernet address.
Russell Nelson wrote pktall, a utility to help debug packet reception.
Trace.com is a little bit more helpful about how to run it.
Vance Morrison added starlan support to the wd8003e driver.
Eric Henderson improved it.
Deborah Swanberg noticed that the 3c503 driver didn't timeout properly
if there was a failure to complete a transmit.
The set_address routine in the device dependent files now
returns the address length as it should have.
Head.asm now keeps a copy of the hardware address set by set_address. This is
used by f_get_address to return the current address. The device
dependent get_address routine always returns the PROM address.
The set_rcv_mode routine didn't work. Not at all.
The access_type routine returns more appropriate errors.
The f_get_address routine wasn't passing the right address length to
get_address.
Tail.asm now checks for extra parameters on the end of the line.
Dan Lanciani added changes to ni5210 version 4.2 to increase reliability.
It works for him. Unfortunately, I have had reports from other
people that it breaks Novell. So, these changes are in "if DAN"
conditional assembly. If your Novell connection gets dropped,
try reassembling ni5210 after setting "DAN equ 0" in 82586.asm
Packet drivers for the NE2000 and UB NIC PC/2 are in the works, but don't
hold your breath.
A packet driver for the Xircom pocket Ethernet adapter is undergoing testing.
Jan Engvald found and fixed a bug in the wd8003e memory presence check.


Changes from version 3.0 to 4.0 of the drivers:

Russell Nelson added code to enable interrupts in the body of the packet
driver.
Denis DeLaRoca added hardware handshake to the SLIP8250 driver.
John Grover optimized the SLIP8250 driver to work at 38.4 Kbps.
Russell Nelson added some sanity checking to slip8250 to warn the user about
possible incorrect parameters.
Bob Clements added a switch to select thick or thin Ethernet in the 3c503.
Russell Nelson found a minor bug in NI5210 that caused it to fail to
initialize sometimes. Thanks to everyone who reported it.
Dan Lanciani found a race condition in the 80586 code common to the
NI5210 and 3c523 drivers.
Russell Nelson split out the 82586 code from the NI5210 and 3c523 drivers
into a single file.
Russell Nelson added memory address checking to NI5210.
Glen M. Marianko devised a method for determining the memory size of the
NI5210 automagically.
Jan Engvald enhanced the packet driver code for Western Digital Ethernet
cards to handle the micro channel version WD8003ET/A.
Jan Engvald enhanced TAIL.ASM to return error codes to DOS.
Jan Engvald enhanced HEAD.ASM to be aware of running on a MicroChannel bus.
Rainer Toebbicke wrote the BICC Data Networks' ISOLAN 4110 ethernet driver.
Russell Nelson wrote the packet driver tracer and dumper (trace.com and
dump.exe).
Russell Nelson added support for set_rcv_mode, get_rcv_mode,
set_multicast_list, and get_multicast_list to the infrastructure. It
is up to the individuals who wrote the individual drivers to add the
device-dependent support.


Changes from version 2.0 to 3.0 of the drivers:

GNU General Public License adopted. The restriction on commercial usage
prevented some companies from distributing the packet drivers. This
is entirely my idea, so send any comments to [email protected].
3c523 driver added, thanks to Dan Lanciani ([email protected]).
Gregg Stefanik ([email protected]) is working on a 3c505 driver. Don't
bug him about it unless you're willing to be a alpha tester.
User documentation added (DRIVERS.DOC).
Brad Clements (no relation to Bob Clements) fixed the NI5210 driver so that
it will work with a MTU of 1500.
The NI5210 now checks for shorts and opens before it starts up, thanks to
Brad.
All memory-mapped packet drivers now check the packet length in send_pkt to
ensure that too-long packets get trapped. All packet drivers will
work with MTUs of 1500 (plus 14 bytes of Ethernet header).
Deborah Swanberg noticed that attach_type was returning NO_CLASS
when it meant to return NO_TYPE.
She also noted that packet drivers weren't returning unique handles. This
is only a problem with Phil Karn's code, as his code directs *every*
packet driver to the same receiver routine. With non-unique handles,
it was impossible to tell which packet driver was upcalling the
receiver. Unique handles are now generated, based on the starting
segment of the driver. The latest version of Karn's code uses different
receiver routines, so the code to implement this will eventually go away.
Tail.asm now prints the Ethernet address of the interface (if it is an Ethernet
class device)
Micom has sold Interlan, and Racal has bought it, so perhaps the NI5210 is
now the Racal-Interlan NI5210?
If anyone is interested in using the Zenith Z-100 with a SLIP packet driver, please
send me (Russell Nelson) mail. I have it partially written, but will
probably never use it myself.
WD8003E and 3c503 sped up slightly -- stole movemem from NI5210.


Changes from version 3 to 2.0 of the drivers:

Version numbering now changed. If the skeleton changes, the major version is
incremented and all the minor versions are reset to zero.

Support for version 1.08 of the packet driver spec included.
Bob Clements' 3c503 driver added. See README.503.
Some comments improved.
BAD_COMMAND checking code fixed.
cld instructions added to ensure that DF=0.
NI5210 sped up slightly -- look at movemem in ni5210.asm for an especially
fast routine to move memory around.


Changes from version 2 to 3 of the drivers:

SLIP8250 can now be one of three classes: SLIP, AX.25, and KISS.
Tail.asm now checks for a packet driver already at the given interrupt.
Tail.asm now echoes its arguments in hex and decimal.
Tail.asm will close stdout so that a file handle won't be used up in
case the user redirects stdout to NUL.
Head.asm now supports driver termination.
Termin.com added to terminate a driver.
Head.asm now does a stack swap to avoid pushing too many things when
interrupting MS-LOSS.


Changes from version 1 to 2 of the drivers:

!! Arguments are now in decimal by default !! Use a 0x prefix for hex.

DEFS.ASM created.
The loadport macro improved.
SLIP8250 driver added, thanks for a C version from Phil Karn.
I've tried to put some 16550 support in, but I don't have one to
test it with. The documentation insists the TBRE goes low when
the transmit buffer is not empty, while it makes sense for it to stay
high while the buffer is not full. I suspect the documentation is
wrong.
NI5010 driver added, thanks for a C version from Bill Doster.
WD8003 driver added, by Bob Clements.
Loadport macro added to WD8003 driver by Russell Nelson.
Numeric arguments may now be specified in octal, decimal or hex, using the
C notation.
Numeric arguments can now use up to 32 bits.
Source files reformatted.


  3 Responses to “Category : Network Files
Archive   : PKTD11.ZIP
Filename : CHANGES.DOC

  1. Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!

  2. This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.

  3. But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/