TmEE Posted July 16, 2013 Posted July 16, 2013 I have been gathering info and required software for potential creation of drivers for 98SE. I was wondering if anyone here has actually done anything themselves ? I would love to hear about the experiences ! I am not new to hardware or software (doing that stuff for living but not for PCs), for now it all seems pretty overwhelming - a lot of material to go through which will undoubtedly lead to endless crashes and other problems hahaha. Lot of info the DDK refers to is gone and it all makes things lot harder too. All that is solid are various books that are referenced to in one doc in the package.There's 2 options - WDM and VxD. It seems WDM has no special stuff hidden in the driver executables, and you can write the driver purely in a high level language (maybe not the case, I am still reading the docs) but there's endless requirements and abstractions...VxD seems to be simpler, but structures seem more confusing and seems there's need for bunch of assembly functions to get anywhere. I am not new to assembly, but I detest x86, stuff like 68K are infinitely better VxD would also work on all of the 9x line and is higher performance due to less abstraction. I like to feel the hardware in my software hehe
rloew Posted July 16, 2013 Posted July 16, 2013 I have written a Mass Storage Driver for USB. It is a WDM Driver based on the UMSS Sample. I have been trying to adapt it for Windows 95.I have written a number of VXDs as well, but they are not Drivers. These include my Multicore, 64-Bit RAM, WDMEX and Logging VXDs.
TmEE Posted July 16, 2013 Author Posted July 16, 2013 I guess you would have to re-implement all/most/some of the functionality of WDM calls for the 95 to get things go, or implement WDM on 95 which I think WDMEX could allow ?
rloew Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 The USB Update package provides enough WDM support to make the Driver work. I removed the Power Management code in the UMSS Sample.I use a modified WDMEX in this case to attach a logger so I can record the data transfers of my Driver.
LoneCrusader Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 I have written a Mass Storage Driver for USB. It is a WDM Driver based on the UMSS Sample. I have been trying to adapt it for Windows 95.More than "trying," lol. It's already light years ahead of any other existing USB driver for 95, and only the one sporadic bug seems to remain.
dencorso Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 Besides RLoew, the only other member I know for sure wrote at least one sucessful .VxD (albeit not a hardware driver) is Xeno86, who is mostly retired from 9x/ME, but still remains contactable by PM.
Tripredacus Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 Many years ago, I once wrote a driver that allowed Iomega's backup software to see the sound card as a tape drive. It did work but trying to backup files to the soundcard ended up with a BSOD.
TmEE Posted July 18, 2013 Author Posted July 18, 2013 ^ I have decided on going VxD route, I can make a whole lot more sense of it than WDM stuff, the documentation is a lot nicer to my eyes. Still a ton of reading to do... very fascinating stuff though !
jaclaz Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 Many years ago, I once wrote a driver that allowed Iomega's backup software to see the sound card as a tape drive. It did work but trying to backup files to the soundcard ended up with a BSOD. And no particularly good music came from it, additionally. jaclaz
MiKl Posted October 21, 2013 Posted October 21, 2013 Sorry if this project has already been discussed !!http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/uni_ata/I really would like to see a version for 98se to be released because in one of my PCs I have nForce 2 chipset and so no IDE driver.
jaclaz Posted October 21, 2013 Posted October 21, 2013 Sorry if this project has already been discussed !!http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/uni_ata/I really would like to see a version for 98se to be released because in one of my PCs I have nForce 2 chipset and so no IDE driver.I don't get it.There is already the Win9x/Me UniAta driver by Xeno (whether it will work for your hardware/on your setup is to be seen), at least the 39j version:http://reboot.pro/topic/2384-alter-group-universal-ata-driver-for-windows-nt351nt42000xp/is Win9x/Me compatible.http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/142564-failed-to-install-sata-drivers/?p=914353http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/114217-uniata-what-about-9xme-port/jaclaz
Yushatak Posted November 14, 2013 Posted November 14, 2013 WDM might be easier to find documentation for since it's the format that persisted to a point where 98 WDM drivers can still be installed on Win7 (I have done this) to support rare, now-unsupported hardware. What language/compiler would you guys use for this, I assume MSVC6 C++ or C? I plan to do drivers at some point in the future, but not soon.
jds Posted November 19, 2013 Posted November 19, 2013 (edited) Not me (in answer to the original question).Perhaps RapidDriver (shareware) from www.entechtaiwan.com is a possibility.According to the scant history log : 09 May 2006 v=2.1.4.11- Windows 98 installation bug fixedSo the last W9x compatible version (demo) may be : http://web.archive.org/web/20060718184622/http://www.entechtaiwan.com/files/rdeval.zipOTOH, maybe even the current version is compatible, just not officially. At worst, it may require the assistance of WDMStub (search for the thread in this sub-forum).Joe. Edited November 19, 2013 by jds
jds Posted November 20, 2013 Posted November 20, 2013 Thanks, Den!I've been travelling ... now I'm playing catch-up ... Joe.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now