(Retro PC Guide) Use Null Modem to transfer files to Windows 3.11

Setting up Serial/COM port file transfer between a Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 hosts
Windows 3.11 laptop - Tecra 730xcdt
Windows 95 Laptop - HP Omnibook Xe2
00:00 Intro/Background
00:57 Physical setup
01:17 Windows 3.11 terminal setup
01:55 Windows 95 Hyper Terminal setup
02:16 Testing connection
02:35 Sending the file
03:39 Other stuff

[@spawnshepherd]

Realized my COM Port on the Tecra was hard-capped to 9600bps baud rate which is why I was getting that speed. Upped to 19200bps and it performed twice as fast on a subsequent test. Lesson is to check your actual port speed as well (in Control Panel) in addition to setting the speed in terminal.
Edit: Also Hardware flow control yields better performance, but I had some issues with it on older machines. Worth a try though!

[@frankj.hoffmann7030]

Tales from my youth. Hyperterm and such. Great. Thanks for this!!!

[@JulienMR]

It works, yes, ... slowly. Only trouble is that windows 10 doesn't include such a terminal, so you need to find other solutions 😢

[@draxoronxztgs1212]

Thanks for the info!
I have one IBM model 55 that use an ESDI hdd and MCA ports with no network card other than a Token Ring Adapter.
It has some interesting things and games on the harddrive that I want to keep, but can't write over to a floppy as some of the files exceeds beyond the 1.44MB limit.
So I've been wondering for years how to extract them into another pc that use IDE drives with network available to transfer and backup to my main pc.
The MCA and ESDI was an propiertary standard only implementad by IBM's PS/2 development, that no other computer manufacturer adopted beside Zenith Bull Micral in france.
So basicly what it put on that computer, pretty much stays there until it is deleted, as the harddrive simply can not be taken out to be connected to another without it has the same interfaces, which is a very rare one.

[@spawnshepherd]

@@draxoronxztgs1212 you can try to transfer the files out via Null Modem or token ring if you can get it running. You can also try to get an archiver that can archive the contents into 1.44MB or less chunks and then you could use floppies to copy them out!

[@draxoronxztgs1212]

@@spawnshepherd Yes, I've been thinking of that. I just don't have another computer with a token ring adapter nor I don't know how it works, and what archiver that will run on a pc with a 386sx cpu at 16MHz with 4MB ram with Windows 3.1 that the IBM has.

[@spawnshepherd]

I remember using ARJ archivers back in the 386 days! WinZip 6.2 works on win 3.11, but not sure for Win 3.1. ARJ should get you part of the way there, though I don't recall if it had splitting capability (e.g a 2MB file into 1.44 and 0.6MB chunks to put on 2 floppies).