ETHFLOP - a network-backed floppy emulator for DOS

ETHFLOP - a network-backed floppy emulator for DOS
Copyright (C) 2019-2025 Mateusz Viste

ETHFLOP is a DOS TSR that emulates a floppy disk drive using a floppy image over Ethernet. The emulated (virtual) floppy disk is stored on a server as a floppy image. All the communication between ETHFLOP (the TSR) and its server (ethflopd) is performed over raw Ethernet. No need for any network configuration: the DOS PC only needs to have some kind of Ethernet adapter (physical or emulated, for example through PLIP or SLIP) and a suitable packet driver. The server and the DOS PC must be connected to a common Ethernet segment (same LAN). The server can run either Linux or DOS.

Shortly said, ETHFLOP:
- emulates many types of virt. floppies, from 360K up to 31M
- needs only a packet driver for connectivity
- presents a block device to DOS, almost undistinguishable from a real FDD
- fits in 2K of memory (can be loaded high)

DOWNLOAD:

The ETHFLOP TSR (DOS client): binary, source, SvarDOS package
The ethflopd server: DOS binary, source (Linux compatible)

Older files are archived here.

Source code is tracked on the project's subversion repository:
[ svn co svn://svn.mateusz.fr/ethflop ]

The ETHFLOP project is published under the terms of the MIT license.
Looking for a file-sharing solution for DOS? Check out EtherDFS.

THIRD-PARTY WORKS:

ECM created a smart boot loader that reserves drive B: so ethflop can hook it after DOS is loaded (esp. useful on BIOSes that do not allow to set a fake B: drive)

Michael Ortmann ported the ethflopd server to a variety of BSD systems.