What about DOS?

[24bit]

About DOS

Most of our everyday computer systems operate with x86 compatible cpu's, regardless to what was written on it outside.
Some old and useful emulators can only be made to work with a DOS operating system.
There is DosBox of course, doing a very good job on faster cpu's, lets say a dual core 2GHz system or better.
When it comes to slower machines or more demanding tasks of the emulated Mac, a native DOS is very much preferable.
DRDOS is still available from ftp://ftp.fsn.hu/pub/OpenDOS/DR-DOS.702/.
So I wonder if DOS could be set up on recent computers.

One way might be to create a fat32 partition for DOS. A partitioning software like GParted and a boot loader
like GRUB would be needed.
GParted is available here for free: http://www.chip.de/downloads/GParted-Li ... 60627.html
GRUB is available with e.g. Suse Linux or GRUB for Windows: http://www.heise.de/software/download/s ... disk/55737

Another way might be to run the whole thing from an SD drive e.g. DOS with Fusion and VMac.
A formatting utility, writing the system files to the SD would be needed.
HPUSBFW_v2.2.3.exe to do this is available here: http://www.chip.de/downloads/HP-USB-Dis ... 18669.html
The system files usbdos.zip are here: http://www.chip.de/downloads/USB-DOS_36233249.html


What do you think?
Is anybody here still using DOS for some reasons?

[Stephen Coates]

I used DOS quite a bit last year for a project which involved interfacing an analogue-to-digital converter to a parallel port.

I used DOS 7 on a Pentium III machine, and installed DOS 6.22 on an Athlon XP machine at college.

Haven't really used it much since then, but I have tested my DOS 6.22 boot disk in my new Intel Pentium E6300 dual core system, and it seemed to work.

I will see about testing Fusion PC on it. I think I have a spare partition which I can install DOS on .

[ClockWise]

USB DOS looks interesting. I might give that a whirl!

[24bit]

Nice to have some DOS experts around!
FDOS does a pretty good job.
It comes on a bootble install disk with CuteMouse. Quite impressing.
I have to look for audio drivers though.
Fusion is very fast on less powerful cpu's.

[24bit]

I set up a bootable USB stick with WIN98 meanwhlie.
It is not the fastest system ever, but it boots with my Eee, reasonably.
There is no sound however, and I doubt there will ever be.
No one is going to release a Realtec AC97 driver for WIN98, do you think so?

So, no sound driver- no fun, so far.

[Ambassador]

No one is going to release a Realtec AC97 driver for WIN98, do you think so?

http://download.cnet.com/Realtek-AC-97- ... 38712.html?

Though I would recommend using Windows 95B instead of 98. It's faster, can have Internet Explorer removed, and more responsive and more stable since it lacks IE integration.

[24bit]

Thanks for the link!
I tried with that package, but the ALC269 doesn't seem to be covered.
Maybe I am missing another chipset driver too, that would be required to run the AC97 setup.

[Silent Flamer]

I have a DOS emulator set up . Probably I'd try one of these .

[24bit]

Sure, Fusion PC might be an alternative. It works very nice with my Intel PIII and a WIN98 host system.
Fusion PC comes with its own video drivers, but if you want sound and mouse, your DOS Box must provide this feature.
Actually Fusion won't start without a running mouse driver.