Installing DOS on a new machine

[ed_turco]

My 17 year old DOS machine finally bit the dust, leaving me with the original installation diskettes from way back when. A friend offered me an older Windows XP machine which he says can be reformatted and DOS reinstalled on this newer machine.

Is this a viable project? Some have warned me that the computer architecture on the newer machine is too different to allow such an installation. Others have said that if the hard drive is empty through reformatting, that it shouldn't make any difference at all.

What's the deal?

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[dave_the_nerd]

Depends on the computer. Sometimes there aren't drivers for certain things.

Although I'd imagine that most hardware will work in "default" mode with the generic drivers from MS.

Any reason you can't use an emulator?

 

[nsafreak]

It shouldn't matter what hardware you have inside of the machine, DOS should be able to run on it. Some programs that are looking for specific hardware such as old games looking for sound cards from the Sound Blaster AWE 32/64 time period may be another thing though. Provided you're just looking to run simple programs you should be fine.

 

[Harvey]

I've seldom had any problems using DOS on machines from the XP era. In recent years, I've been running my legacy DOS apps from Windows XP command line, which is really useful because you can bounce between DOS and Windows and move, manipulate, e-mail files under Windows and read and write them to other useful media such as flash drives and optical media (CD, DVD. etc).

And yes, once setup, they run quite well under NTFS. 😎

You'll have to test each of your programs because some specific programs don't behave as expected, and the batch language under the XP command line is a little less sophisticated than the best of the DOS batch commands, but I've managed to work around those I need most.

Let me know if that interests you, and I'll be glad to give you details of how I have my system set up. Our forum software blocks your ability to PM other members until you've made 25 posts, but I'm a forum admin so you can PM me, now.

 

[DaveSimmons]

You could try DOSBox: http://www.dosbox.com/

Or the XP command line like Harvey said -- if you need sound, I've used VDMSound with Jagged Alliance 1:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/

Or installing DOS as a virtual machine using VirtualPC or other free VM software

 

[Cerb]

If you need to work with old hardware that's not supported in Windows, you could build a computer with an Atom or Zacate board, with serial and parallel ports on it (if it might ever get re-purposed, avoid the current, "Cedarview" Atom series, like the D2500-D2700). Example, w/ serial and parallel port.

If you just use old software, however, I think you would do well to take the time to learn to use virtual machines (VirtualBox!) and/or DOSBox (while made primarily for games, it gets used for other purposes, too).

 

[sciencewhiz]

NIXSYS is a company that specializes in selling hardware that works with old operating systems. While they sell newer machines, the machines that they install DOS on are P4s. I'm not sure if there's a technical reason for that, but it seems likely.

 

[aigomorla]

cant you run dos on a Ti-85?
Id even assume its runnable on an Andriod phone of today and not even tax it out.
Today's andriod phones are way faster then any 8086 - 486dx.

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I mean DOS.. is DOS...
Cant you just type CMD.exe in windows and get a virtual DOS window?


Also im sure u can load a DOS on a USB drive and boot load the USB.
Again... this is DOS or am i getting confused?
Can you explain to me what your daughter exactly does with DOS?

The biggest problem id see you running into is the problems with fat32 + himen and upper reserved memory.
As DOS wasnt intended to handle 1/10th of the memory today's system's use, and most dont offer NTSF file format.

Back in the days we were running MB and not GB of ram...


Again am i getting DOS confused with something else?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Newegg sells an ASRock 775 board with an 865G/PE chipset, which is compatible with Windows 98, so it should be compatible with DOS.

 

[aigomorla]

Newegg sells an ASRock 775 board with an 865G/PE chipset, which is compatible with Windows 98, so it should be compatible with DOS.

larry i dont think he even needs that.
If he absolutely must have his DOS box...

he can go pick up an old atom system board, which is basically a OG P4... 😀
The original atoms couldnt even do EMT64.

 

[mfenn]

It really depends on what you are doing. If you need to interface with some old peripheral that absolutely requires DOS, then yes you need an actual machine running DOS. If you just need to run some DOS software, DOSBox will give you a nearly perfect emulation of a full DOS environment (Soundblaster and all!).