Running an old DOS program

[Industrial One]

I am not a Win98 user, I use XP, but I'm crossposting to the 98 group
because if there's anyone that would know about running old programs
on modern machines, I hope it to be you guys.

I was told that legacy DOS drivers are no longer made for modern mobos
as of like 5 years ago, but I constantly hear about nostalgic mofos
finding workarounds.

I do have a workaround which is DOSBox but it greatly slowed down the
performance. Indeed, only a weird motherfucker like me would go out my
way to emulate an EMULATOR and expect the FPS to be smooth. Its ironic
when I think that on the original platform it runs perfectly on 4 MHz
and my 3 GHz i7 can't run it in full FPS.

So yeah, any way to run my program natively or at least a way faster
than running it through DOSBox?

 

[Industrial One]

Welcome to the world of Windows.


Dual boot system, or find a way to boot to DOS (thumb drive, CD/DVD,
...)

Elaborate. What tools must I download, what steps must I take?

 

[98 Guy]

I was told that legacy DOS drivers are no longer made for modern
mobos as of like 5 years ago,

It's my impression that the only "DOS" drivers that really keep hanging
on or keep showing up on the driver CD of new motherboards are for the
integrated network (ethernet) ports. Same also for PCI ethernet cards.

I can't really say that I've ever seen DOS drivers lately for other
aspects of the guts of your typical PC (such as chipset, sound, video,
usb, etc).

Normally the system BIOS can supply DOS with all it needs to interact
with the video system (at least up to VGA 640 x 480 mode), com ports,
IDE and even SATA controllers and attached drives, keyboard and mouse,
etc. USB under DOS has always been a questionable issue - but given
your handle (Industrial One) I would suspect that you wound't have much
interest or need in USB functionality under DOS.

Something that would affect the situation drastically for DOS on modern
motherboards is the change from the traditional BIOS to some new form of
bios that I hear is coming out (or is already out) on some bleeding-edge
motherboards (I forget what it's called).

Oh - you should have cross-posted this to some DOS groups, because
Windows 98 is not really a DOS-based operating system. It is a win32 OS
that just happens to get boot-strapped or started from a DOS-mode
state. Win-98 puts the CPU into 32-bit protected mode and offers a
virtual DOS environment for any 16-bit apps that need it. Win-2k and XP
does the same thing, and I think so does Vista. Windows 7 (I think)
does not offer a virtual DOS environment.

I'm adding comp.os.msdos.programmer to the distribution of this thread
(it seems to be the most active "DOS" group).

but I constantly hear about nostalgic mofos finding workarounds.

You can take pretty much any motherboard made even today and boot and
run DOS on it, regardless what sort of hard-drive you attach to the
system. There is nothing nostalgic about that.

What you might or should find nostalgic is seeing any win-9x/me drivers
for modern hardware.

You seem to be equating win-9x/me to DOS in terms of drivers or
hardware, and that would be a false equation.

I do have a workaround which is DOSBox but it greatly slowed down
the performance.

So yeah, any way to run my program natively or at least a way
faster than running it through DOSBox?

Booting a moderm motherboard with DOS is easily possible. Why haven't
you tried that?

Go out and do a search for "DOS 7.1" and download it from the web some
where. Put it on a floppy disk and take it to your desired or target
machine and boot it with the floppy. Attach a hard drive to the machine
and run fdisk and format from the floppy and format the hard drive so
that it will boot into DOS all by itself. Copy all the files and
software you have from your windoze PC to this DOS pc using what-ever
means you can (floppy disks, burned onto a CD, etc).

Why is this so hard for people to do?

 

[Ken Springer]

Why is this so hard for people to do?

Because the majority of users, even in the Win98 and earlier days,
didn't even know how to do it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 10.0.2
Thunderbird 10.0.2
LibreOffice 3.5.0 rc3

 

[Ken Springer]

Welcome to the world of Windows.


Dual boot system, or find a way to boot to DOS (thumb drive, CD/DVD,
...)

Another option to consider is to use virtual machine software on your XP
computer.

MS has/had two versions of their own VM software. They are free.

VM Fusionware and Parallels have VM software you have to pay for.

Virtual Box is free and open source.

The advantage of VM software is, depending on unknowns at my end, you
can use just about any OS you want. You should be able to even install
DOS. I use Parallels for the Mac, and have XP Pro and Vista Ultimate
installed. Doesn't work perfectly, but updates keep coming out. I also
have a Win box multiboot with the same OS's installed, plus a Win 7 box.
I'm not a big Windows user anymore, but have them for my own enjoyment
and to help my Win owning friends.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 10.0.2
Thunderbird 10.0.2
LibreOffice 3.5.0 rc3

 

[Industrial One]

Okay so either boot into DOS or use a VM, which one would result in
faster performance? I'll assume DOS.

So I download DOS 7.1, then what? Do I have to install this on a thumb
drive to boot from it, and then do I cd to the directory with the
program I wanna run?

The program is not a game, btw. It's an emulator that runs ROMs
(games). Emulating an emulator with DOSBox was... an apalling
experience. Vegan hackers would probably nail me to a cross for
wasting so much energy.

Why is this so hard for people to do?

Because I have no floppy drive.

 

[Ken Springer]

Okay so either boot into DOS or use a VM, which one would result in
faster performance? I'll assume DOS.

I would guess DOS, but if you were to use a VM, you could XP and DOS at
the same time. And with VM, you could install real DOS, and maybe the
real game would run. I'm not a gamer, but I know some games do funny
things.

I also suspect your XP machine is far faster than an original DOS box,
you may not even notice a speed problem.

Since Virtual Box is free, if you don't like it, you can delete it and
not be out any money.

I know of no reason you couldn't load DOS 7.1 into Virtual Box.

So I download DOS 7.1, then what? Do I have to install this on a thumb
drive to boot from it, and then do I cd to the directory with the
program I wanna run?

The program is not a game, btw. It's an emulator that runs ROMs
(games). Emulating an emulator with DOSBox was... an apalling
experience. Vegan hackers would probably nail me to a cross for
wasting so much energy.



Because I have no floppy drive.

You can buy an external USB floppy pretty cheap.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 10.0.2
Thunderbird 10.0.2
LibreOffice 3.5.0 rc3

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Welcome to the world of Windows.


Dual boot system, or find a way to boot to DOS (thumb drive, CD/DVD,
...)

I simply use a dos6.22 or 7.xx(win98) bootfloppy,
dos 6.22 simply ingnores the ntsf or fat32, and has a secondairy
fat16 partition on drive 2, which it recognizes as drive C.
That way Xp can manage files on that partition, and dos has
full use of the computer(after reboot).
A dos7.xx floppy recognizes the first partition on
drive 2(fat32) nicely as drive c.
Of course you need a floppy or a bootable usb stick.
The only problem I had with this solution, is that the graphics
cards/monitors mowadays have very few legal vga modes,
some only 640*480(16 cols).

 

[Fritz Wuehler]

I know of no reason you couldn't load DOS 7.1 into Virtual Box.

You can load it but it will not work 100%. Depending on what you need,
VirtualBox, QEMU etc. do not work very well with DOS. Many programs like
Borland TASM, and MS MASM crash the VM.

 

[Ken Springer]

You can load it but it will not work 100%. Depending on what you need,
VirtualBox, QEMU etc. do not work very well with DOS. Many programs like
Borland TASM, and MS MASM crash the VM.

Maybe a simpler and easier route would be to go to the pawn shop,
Goodwill, flea markets, etc. and buy a desktop that will run DOS without
jumping through hoops.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 10.0.2
Thunderbird 10.0.2
LibreOffice 3.5.0 rc3

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Windows (98, anyway) has that limit too, natively. Allegedly it should
manage 800x600x16 too, with the same core support (native SVGA
driver), but it won't work for me. Maybe that's a monitor limitation
but doubtful given that once a full Windows install is built with
video driver added, it can do it.

(Technically anything above 640x480 isn't VGA anyway, and according to
Wikipedia the picture is a whole lot more complicated than the usually
assumed SVGA=800x600 and 1024x768, and XVGA=1280x1024 and perhaps
1600x1200, before all hell breaks loose in so many new formats that it
starts to look silly.)

Well, on my old computers i use svgacc.lib for graphics
in C and fortran, and i have 16, 256, and rgb color available,
and all without special drivers( et4000 and et6000 xvga cards).
It is downright disappointing to see a "mode not supported" square
floating across the screen.
Tried to load vesa software support on my XP, but that did not
improve things.
Back to my old computers....(60 Mhz pentium2,xvga vesa support and
ethernet package driver support, ISA video grabber and 8 channel 12 bit
ado, 4channel dao).
PS: I have to dump a few of those old machines, running out of space...
But nice for spareparts.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

So I download DOS 7.1, then what? Do I have to install this on a thumb
drive to boot from it, and then do I cd to the directory with the
program I wanna run?

The program is not a game, btw. It's an emulator that runs ROMs
(games).

You could boot DOS from a USB drive or CD, and then create a RAM disk
via a line in autoxec.bat. If your app requires TEMP space, then SET
the TEMP directory to your RAM disk. Otherwise, if your app writes to
some other directory on the disc, then copy your app to your RAM drive
and launch it from there instead. All this could be done automatically
via appropriate lines in autoexec.bat.

If you could be more specific, perhaps one of us could expand on this
for you.

BTW, how much disc space does your DOS app occupy and how much RAM
does it require?

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Industrial One]

You could boot DOS from a USB drive or CD, and then create a RAM disk
via a line in autoxec.bat. If your app requires TEMP space, then SET
the TEMP directory to your RAM disk. Otherwise, if your app writes to
some other directory on the disc, then copy your app to your RAM drive
and launch it from there instead. All this could be done automatically
via appropriate lines in autoexec.bat.

If you could be more specific, perhaps one of us could expand on this
for you.

BTW, how much disc space does your DOS app occupy and how much RAM
does it require?

The application itself is around 300 KB, the roms are between 2 to 6
MB. RAM usage shouldn't be above 60 MB.

I set up DOS 7.1 with Virtualbox because this was more intuitive than
having to restart the comp every time to get around issues. This
virtualization shit is kinda cool, the only disappointing thing is the
fact that I can't browse my regular OS from it. The only way I could
copy files to the virtual DOS is making a CD ISO of the directory with
my app and loading from there.

This has failed, though. There is no sound and the emulator freezes
the moment I tried to load a game. How do you set color depth on
Virtualbox btw? It says its on 32-bit and needs 16-bit but I don't see
such option anywhere.

 

[piper]

Okay so either boot into DOS or use a VM, which one would result in
faster performance? I'll assume DOS.

So I download DOS 7.1, then what? Do I have to install this on a thumb
drive to boot from it, and then do I cd to the directory with the
program I wanna run?

The program is not a game, btw. It's an emulator that runs ROMs
(games). Emulating an emulator with DOSBox was... an apalling
experience. Vegan hackers would probably nail me to a cross for
wasting so much energy.



Because I have no floppy drive.

Adding a floppy drive is pretty easy as long as there is a space in your
case for it. You can buy one on ebay for probably $10 or less.

Another option. There are old computers everywhere for free or a couple
bucks. Most still work. It's only MS that makes them worthless with
their newest bloated OSs. Just get a second computer. Watch craigslist
and local garage sales and auctions.

I'm posting this from a Win98 computer. I still have Dos. I refuse to
use any MS bloatware without dos. I have XP on one computer and never
use it. You couldn't give me Vista or Win7 for free. I still use lots
of Dos apps.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Adding a floppy drive is pretty easy as long as there is a space in your
case for it. You can buy one on ebay for probably $10 or less.

Many newer computers do not have a floppy controller on the
motherboard, so it isn't always quite that easy. Also, the last
company that makes one of the critical components necessary to
manufacture floppy drives has discontinued that product, so the floppy
drives currently on the market right now are all that there are ever
going to be (unless someone commissions them to make another batch,
which seems unlikely).

 

[dg1261]

That could ease the situation in the long run, but only when it has
driven people to make good low level virtual machines. But when they
do, the idea of any OS being 'obsolete' will vanish, because people
will no longer need to guard against hardware becoming unavailable to
run them, and they can use whatever suits them so long as some virtual
machine will run it on the hardware they want. This is an ideal
method, just not one we have much of, yet. Most VM's are still too
high-level, too OS dependent. Silly really, given that 32 bit
protected mode (and the Tenberry version used by Partition Magic, etc)
are all low level, showing that it can be done.

I have nice dreamy visions of multiple cores running one HUGELY fast
W98. All that raw power there for programs instead of the OS
chewing lots of it... Or one fast new machine allowing two virtual
computers to run on one VM layer. The VM would in effect be one big
complex static VXD driver, and the computers running on it would have
no idea they weren't on dedicated hardware made for them.

Yes, decoupling the computer from the hardware! That's where I thought
the industry was headed when I began using VMs 7 yrs ago. I've been
sadly disappointed. We should have been there by now.

I had visions of everyone carrying around their own personal "computer"
as a VM on a flash drive of some fashion, with the hardware computer
being merely a VM shell that the BIOS would boot straight into. You
could carry your own "PC" in your pocket, plug it into a VM shell at any
library, kiosk, coffee shop, or friend's house, and you'd instantly have
your own computer with your own OS and your own apps and everything.

Maybe I'm pessimistic, but now I feel we'll never get there. The
lemmings are stampeding to the Apple strategy of walled gardens, app
stores, and abdicating control of your machine to the corporate
establishment. Microsoft is following suit, as evidenced by their UEFI
BIOS and their change of course with Windows 8. Once the desktop PC
market becomes entrapped in the mobile way of doing things, it will be
too late to change.

 

[Industrial One]

Guys, how do I edit the config.sys to set up sound since I can't
access my fake DOS machine with my real machine? Also, I noticed the
cursor on the emulator is being limited to a larger grid of some sort
so it doesn't go as smoothly as I remember.

To whoever suggested using an old computer, I already still have my P4
and I'll die a happy mofo if I don't have to use it ever again,
m'kay?

I prefer to enjoy the high speed of my new i7.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Maybe a simpler and easier route would be to go to the pawn shop,
Goodwill, flea markets, etc. and buy a desktop that will run DOS
without jumping through hoops.

Indeed - in fact depending on what country you're in and what laws it
has, you may even be paid to take it away!

But you did say you have your "old" P4 machine and would be a happy
bunny if you never had to use it again.

You may find that, if you turn it into a DOS machine (or DOS and W98 [SE
lite or anniversary edition], with the boot menu turned on so you can go
straight into DOS), that you'll never have to use what you remember
again, if what you remember is that machine struggling to run XP; you'd
probably find that it is the bee's knees running pure DOS. And if it
hasn't got a floppy, I think a P4 machine will be old enough that there
will at least be a floppy connector on the mobo (and you should be able
to get a gash floppy, even if new ones aren't being made much).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The main and the most glorious achievement of television is that it is killing
the art of conversation. If we think of the type of conversation television is
helping to kill, our gratitude must be undying. (George Mikes, "How to be
Inimitable" [1960].)

 

[Industrial One]

That's down the emulator details. I don't know them. But I do know that DOS
programs often used sound from the PC speaker, not at all the same as using
some sound card. Either way the emulator will have to make whatever access is
needed. If yours can't, you'll have to find one that can. Also, if running on
W98, beeps sent to the PC speaker usually come out as single short clicks.. An
emulator may or may not be able to over-ride that. There are small 'beep'
programs around that do at least prove that it can work. Sound cards ought to
be easier, the emulator is a windows program, and should use one as any other
windows program would. After that, the program it's supporting should work
without knowing anything about it. If you can't use a config.sys setting
exactly as normal, the emulator should be telling you what to use instead..

Which driver do I install? I've been told Soundblaster16 but I see
multiple versions all over the net. Do I have to find one according to
my mobo or something (I thought the damn VM was supposed to take care
of this)?

Also, whats a good mouse driver? I've tried a couple but they all
feature a cursor locked to a grid. Does one of them have smoother
navigation?

Btw, I'm on DOS 6.22 now. People recommended to ditch 7.10 because it
was unstable or something.

 

[Industrial One]

I don't know. If there are lots, you'll need to try one, and have a way to
restore all of the original config, and try another till something works.
Whatever you read, anywhere, you'll need to do this to be sure. The VM IS
supposed to take care of it. Should provide the IRQ and everything. The main
problem is that timing might be critical. Just as some games might dependon
a hardware clock speed, and run badly in an emulator, so might timing
functions for sound output. Only trying stuff will reveal the extent of
hazard.

Okay, is there a repository anywhere? They are scattered all over the
place. DOSBox runs the emulator fine and I'd be using it right now
were it not dragging on like pissed-on Playstation. Is there a way to
figure out which Soundblaster driver DOSBox uses so I can use it in
DOS 6.22?

DOS screens are text based, the pattern is usually 25, 43, or 50 lines, and
40 or 80 characters. Even if you have a mouse cursor that appears to move
smoothly, you can still only address the position of one character in a DOS
text screen.

I understand, and I don't care about the smoothness inside the DOS OS,
I care about the smoothness inside the emulator program.

DOS 6.22 is a good choice. DOS 7 isn't unstable, it just lacks some of the
DOS 6 tools because it's made as a base for W9X. You might have version
conflicts preventing some imported older DOS tools from running. You can use

What version conflict? I installed 6.22 on a brand new VM.