Can one still build a reliable DOS based system?

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put a want ad on craigslist for a 386 or 486. You'll be able to land a complete system for cheap, and likely locally. Goodwill usually has a bunch of systems too. Shouldnt cost you more than 10 bucks for the whole thing.

I much prefer to use DOS Box to run lemmings and Dangerous Dave...
 
I never had much luck with DOSbox got a lot of stuff to run but not quite right. I ended up building a bunch of DOS systems. IMHO it's the best way to go if you can find the parts. I have (3) 486's, (2) P90's and (3) P233MMX's using DOS 6.22, depending on the game you still need MoSlo. They are all tweaked to run DOS games at their original maximum settings and the autoexec.bat is set to provide 617k of base memory and I never met a game they wouldn't play.
The optimal setup is an original Pentium, a board with ISA slots, a SB ISA soundcard, and 16-32MB of memory. Almost all DOS games do not recognize PCI soundcards and DOS emulation through PCI is very problematic. You also need the DOS driver for your CD drive.
If anyone needs advice or parts on building a DOS system I have both. The advice is free, the parts will cost.
 
Who would have thought ther would have been this much interest in DOS and a system to run it on.
I thought for sure I'd be laughed off the board, but I am so pleased to find out I am not alone.
I will give CL a shot, but I may be asking for some parts beavercleaver....I have a case, a PSU, a floppy drive, keyboard and mouse. I guess all I need is a cpu, memory and a mobo to put them in...and maybe even QEMM (which I may even have in my "cabinet of unwanted cables, floppies and other once thought unusable software")....Thanks guys, you have given me hope that I can share my fave games with the kids....
 
Another poster was right in saying your best bet was to find an old system locally, but it's a tough find for stuff this old. Piecing it together through ebay or online is easy but expensive, shipping kills! You already have a case and PS and that's the biggest hurdle because of weight. Many of these old mobos take AT case's and PS's so check your parts and make sure they're compatible. I have several slot 1 CPU's, a couple socket 7 CPU's, various mobo's, some memory, VLB, PCI, AGP Graphics cards, Soundblaster ISA cards, and ISA modems and NIC cards (just in case you want to Doom deathmatch) I charge $5 a part + actual shipping (Mobo might be more depending on type) If anyone thinks that's too pricey feel free to check ebay, it's usually .01 + $10+ shipping! Forget the Qemm you won't need it. You can edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat to get 617k of base which is enough for every game I've tried. Depending on the mobo you may need a PS/2 to serial adapter for the mouse and a ps/2 to Dinn adapter for the keyboard. And last but not least, if you have any games on 5 1/4" disk, those drives are TOUGH to find in working condition. Hope that helps.
Ultima, Wizardy, System Shock here you come!
 
Acck! I almost forgot. DOS will only recognize a maximum of 2 gigs on a Hard drive. You can use bigger but it will only see 2 gig partitions. Really old mobos (486 and such the Bios would only see 512MB!) Optimal is to try and find a 4gig drive and divide it into 2 partitions using Fdisk. You must format in FAT16 NOT FAT32 (DOS won't see FAT32) and to add to my previous post I toss in cables and drivers for free when you buy stuff.
 
OK...almost forgot about all those DOS requirements...I have found some old AT parts around the ol' "cabinet", including an old PSU....But I could just get an really low end mobo, like a real cheap 775 or 462(A) and drop a really low end CPU in and lower the clock...right?That way I can drop in a cheap, but good ATX PSU...and say 256MB of RAM(DDR400)...I mean I found some of those for a total of like $75...and I could use an existing ATX case...throw in a low end AGP card (BIOSTAR GeForce FX 5200 128MB)...This should work, right?
 
I ran Doom1 (dos based) on XP, I couldn't make use of the better sound options, I guess they wern't suported.

If you get you mits on a server motherboard, many have EISA slots, wich are ExtendedISA, I think normal ISA cards can plug in, like an old soundblaster.

I don't know if a P3 can run DOS nativly. but I'd look for a P3 server myself.
 
I have an old P166 which runs DOS great (some sound issues though, its hard to find drivers for systems this old :lol: I'll have to go digging through my mountains of floppies :fou: ).

My issue is with Tie Fighter. My only non-USB joystick died. I did use a V3 racing wheel for a while (a skill/art that takes lots of practice) but I would love to get these old games to run on my new system. If I have time I'll try to play with it more over the weekend.
 
Friday.....get the word out to friends to have them ask thier friends if they have or know any one with really old computers, thats how I got all my old parts. Then I salvage the stuff to make a good system. Even got a hold of ISA video cards, sound cards, 2-button mouse, ps/2 keyboards and etc........Reading this post was great, hope your grandkids enjoy the great games of our time. :)
 
The problem with the 166 was that it didn't have any USB ports.

Anyway, I just was playing my DOS favorite TIE Fighter. It ran at the correct speed and had FULL working sound. My 166 couldn't play the music. I can't play it for real since I don't have a joystick here at college with me, but I am thrilled. I know what I will be doing this summer and next semester. Ah, the memories.

Edit: and I was doing all of this on my Core 2 Duo Laptop.
 
OK...no music, that would be a problem, especially in like DOOM and QUAKE....just have to have the music. Wrer you running DOS Box? If so, were you able to slow the clock cycles sufficiently? I tried Cutthroats and it was so fast it was unplayable....
 
This was on DOSBox. I had to play with the sound settings to get it working (I had to go into the game config settings and tell it what soundblaster DOSBox was using).

Surprisingly, the speed was perfect with no tweaking. I had tried Aces of the Deep and it seemed a tad fast, but Tie was perfect. Try some other games if you can. I'll try to see if I can improve AOD.
 
Hey, EXT64, appreciate the help and advice.....hope we can keep people posting here, so we can get some more info and knowledge to play those old, but fun, DOS games....Have already put out the word and may have an old 486 or even an old AMD CPU/MOBO by Monday from a co-worker...never thought about asking the peeps I work with....
 
The DOSBox readme says:

CTRL-F11 Slow down emulation (Decrease DOSBox Cycles).

Have you tried that? I'm going to try it now in AOD.

Hopefully the still have the drivers for those old comps. I suppose you could find them on the internet, though (I never tried). I know when my old Pentium crashed it was a pain to get Windows 95 and sound working again (I'm not sure we ever did fully).
 
Craigslist or Freecycler mailing lists for your area and ask for an older computer. I know my P3 machine back 1999 had an ISA slot if you need that.
Personally I wouldn't BUY anything for older Dos games and I LOVE Dos games. Use the free software approach 1st, then try a VM of of the OS or of Win95 (still Dos based).
 
Ok, I was wrong. It turned out AOD was running fine. For some reason the game kept turning time compression up to 2x. It wasn't DOSBox's fault.

So, both of my games are running fine. Only problem is a sound hiccup every now and then. Still, I'm very pleased and the games are more than playable.

Also, that CTRL-F11 didn't seem to do much, but I suppose you could try it on your hyperactive game. It didn't do anything on AOD (except make it eventually crash), but that could have been because it was running at the right speed. Try some other games when you get a chance. Maybe they will work better.
 
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