Serching for DOS equivalents of Windows applications.

[Toyota AE86]

Hi

Recently i got an old Compaq on which i installed DOS 5. The system runs fine, but it lacks built in applications, becouse of that I would like to ask for help in finding DOS equivalents of according Windows applications:

-Tiny CAD

-GIMP

-VLC media player

-Microsoft Photos

Also it would be nice if those DOS applications would be open source.

Thanks for all answers

[mahyar]

specs? 

you'd be better using linux

[Eigenvektor]

And how exactly would you run any of these on a text mode OS? You're probably better of with Windows or Linux.

 

I mean, there were games etc. on DOS, but the software would have to take care of initializing the graphics mode. Pretty sure no modern software (that is not a game) does that. Also there's the whole 640K lower memory limitation of DOS... Seriously, use Linux.

[mahyar]

2 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

And how exactly would you run any of these on a text mode OS? You're probably better of with Windows or Linux.

windows out of question but something like tinycore might work

[Eigenvektor]

1 minute ago, mahyar said:

windows out of question but something like tinycore might work

Not sure what "old Compaq" means exactly, but yeah my favorite would be some flavor of Linux. Especially since all the apps (or equivalents) mentioned above are available on Linux.

[Toyota AE86]

1 minute ago, Eigenvektor said:

Not sure what "old Compaq" means exactly, but yeah my favorite would be some flavor of Linux. Especially since all the apps (or equivalents) mentioned above are available on Linux.

Pentium III 128MB RAM, also it is not gonna be used as my main or anything like that, i just wanted to expirence DOS (Yes i know i could use virtual machine for DOS but it's not the same)

[svmlegacy]

Expecting DOS to do modern workloads is not giving you the DOS experience you're looking for.

 

Seriously. A Pentium III cannot decode HD Video. I've tried.

[Eigenvektor]

Just now, Amforev said:

Pentium III 128MB RAM, also it is not gonna be used as my main or anything like that, i just wanted to expirence DOS (Yes i know i could use virtual machine for DOS but it's not the same)

As someone who lived through the DOS era, not something I would do voluntarily. Specialized "autoexec.bat" for certain games, just to have enough of that precious 640K lower memory available for that one game, no thanks And Windows 3.1, yay.

 

If you want to do some retro-gaming, I guess go for it, but if you want to watch videos etc. I'd rather go for a Linux distro with a lightweight desktop.

[Toyota AE86]

Just now, Eigenvektor said:

 I guess go for it, but if you want to watch videos etc.

I should have specified that by VLC media player equivalent i ment program for audio playback, my bad sry.

[mahyar]

7 minutes ago, Amforev said:

Pentium III 128MB RAM, also it is not gonna be used as my main or anything like that, i just wanted to expirence DOS (Yes i know i could use virtual machine for DOS but it's not the same)

vert similar to my first pc accept i had ram and for dos you'd better go with vm  and the only thing that machine can run is win xp or tinycore 

[Nayr438]

What are you planning to do with the Machine?

With a Pentium III and 128MB of ram I would probably run Windows 95 or 98, however if your really set on DOS I would probably go for FreeDOS personally which is compatible with DOS applications.

 

FreeDOS

https://www.freedos.org

 

FreeDOS Software

https://www.freedos.org/software/

 

There are some archives floating around for DOS Applications, however it may be against the forums policy for me to share those.

[Sauron]

55 minutes ago, Amforev said:

Pentium III 128MB RAM, also it is not gonna be used as my main or anything like that, i just wanted to expirence DOS (Yes i know i could use virtual machine for DOS but it's not the same)

Way back when DOS was new people used their computers very differently. Don't expect to be able to just install a modern audio player or graphical editor. I'd be surprised if you could even find suitable audio drivers for your system or codecs to play anything other than low bitrate WAV files. When the Pentium III came out DOS was already quite obsolete - yours is a Windows 2000 era machine.

[Wild Penquin]

What others said, I agree!

 

The question really here is "why"? If it is just because you want to know what one can and could do in DOS, just because you have too much free time, then go for it. Otherwise, it just doesn't make much sense.

 

There are media players for DOS, but they are audio only. I've used cubic player, and it can play practically any audio file if the computer has enough horsepower to play it. So, it is kind of "VLC for DOS", but for Audio files only. A Pentium III should be able to handle any MP3, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC file, so you can use such an old machine as a DOS Jukebox, if you want to. (EDIT: seems like Cubic player does not support ogg vorbis / FLAC, though, only MP3, tracker file formats, direct CD playback etc.)

 

DemoScene was quite big back in the day, and there were loads of music trackers floating around (Fast Tracker II, Scream Tracker, Impulse Tracker...). There are still modern trackers today and some are in active development (modplug tracker? Milky Tracker?), but most home music making software have evolved into something a bit more advanced. After all, a music tracker is a bit of limited as a concept by todays standards, but many home studio software still can have some elements of their UI and can do everything a tracker could, and a lot more.

 

I recall I used to play with Deluxe Paint and similar drawing applications back then.

 

DOS did have some business applications at the time. I never used them, as I was a gaming teen but something like WordPerfect comes into my mind (seems like it still exists as a trademark, but it's history is indeed very long, seems to even predate DOS). I don't remember other names at the moment, perhaps CorelDraw? There probably were some CAD applications, but they will probably be very, very rudimentary and more complex to use. I would imagine having to parametrize everything by typing, and for any kind of preview of something complex, wait for 5 seconds or more for the render to complete. CAD was a thing, but serious CAD designers and businesses had something more powerful and expensive (PowerPC workstations?) and/or the workflow was much, much more different, probably awkward by todays standards. But I'm a bit guessing here since I'm too young to actually having used any kind of CAD in DOS.

 

I don't ever recall seeing a video player for DOS. Moving digitized video on home computers was a curiosity back then, and the quality was not something you would actually want to look for a prolonged time. I recall seeing Media Players capable playing some kind of video in windows 3.11, but it was not HD, not even SD, but something way, way worse. HD space and optical media could not have been able to hold large enough files anyways, even if some processors could have been fast enough for SD video.

 

After HDDs became large enough and optical media more common - SD video crept also into computer screens. Media space was the last bottle neck, I believe. But that was in Windows 9X era.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Wild Penquin

[Wild Penquin]

I came back to visit this forum and actually made a quick Google Search for DOS media players (I do have a retro DOS gaming computer so I have some interest to use it for media playback for show-off purposes... doesn't make sense otherwise!).

 

I found some interesting pages:

https://www.4dos.info/dhardw.htm

http://dosprograms.info.tt/sound.htm

 

Those pages have other interesting software than media players, too.

 

Bottom line: DVD players seem to exist for DOS. Seems like more modern audio formats (FLAC, OGG Vorbis...) can be played back. Quite possibly because some hackers decided we need to do this "just because we can". Most probably majority, if not all, of the more advanced media players was made indeed after Win9X was already the main OS on home PCs.

 

But I didn't scour those pages thoroughly / actually try any of these (yet). A Media Player (for DVDs / SD Video) / Jukebox running DOS is feasible. Does it make sense? No! Is it cool? H**** YEAH!