So here's an oddball question....how new can a PC be and still have DOS run?

[Radium_Angel]

I'm considering putting together a DOS system, not a DOSBox emulator, but actual DOS PC.

But the vintage gear out there is well and above what it's wroth to a casual tinkerer like myself.

So, how new can a PC be before DOS won't run on it?

 

[Middcore]

I know LGR did a "installing DOS on a Ryzen PC" video in 2017. I don't know what the result was if I ever watched it.

[Windows7ge]

Kind of dodging your question a bit but are you familiar with FreeDOS? It runs on most modern platforms strait from USB. Can be installed easily using Rufus. Works well for playing classic games, text editors, and upgrading BIOS and other system firmware.

[Chris Pratt]

Not sure, but you probably need something at least before the advent of UEFI. Pretty sure you're going to need an old school BIOS to even have a hope.

[BondiBlue]

This video might be good for you to watch:

 

[Radium_Angel]

20 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

Not sure, but you probably need something at least before the advent of UEFI. Pretty sure you're going to need an old school BIOS to even have a hope.

That part I expected, I was thinking things like PCIe video cards (do they still even speak "VGA" 640x480 anymore?) and SATA SSDs, not to mention even modest C2D systems have 2GB of RAM...

[mariushm]

Socket AM3+  / FX series processors would still work.  No idea about what Intel cpu generation would be the last.

 

You can get socket AM3+ motherboards with some chipsets that have integrated graphics... maybe socket FM2 would also work. Socket AM2 would still be quite powerful, you can use some Athlon II x4 or Phenom or whatever ... not like DOS games can use multiple cores.

 

 

[Error 52]

FreeDOS will work on modern machines, though not without issues.

 

Fun fact: I actually saw a Lenovo laptop for sale with pretty decent specs (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Ryzen 3 3250U) that came pre-installed with FreeDOS. Obviously that's to get the price down by cutting the Windows license fee, but I'm still confused by them not going with Ubuntu or something.

[Beerzerker]

Socket 754, 939 or even a really old Socket A with a lesser Duron chip can, in fact all of these can do it just fine.
For Intel, Socket 478 and 775 are definitely ones that can do it, 1366 and even 1155 should be able to no prob.
However I honestly don't suggest 478, those are power hungry, run hot and even for this just not a choice way to go vs the rest, even when compared to Socket A itself.

You don't need a high-end setup since DOS was originally made to run on hardware with lesser specs than all the system types/sockets named here.
Even a basic machine just being tossed on the curb nowadays can do it, provided it works at all.

DOS 6.2 or any form of DOS from back in the day doesn't recognize multi-core chips anyway for what they are (Didn't exist when these DOS versions were created) so a single core will more than suffice.
You can use them if you want though.

BTW FreeDOS I'd think should be able to recognize and run multi-cored chips so be sure to explore that version first.

For an AMD, out of these obviously a 939 is the best and cheap to get.

For Intel, 775 is an excellent candidate because those can be found cheaply too, boards and chips that will work.

More or less any setup that runs DDR would do well with it regardless. 
Lots of options to go with here for such a build.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Windows7ge said:

Kind of dodging your question a bit but are you familiar with FreeDOS? It runs on most modern platforms strait from USB. Can be installed easily using Rufus. Works well for playing classic games, text editors, and upgrading BIOS and other system firmware.

So what happened in this LGR video then? because he tried freeDOS and it barely worked… no sound, messed up colors…

 

[Beerzerker]

One thing I forgot to mention, you will probrably be limited to IDE or SCSI drives only IF using DOS versions 6.2 or older because SATA didn't exist back then when the older DOS versions were made.
Could be by now there are drivers for these but I'm not aware of any for them, that also makes FreeDOS something to check before committing to the "Real" older versions of DOS.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

Pretty recent.  Any PC with a CSM can still do it, but we're starting to see units without them, which are pure UEFI, and they won't do any known build of DOS.

[Windows7ge]

20 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

So what happened in this LGR video then? because he tried freeDOS and it barely worked… no sound, messed up colors…

 

Don't know what to tell you. I'm only making suggestions based on my experience using it. Of course everyone's experience isn't going to be the same so your mileage will vary depending on what you need it for.

 

For me and my applications it worked very well. That's all I'm saying.

[Mark Kaine]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Don't know what to tell you. I'm only making suggestions based on my experience using it. Of course everyone's experience isn't going to be the same so your mileage will vary depending on what you need it for.

 

For me and my applications it worked very well. That's all I'm saying.

ah, ok i was just thinking maybe he did something wrong, even though lots of comments are also saying sound  didnt work for them on new'ish hardware. 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

17 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

One thing I forgot to mention, you will probrably be limited to IDE or SCSI drives only IF using DOS versions 6.2 or older because SATA didn't exist back then when the older DOS versions were made.
Could be by now there are drivers for these but I'm not aware of any for them, that also makes FreeDOS something to check before committing to the "Real" older versions of DOS.

for LGR it worked on 500gb ssd, even though comments suggested he made several mistakes… in the end i think he only formatted 2MB on the drive… lol

 

 

12 minutes ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

Pretty recent.  Any PC with a CSM can still do it, but we're starting to see units without them, which are pure UEFI, and they won't do any known build of DOS.

yeah, but same question as above, what about sound, and colors etc… basically it seems super easy to get DOS to work on newer hardware, but getting it to work properly not so much…

Are there any guides, etc? id just be curious , id also love to somehow have dual boot option for win 10 and DOS, it'd be kinda funny.

[Radium_Angel]

45 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

sound

That's another fun one right? Do "modern" sound cards speak Soundblaster compatibility? This might be even more of a challenge than the time I got WinNT 4.0 running on a C2D laptop (complete with wireless and USB....that was a trick)

 

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

That's another fun one right? Do "modern" sound cards speak Soundblaster compatibility? This might be even more of a challenge than the time I got WinNT 4.0 running on a C2D laptop (complete with wireless and USB....that was a trick)

 

i mean i only have that LGR video to go by for now, but he said it doesn't work. but he also said older pci (?) cards might work, but i think he didnt even try…  good video, but i wish he had tried to get it to work properly, i bet it would be possible with a lot of workarounds and tinkering…

 

On the other hand it seem AM3 would be your best bet, probably without encountering a lot of bugs. 

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

ah, ok i was just thinking maybe he did something wrong, even though lots of comments are also saying sound  didnt work for them on new'ish hardware. 

 

 

Admittedly my focus for using FreeDOS wasn't for retro games. I did get some games playing for a time. Pong, Centipede, Pacman, Paratroopers, etc. I was using it as more of a production tool and it worked well for that.

[Radium_Angel]

2 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

i mean i only have that LGR video to go by for now, but he said it doesn't work. but he also said older pci (?) cards might work, but i think he didnt even try…  good video, but i wish he had tried to get it to work properly, i bet it would be possible with a lot of workarounds and tinkering…

 

On the other hand it seem AM3 would be your best bet, probably without encountering a lot of bugs. 

The video (just watched it now that I am home) sort of highlighted to me the issues I had been expecting, namely video and sound issues.

Dunno, have to give this more thought and see if going back to my DOS days is really worth it or not.

(queue dreams of QEMM, Stacker technology, fiddling with autoexec.bat, and so forth)

[Zodiark1593]

13 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

The video (just watched it now that I am home) sort of highlighted to me the issues I had been expecting, namely video and sound issues.

Dunno, have to give this more thought and see if going back to my DOS days is really worth it or not.

(queue dreams of QEMM, Stacker technology, fiddling with autoexec.bat, and so forth)

A bit, but not far before my time. My first PC used Windows ME. How I didn’t jump ship to Mac from then on, is a question I sometimes ask myself 

[Beerzerker]

6 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

A bit, but not far before my time. My first PC used Windows ME. How I didn’t jump ship to Mac from then on, is a question I sometimes ask myself 

ME itself used 6.2 DOS DOS 8.0 under the hood and all the commands for DOS are relevant for it. The difference is you didn't have to much of anything DOS related yourself in terms of keying in commands. When ME came out the OS was largely as it is now - Just click and go instead of type, hit enter and then go.

[Mattias Edeslatt]

9 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

ME itself used 6.2 DOS under the hood and all the commands for DOS are relevant for it. The difference is you didn't have to much of anything DOS related yourself in terms of keying in commands. When ME came out the OS was largely as it is now - Just click and go instead of type, hit enter and then go.

 

No, from Windows 95 the DOS-version was MS DOS 7.0 and Windows ME had MS DOS 8.0

 

With MS DOS 7.0 you got support for VFAT that allowed filnames longer than 8.3 characters and from version 7.10 you got support for FAT32 and file-sizes over over 2 GB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS#MS-DOS_7/8_(as_part_of_Windows_9x)

[Beerzerker]

12 minutes ago, Mattias Edeslatt said:

 

No, from Windows 95 the DOS-version was MS DOS 7.0 and Windows ME had MS DOS 8.0

 

With MS DOS 7.0 you got support for VFAT that allowed filnames longer than 8.3 characters and from version 7.10 you got support for FAT32 and file-sizes over over 2 GB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS#MS-DOS_7/8_(as_part_of_Windows_9x)

Thanks for the corrective reminders -  It's easy to get things crossed up; Esp after all this time.
Haven't messed with my copy of ME for about 15 years now at least but still have it anyway.
 

[Mattias Edeslatt]

Yeah, I had to read up on some of the features myself as I didn't remember them correctly 

 

I was sure of that there was something with HDD:s and partitions over 2 GB and FAT, but I couldn't find it.

[Beerzerker]

I do recall ME being the first (And last) 9X OS that used FAT32, all the others before were FAT16 or older.

XP could use it too if you wanted but 9X OS's themselves were done when XP came along.
Win 2000 was the first to use the NTFS file system that's commonly seen now.