Running an important DOS Application

[itzzzleo]

Hi,

I have the following problem:
We have an old (almost ancient) PC in the company that has been running the same software for about 20 years. The software is indispensable for us and there are no versions for newer operating systems.
The PC is now getting slower and slower and with every day we have the risk that the hard disk dies and with it the software is lost. The original installation file is on a floppy disk, but we have no idea if it is still readable and would have to buy a floppy reader first.

 

My task now is to get the whole thing running safely with as little money as possible.

It is about a logistic software, with which we calculate costs for framing paintings. We really need to be able to print from this software.

 

With DOSBox, the program runs on Windows 10, but we can not print. A few IT people before me have already tried to start the whole thing via DOSprint, but that doesn't work either (according to them).

The next problem: We don't have a test PC, so I have to develop a working system first so we can buy the things we need.

 

I thought of the following:

Either I build a cheap Win10 machine and try it with DOSBox and DOSprint, or I try to get the right hardware for an XP machine from somewhere, then clone the hard disk from the old PC and then put it into the new XP PC. Does this sound feasible? What would you guys recommend?

 

Thanks

[Andrewtst]

The easier way, buy a HDD and clone current HDD to a new one as emergency to prevent it total break down.

 

Then just spare others time to test in new cheap PC.

[itzzzleo]

4 minutes ago, Andrewtst said:

The easier way, buy a HDD and clone current HDD to a new one as emergency to prevent it total break down.

 

Then just spare others time to test in new cheap PC.

That's true, I have thought of that as well.

Might be the better thing to do at first, but we still need to replace that computer someday.

 

Is there anything I have to keep in mind when buying a HDD for this old thing?

With SSDs you have to do some kind of 4K-Alignment, does this affect HDDs as well?

[Andrewtst]

27 minutes ago, itzzzleo said:

That's true, I have thought of that as well.

Might be the better thing to do at first, but we still need to replace that computer someday.

 

Is there anything I have to keep in mind when buying a HDD for this old thing?

With SSDs you have to do some kind of 4K-Alignment, does this affect HDDs as well?

Your PC probably very old and cannot support current bigger capacity HDD.

 

Check the manual or online search what is the biggest capacity of HDD that PC can support. 

 

It is better don't use SSD, they will have issue on Windows XP that will reduce the life span of SSD due to Windows XP not support TRIM command.

[LWM723]

Clone and backup the hdd and find a pc with a floppy and copy that floppy. You can find an old xp machine for next to nothing (or nothing). Do this ASAP in case of disaster, and then play around to see if it will work in a newer machine.

[itzzzleo]

Thanks, will do that!

[An0maly_76]

If running DosBox within Win10, a simple solution for printing (if it can all fit on one screen), is to hold Shift, then press PrtScrn (Print Screen), which does a screen dump to the clipboard. This screen dump can then be pasted into Windows Paint 3D or most any other image editing software using Shift-Insert or Ctrl-V, and from there you need only trim the image and adjust the image editing app's print attributes to center and fit to the page as desired (landscape / portrait, etc). Kinda low-tech and primitive, but it should work. You're simply transferring a screenshot of the desired information from a medium that can't print it to another medium that can.

 

As to the existing PC, if it runs Win10, I presume it is new enough to have a SATA interface, and hopefully it is new enough to be SATA III. If so, it's likely a simple upgrade to a standard 2.5" or 3.5" SATA SSD with a fresh Win10 install and the required software will be sufficient. And in my experience with DOS machines back in the day, unless some obscure copy-protection was used, most DOS applications could simply be copied path-for-path from one drive to another.

 

But keep in mind the HDD isn't the only thing you need to worry about. Power supplies eventually fail as well, and I've seen one such failure nuke an entire system to the point the HDD was knocking its heads against the inside of its case. And if the one app is all this machine really needs to do, you don't really need an entire new build, you can likely score a decent refurbished i5 / i7 or early Ryzen workstation through Amazon or eBay for under $200.

 

However, if for some reason a simple cheap machine replacement or 2.5 / 3.5 SSD upgrade isn't feasible, and the machine has SATA III or can be upgraded with an interface card, I'd like to share a hack I'm doing on an older SFF workstation I'm repurposing as a web / media machine, that may help your situation in keeping this machine running. I had to improvise due to space and drive bay restrictions.

 

Below are three items needed to adapt a SATA M.2 to a SATA III interface. From left to right, a SATA power splitter adapter cable (may not be necessary in all situations), a SATA III to SATA M.2 adapter, and a cheap 256GB SATA M.2 SSD. Together, they create an extra drive that can even be used as a boot drive, and can tuck neatly away where nothing else can fit when space is tight.

 

The only thing required is an open SATA data control port, and if it is needed to be a boot drive replacement, it must be on the first SATA port and available for OS install. Total investment was around $31, though you can get faster and larger versions of the SATA M.2. NOTE: M.2s also come in NVME / PCIE3 / 4, and not all systems can boot from a PCIE card, the reason I chose this solution for my situation. An added bonus is that the original floppy installation files can likely be offloaded to a separate backup folder on this as well for long-term preservation. If this interests you as a viable option, check out this thread of how this idea came to me.

 

Edited June 25, 2022 by An0maly_76
Revised, more info

[LWM723]

@An0maly_76 If it's that old it's probably an IDE drive.

[Roswell]

You could always just run XP in a VM. Keep the VM paused so it’s always ready to be used, wouldn’t require much memory at all for an XP guest.

 

You could also just buy a used XP machine on eBay for 20 bucks.

[An0maly_76]

  

1 hour ago, LWM723 said:

@An0maly_76 If it's that old it's probably an IDE drive.

1 hour ago, Roswell said:

You could always just run XP in a VM. Keep the VM paused so it’s always ready to be used, wouldn’t require much memory at all for an XP guest.

 

You could also just buy a used XP machine on eBay for 20 bucks.

I'm not sure why XP keeps coming up -- OP has stated Win10 running DOSBox. Maybe it's to-may-toe, to-mah-toe, but I'm confused here as to why XP keeps coming up.

 

@LWM723 If it's running Win10, I doubt it, but in that case... This might work...

 

 

 

[LWM723]

@An0maly_76 The pc is 20yrs. old. The win10 must be another pc, read the original post.