DOS! Forget all this android/linux nonsense

[enPfzr4v 239]

Try some more games! https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

[EskeRahn 5,460]

1 hour ago, david said:

Yes, just "a few."  lol  I think of it as the first version of Windows made for an office environment, with some networking pieces built in.  Horrible networking pieces, where order of things mattered in the network settings.

Those were the days. I knew what EVERY file on my pc was for and knew what EVERY setting in the ini-files meant, and what values they could have.... Totally forgotten most of that,,, But It was quite useful for support and educating supervisors.

[silversolver 849]

4 hours ago, VaZso said:

That is why it is not written as DoS.  😇 🙂

But what if we network our DOS? Does it then become DDOS? :P

[Hook 3,020]

21 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

Those were the days. I knew what EVERY file on my pc was for and knew what EVERY setting in the ini-files meant, and what values they could have.... Totally forgotten most of that,,, But It was quite useful for support and educating supervisors.

Exactly THIS.  I'm not an IT person or even a power user, but back then if you were willing to pay attention, learn, talk to people and do due diligence, you could come to know exactly what everything on your computer (or PDA) was doing and how to troubleshoot, tweak or optimize it.  You could also find great tools to make changes.  These days, I can't keep up and so much has become magic.  I don't like magic because you are usually not in control. 😉

[VaZso 1,998]

10 minutes ago, silversolver said:

But what if we network our DOS? Does it then become DDOS? 😛

There was Lantastic (Artisoft) that time which worked well (both as client and server) and Microsoft also had some network client with IPX/SPX and TCP/IP support for DOS.
Also, there were Novell Netware which was also a "network operating system" but practically is some kind of DOS.

Moreover, DDOS as Distributed Disk Operating System is not make much sense as distributing a practically single-threaded system over a computer network is not a really good idea.  

[silversolver 849]

2 minutes ago, VaZso said:

There was Lantastic (Artisoft) that time which worked well (both as client and server) and Microsoft also had some network client with IPX/SPX and TCP/IP support for DOS.
Also, there were Novell Netware which was also a "network operating system" but practically is some kind of DOS.

Moreover, DDOS as Distributed Disk Operating System is not make much sense as distributing a practically single-threaded system over a computer network is not a really good idea.  

But it made me smile. :)

[Craig 1,435]

12 hours ago, david said:

Which emulator is it?

Magic Dosbox for Android.  (Free version  - seems to have 64mb memory limitation)

Edited December 12, 2019 by Craig

[david 929]

32 minutes ago, VaZso said:

Moreover, DDOS as Distributed Disk Operating System is not make much sense as distributing a practically single-threaded system over a computer network is not a really good idea.  

TSR heaven. 😂

[david 929]

14 minutes ago, Craig said:

Magic Dosbox for Android.  (Free version  - seems to have 64mb memory limitation)

64 MB was quite a bit for computers originally running those games! 😂

[VaZso 1,998]

14 minutes ago, david said:

TSR heaven. 😂

Terminate and Stay Resident 🙂

[_DW_ 628]

16 minutes ago, david said:

64 MB was quite a bit for computers originally running those games! 😂

very!!  most only had 2mb think that was the minimum for doom?

[david 929]

4 minutes ago, VaZso said:

Terminate and Stay Resident 🙂

The original background processes. 😉

[VaZso 1,998]

Just now, david said:

The original background processes. 😉

Yes, that is why I used the word practically but wanted to write something like basically.

However, a TSR program had to take care a lot of things to not freeze the whole thing. 🙂

[Craig 1,435]

8 hours ago, CornholioGSM said:

oh...test to run GTA1 and GTA London if is it playable on keyboard

🙂

I tried GTA for DOS, seems to work fine with keyboard, other than issue present in many games, can't hit two keys simultaneously and that the Esc key isn't actually mapped to Esc, (which I hope are software issues fxtec will fix) so you have to pull up on screen keyboard (from dosbox) to do that, and for F keys also (F1 F2 F3) which I didnt need when I tested this game but have needed in other dos stuff...

I've never actually played GTA; shortly after starting it asks if I want  low color, high color, or 3D, if I say 3D I get a unable to load DLL fatal error, high color the screen goes blank once you get to the actual game part.  Only low color seems to work for me.  With further investigation it's probably possible to get it working fully tho, whereas with those other games they just worked first time.

[_DW_ 628]

27 minutes ago, david said:

The original background processes. 😉

oh yes.... those hidden little gems with secret key combinations to invoke 🙂

[david 929]

10 minutes ago, VaZso said:

Yes, that is why I used the word practically but wanted to write something like basically.

I figured that's why you said "practically." 😉

10 minutes ago, VaZso said:

However, a TSR program had to take care a lot of things to not freeze the whole thing. 🙂

Yes, they had to give control back to the system regularly.  No hardware multi-threading back then!

And thinking back about limitations on those early systems, especially Windows 3.1 and virtual memory (disk swapping), and how it slowed the system to a crawl, it is funny that I'm dealing with the same darn thing on my Relay 4G, with 1 GB of RAM, swapping to solid state storage.  640KB wasn't enough.  6.4MB wasn't enough.  64 MB wasn't enough.  640MB wasn't enough.  6.4GB isn't enough,for *me*, on modern Windows, but I suspect will be wonderful on the Pro1 (6GB).

[VaZso 1,998]

2 minutes ago, _DW_ said:

oh yes.... those hidden little gems with secret key combinations to invoke 🙂

...and keyboard remappers and memory management and the mentioned LAN solutions and PC slow down solutions and screen upside-down joke (I don't know if it was TSR or a setting somewhere) and definitively viruses and so on. 🙂

6 minutes ago, david said:

And thinking back about limitations on those early systems, especially Windows 3.1 and virtual memory (disk swapping), and how it slowed the system to a crawl, it is funny that I'm dealing with the same darn thing on my Relay 4G, with 1 GB of RAM, swapping to solid state storage.  640KB wasn't enough.  6.4MB wasn't enough.  64 MB wasn't enough.  640MB wasn't enough.  6.4GB isn't enough,for *me*, on modern Windows, but I suspect will be wonderful on the Pro1 (6GB).

However, Windows NT 4.0 worked well on a 486 DX2 80 processor clocked to ~100 Mhz and 20 MB of RAM.

...and about multitasking... the first CD-writers (of the speed of 1-2x) had relatively low amount of buffer.
There was CD-writer program also for Windows 9X series, but its co-operative multitasking leaded to wrong (and practically unusable) CDs because even a small movement of the mouse could cause the buffer to run out and those drives could not continue broken writings (only could write the disk "at once").
Under NT 4.0, on the same machine almost every CDs were written well also if mouse movement happened.

...and now this technique is also the past along with DVD discs or practically non-existent Bluray/HD-DVD. 🙂

[_DW_ 628]

Just now, VaZso said:

...and keyboard remappers and memory management and the mentioned LAN solutions and PC slow down solutions and screen upside-down joke (I don't know if it was TSR or a setting somewhere) and definitively viruses and so on. 🙂

However, Windows NT 4.0 worked well on a 486 DX2 80 processor clocked to ~100 Mhz and 20 MB of RAM.

...and about multitasking... the first CD-writers (of the speed of 1-2x) had relatively low amount of buffer.
There was CD-writer program also for Windows 9X series, but its co-operative multitasking leaded to wrong (and practically unusable) CDs because even a small movement of the mouse could cause the buffer to run out and those drives could not continue broken writings (only could write the disk "at once").
Under NT 4.0, on the same machine almost every CDs were written well also if mouse movement happened.

...and now this technique is also the past along with DVD discs or practically non-existent Bluray/HD-DVD. 🙂

NT 3.51 worked well on DX2 66 based systems 8Mb ram 😄  but windows 3.1 was a lot faster on the same box.

[VaZso 1,998]

2 minutes ago, _DW_ said:

NT 3.51 worked well on DX2 66 based systems 8Mb ram 😄  but windows 3.1 was a lot faster on the same box.

I have not used NT 3.51 but as far as I remember well, NT 4.0 was fast on that computer.

[silversolver 849]

2 hours ago, Craig said:

I tried GTA for DOS, seems to work fine with keyboard, other than issue present in many games, can't hit two keys simultaneously and that the Esc key isn't actually mapped to Esc, (which I hope are software issues fxtec will fix) so you have to pull up on screen keyboard (from dosbox) to do that, and for F keys also (F1 F2 F3) which I didnt need when I tested this game but have needed in other dos stuff...

I've never actually played GTA; shortly after starting it asks if I want  low color, high color, or 3D, if I say 3D I get a unable to load DLL fatal error, high color the screen goes blank once you get to the actual game part.  Only low color seems to work for me.  With further investigation it's probably possible to get it working fully tho, whereas with those other games they just worked first time.

It is possible that DosBox only offers VGA, not SVGA video. High color is a SVGA function, and often requires DRIVERS for DOS. Ah, the good old days! :)

EDIT: It's possible they're calling high color 320x240x256 color, as opposed to 640x480x16 color. Those are VGA modes. Anything higher is SVGA.

Edited December 12, 2019 by silversolver

[SchattengestaIt 559]

3 hours ago, Craig said:

Magic Dosbox for Android.  (Free version  - seems to have 64mb memory limitation)

That emulator is great.

I remember playing Age of Empires with Win 95 on my Droid 4. It was very slow, but a lot of fun. Also, it reminded me to my youth, when I got my first laptop and played AoE while driving home. Oh, the good old times.

[Craig 1,435]

15 hours ago, A Dude said:

yeah yeah yeah - but can it run Elite Plus?! *g*

 

It can.  But that's enough game testing for me, the main point to see if it was doable with Pro1 & it's keyboard, and yes, other than a few limitations.  Missing Esc and F-Key functionality.  Like that game needed F12 to exit.   Ideally F-keys can be implemented on the number row with the slant arrow or Fxtec key, and Esc key and be made to function as Esc.

 

 

[Craig 1,435]

33 minutes ago, silversolver said:

It is possible that DosBox only offers VGA, not SVGA video. High color is a SVGA function, and often requires DRIVERS for DOS. Ah, the good old days! 🙂

EDIT: It's possible they're calling high color 320x240x256 color, as opposed to 640x480x16 color. Those are VGA modes. Anything higher is SVGA.

In windows 3.1 I could go up to 1600x1200, but not with all colors.  for 256k colors 1024x768 was the max i think.  16m at 800x600.  if I remember right; I could verify if it matters.  But that shows dosbox handles SVGA, etc.

[VaZso 1,998]

29 minutes ago, Craig said:

In windows 3.1 I could go up to 1600x1200, but not with all colors.  for 256k colors 1024x768 was the max i think.  16m at 800x600.  if I remember right; I could verify if it matters.  But that shows dosbox handles SVGA, etc.

Maybe you had a display RAM of about 8 MB sorry, 2 MB 🙂

Edited December 12, 2019 by VaZso

[silversolver 849]

2 minutes ago, Craig said:

In windows 3.1 I could go up to 1600x1200, but not with all colors.  for 256k colors 1024x768 was the max i think.  16m at 800x600.  if I remember right; I could verify if it matters.  But that shows dosbox handles SVGA, etc.

Yes, but perhaps not with a set of driver handles that game understands. The S3 Trio64 was a very spec-ed card in its day, and not everything knew how to use it. Your resolutions choices are probably 1600x1200x16 colors (4-bit), 1024x768x256 colors (8-bit), 800x600x65k colors (16-bit), or 640x480x16m colors (24-bit). I had an actual 1M SVGA card running on Windows 3.1 back in the day, and for some stupid reason I remember this stuff.