Hello Eric Auer!
Original message from Eric Auer, 2016-06-18 19:14: > Hi anonymous Abwesend forum member who is pessimistic about DOS ;-) > >> Running FreeDOS on real hardware can be challenging. > FreeDOS no, old DOS games yes. No offence, FreeDOS is of course a modern project. But DOS is an old conpect for an operating system. >> FreeDOS on the other hand is a very old operating system concept. > Old concept yes, old operating system no. This means: DOS > has no multi tasking and no 64 bit address space, so your > modern computer will be bored: Only a single CPU core and > at most 3 to 4 GB of RAM can be used inside DOS. Which is > of course a lot more than old DOS games ever could imagine. DR DOS had a multitasker. > This leads to the next problem: >> Running it on modern hardware will very often result in some features >> not working correctly. DOS games often required an AdLib or SoundBlaster >> audio card. For AC'97 and Intel HD-Audio sound, there are no DOS drivers > Old DOS games do not use "DOS drivers" for sound. They could > not imagine that games would have any more fancy sound card > available than a stereo SoundBlaster. So the games THEMSELVES > contain drivers for SoundBlaster. DOS kernel is unable to tell > a game that it must use your computer has 7.1 channel surround. > This is where DOSBOX and similar special tools comes into play: > > DOSBOX can show your game a SIMULATION of a SoundBlaster card > and capture all sound from that simulation. It can then send > the sound to your REAL sound card so you can hear the sound > from the front speakers of your surround system :-) Note that the SoundBlaster DOS drivers (.SYS) did the exact same thing on DOS: since modern SB cards were hardware-wise completely different cards, namely Ensoniq, they had to provide "drivers" that would enable you to continue to play games (and programs) written for the original SoundBlaster (1.x or 2.0, Pro and 16). The SoundBlaster 16 PCI cards already used Ensoniq chips and were incompatible with the ISA SoundBlaster - the DOS driver worked as an emulator for the original SB. > Note that you CAN run a modern media player for DOS, which is > aware of surround sound cards, to enjoy MP3 & OGG on modern PC. Yes, but bit number of original DOS programs cannot use modern sound hardware. > Is there anything else than sound which has problems in DOS on > modern hardware, when playing old games written in the 1990s? > > Note that DOS also does not involve networking in the operating > system itself: You may have a DOS web browser which supports a > common packet driver interface. The DOS kernel does not care if > you have packet drivers or web browsers. So because you will not > find a packet driver for your wireless network, the DOS kernel > can not help your DOS web browser to use a wireless network. > > Which other "dozens" of drivers do you miss? Interesting topic! 1. The network hardware is one example. For every ISA network card you had a DOS driver, and sometimes even a proprietary protocol (NetWare). 2. I don't know if there is one, but a CPU throttling driver would be a good thing. One that supports Intel (Enhanced) SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow!/Cool'n'Quiet. Reading the ACPI tables would be required. Turning off the remaining (unused) CPU cores would reduce power consumption and enhance the thermal situation. 3. USB devices like USB sound cards, USB video cards (enabling you to use a second/third/... montior) will not work. USB video capturing devices (WebCams, analog TV, DVB, ...) will also lack drivers and a usable protocol. 4. Some input devices like keyboards and mice don't work correctly, or additional functions are not accessible (additional mouse buttons/wheels). Again, there is no DOS driver to program these functions. 5. Is there a DOS driver for USB joysticks? I know that analog joysticks on the MIDI port (gameport) will likely work, but do digital protocols work as well? 6. How is the support for graphics cards? Are there tools to add additional VESA modes if they happen to be missing in the BIOS? 7. I recently re-installed a IDE/ATAPI Zip Drive (250MB). I guess there will be a DOS driver available for this one. How about other exotic storage devices? And will USB Zip Drives also work in DOS? (I know that parallel port versions and IDE versions do, but USB?) 8. But the worst incompatibility of them all is the lack of CSM (Compatiblity Support Module) on modern UEFI machines. Or does FreeDOS run on EFI/UEFI? I know, this may not be a dozen, but a lot. Depending on the actual hardware and on the requirement of the to-be-used (legacy) software. IMHO, for games lack of sound and mouse/joystick support really is the fun-killer. > Cheers, Eric Cheers as well, the anonymous userbeitrag. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and traffic patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols are consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow, J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. 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