WIN XP and DOS Emulation

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio, I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486 to
program the radios.

Now these same programs don't seem to do anything except open a dos window.

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

"Follow The Money" ;-P

 

[JeffM]

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?

DOSBox is one of several solutions listed here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...unsupported+no+last.modified+GPL+tax+text+DOS

 

[The Real Andy]

Most of the time, it is because OS/2-WinNT based software, namely
Windows 2000 and Windows XP, limit direct access to hardware or
there is an expectation in the program for a specific memory interface,
ie: extended ram, expanded ram, himem.sys, emm386.sys.... or there is
an expectation of certain interrupt in dos that maybe modified under the
OS/2-WinNT environment.

You might try a program called DosBox found at http://www.dosbox.com. It
allows you to run some of those programs that won't run under the Windows
CMD or Command Prompt. It works for some old programs that I still like
to use.

You could also try Microsoft Virtual PC with DOS installed, thats
provided you have a copy of DOS to install. VPC is a free download
from MS.

 

[LargeMarge]

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio, I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486 to
program the radios.

Now these same programs don't seem to do anything except open a dos window.

DOSBox is a great DOS emulator that allows me to run all my old DOS
legacy apps, and would actually give you proper access to your serial
ports. For old legacy apps, you just need to keep the port settings to
9600 baud or below. There are still ini files in use in Windows, you
know. That is where the serial port settings are kept at and referred to
from.

http://www.dosbox.com/

 

[MooseFET]

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio, I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486 to
program the radios.

Now these same programs don't seem to do anything except open a dos window..

You can upgrade to Linux. Dos programs work very nicely under
"dosemu" on Linux. "dosemu" even does nice things like make your USB
based RS-232 ports appear as installed RS-232 ports at the normal
addresses.

The only serious short coming of "freedos" (the dos you install with
doemu) is that recursive batch files have a limit of three levels.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

.

You can upgrade to Linux. Dos programs work very nicely under
"dosemu" on Linux. "dosemu" even does nice things like make your USB
based RS-232 ports appear as installed RS-232 ports at the normal
addresses.

The only serious short coming of "freedos" (the dos you install with
doemu) is that recursive batch files have a limit of three levels.

I just compiled and installed that dosbox on Linux,
it seems to emulate a complete DOS PC, and it even sort of runs vrs.exe
(3D flight simulator, well, its an old game that runs on almost nothing).
Ticking sound in the sound, no idea why.... could be the settings.
This is way better then dosemu, and I did not even have to 'install',
just ran
../configure
make
cd src
../dosbox
from an xterm.
Then mounted a disk with some dos programs from within dosbox.
mount c /root/my_dos_programs
vrs.exe
HOWEVER it tries strange things with my harddisk:
dmesg:
hdc: packet command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: packet command error: error=0x54 { AbortedCommand LastFailedSense=0x05 }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
ATAPI device hdc:
Error: Illegal request -- (Sense key=0x05)
Cannot read medium - incompatible format -- (asc=0x30, ascq=0x02)
The failed "Read Subchannel" packet command was:
"42 02 40 01 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 "
Now hdc is the CDROM in my case, so it cannot do any harm I suppose, but
check with dmesg if it does not corrupt anything on your system.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

I just compiled and installed that dosbox on Linux,
it seems to emulate a complete DOS PC, and it even sort of runs vrs.exe
(3D flight simulator, well, its an old game that runs on almost nothing).
Ticking sound in the sound, no idea why.... could be the settings.
This is way better then dosemu, and I did not even have to 'install',
just ran
./configure
make
cd src
./dosbox
from an xterm.
Then mounted a disk with some dos programs from within dosbox.
mount c /root/my_dos_programs
vrs.exe
HOWEVER it tries strange things with my harddisk:
dmesg:
hdc: packet command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: packet command error: error=0x54 { AbortedCommand LastFailedSense=0x05 }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
ATAPI device hdc:
Error: Illegal request -- (Sense key=0x05)
Cannot read medium - incompatible format -- (asc=0x30, ascq=0x02)
The failed "Read Subchannel" packet command was:
"42 02 40 01 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 "
Now hdc is the CDROM in my case, so it cannot do any harm I suppose, but
check with dmesg if it does not corrupt anything on your system.

But does it play DOOM 2?

 

[[email protected]]

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio, I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486 to
program the radios.

Now these same programs don't seem to do anything except open a dos window..

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

"Follow The Money" ;-P

have you right clicked on the .exe and set the emulation properties?

 

[Jan Panteltje]

But does it play DOOM 2?

Have not played doom for soo long, and that was a doom version for Linux!

 

[Glenn Gundlach]

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio, I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486 to
program the radios.

Now these same programs don't seem to do anything except open a dos window.

Athlon XP (4years old) is just fine with MS-DOS 6.22 in multiple boot.
I have a machine at work that boots DOS, Win XP pro, or Win 98se. On
the faster machines there were some quirks in DOS with Borland's CRT
unit that caused "divide by 0" errors (IIRC) but a patch fixed that
up.

G²

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Have not played doom for soo long, and that was a doom version for Linux!

I really liked that game, esp the music.

 

[Tim Williams]

But does it play DOOM 2?

Indeed it does! But why would you want to waste it on that, when there are
(besides the original Linux port that id wrote) a rich variety of compatible
executables? I'm partial to PrBoom (by TeamTNT), and for shiny graphics,
jDoom does it in OpenGL. So there, get doomin'! ;-)

On a similar subject, it also runs Descent nicely...

Tim

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

have you right clicked on the .exe and set the emulation properties?

I tried that but didn't see DOS emulation as a selection.

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

"Follow The Money" ;-P

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Athlon XP (4years old) is just fine with MS-DOS 6.22 in multiple boot.
I have a machine at work that boots DOS, Win XP pro, or Win 98se. On
the faster machines there were some quirks in DOS with Borland's CRT
unit that caused "divide by 0" errors (IIRC) but a patch fixed that
up.

G²

I will look into that. I did download DOS BOX and it seems to work
somewhat. I will have to build batch files to execute this stuff. The
command line is tedious.

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

"Follow The Money" ;-P

 

[Nicholas Sherlock]

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio, I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486 to
program the radios.

Now these same programs don't seem to do anything except open a dos window.

Try running your programs under DOSBox. It's a more complete emulation
of an old DOS machine, and supports serial ports.

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

 

[Mycelium]

Indeed it does! But why would you want to waste it on that, when there are
(besides the original Linux port that id wrote) a rich variety of compatible
executables? I'm partial to PrBoom (by TeamTNT), and for shiny graphics,
jDoom does it in OpenGL. So there, get doomin'! ;-)

On a similar subject, it also runs Descent nicely...

Descent 3?

 

[TheM]

I will look into that. I did download DOS BOX and it seems to work somewhat. I will have to build batch files to execute this
stuff. The command line is tedious.

Seems to run old dos tango pcb well under XP. I used to run virtual machine with
Win98 inside XP to open and export old pcb files from Tango. Now I have a better
solution, a big "thanks" is in order.

M

 

[TheM]

Descent 3?

Ahh, now I remember. My very first and only LAN game party.
Everyone brought their PC, we setup a LAN and did Descent.
I remember it was a flight sim of sorts, flying was in the tunnels
under ground. But this was like 20 years ago before internet.

M

 

[JosephKK]

Ahh, now I remember. My very first and only LAN game party.
Everyone brought their PC, we setup a LAN and did Descent.
I remember it was a flight sim of sorts, flying was in the tunnels
under ground. But this was like 20 years ago before internet.

M

Twenty years ago has not been "before Internet" for a decade already.

Usenet user since 1983.

 

[JosephKK]

Athlon XP (4years old) is just fine with MS-DOS 6.22 in multiple boot.
I have a machine at work that boots DOS, Win XP pro, or Win 98se. On
the faster machines there were some quirks in DOS with Borland's CRT
unit that caused "divide by 0" errors (IIRC) but a patch fixed that
up.

G²

This supports my contention that most BIOS's setup the machine to look
like a basic PC (actually about AT class) before trying to boot the
machine from disk.