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What do you do with your DOS machines?

antiquekid3

antiquekid3

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
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593
Location
Alabama
Hey guys,

As the title asks, what DO you do with your DOS machines? Do they sit and collect dust? Do you run programs on them that you can't run on a modern machine? Do you turn them on every now and then to get a feeling of nostalgia? Maybe you just like fixing them?

Or another question might be, why DO you collect computers? I collect all sorts of antiques because I like preserving our past. It also gives me a chance to discover/appreciate just how well-built these machines are. I can't say the same about a lot of stuff made today.

Kyle

P.S. I hope this thread isn't too general!
 
Heck no--most of my DOS systems also dual-boot to something else (usually Win2K or 98SE or some flavor of Linux for networking), but they're indispensable for running old and even new hardware. Later OSes make accessing I/O spaces (port or memory) much more difficult.
 
I don't think that DOS machines are obsolete, and certainly not necessarily vintage. I've encountered several people lately who only use DOS. It is still the OS of choice for blind people with computer skills.

I have two main machines. One is currently Linux and the other is always DOS. The DOS machine is not vintage as I put it together with the fastest (but free) hardware that the OS could use. It's purpose is to handle text. I use it a lot every day. It is networked and files move effortlessly between it and the rest of the world. For command line work on other machines such as installing software on my partner's machine which is located upstairs from mine, I can just as easily use DOS and often do. An example of other text based networking would be updating a web page on a remote server simply by typing one short command. I always get a kick out of that! - no tedious mouse click, click, clickking. Yes, other OSs can do the same, but it is far easier to automate your daily needs in DOS. To someone like me who thinks that text rulez, and even though I am almost as comfortable with Linux on the command line now - DOS is still king.

Although my DOS use is generally not vintage, there is nothing stopping me from using a 1987 machine of some kind to do the same. It is mostly the speed of a modern hard drive and instant response for processing that makes me REALLY like DOS on "newer" hardware, but if I wasn't doing much local file management, then telnet off a floppy would be as good as anything modern.
 
deadcrickets said:
I've created a pure DOS, early Windows gaming system. Mostly to go back and play games I wasn't able to buy when young.
Click to expand...

That certainly sounds interesting. I have a couple of dos machines that don't get used much except for hardware testing. Having a gaming system like you describe would make them even more fun to have around.

You say you made it, do you let people use it? It really does sound intriguing.
 
I use some for old games, others for old apps. The app machines are combo DOS/Win3.xx mostly because they are all networked to make it easier to back up and move files as needed.

It is fun for me putting together killer machines (DOS in this case) and running the old apps I had back in the 80's and 90's or just trying out the ones I wanted but could not get back then. Having a nice DOS era software collection (that I keep building) helps out quite a bit, and I expect someday to use the programming languages to actualy do something constructive.
 
I run DOS 7.1 on my 'DOS' machine. It's not a vintage machine. I'm using an HP Pavilion 7845 for my DOS and old 'stuff' needs. It also has Win 2000 for convenience.
I don't even know how old it is, probably about 10 years, I would surmise. It fits the bill perfectly for me, being what I'd call an 'intermediate' machine. It's not classic vintage like an old 286 or 386 or even a 486 - but I had to strike a balance between old and new. I wanted to be able to have the storage capacity of larger hard drives, the convenience of a USB port, and CD ROM drive.

I started my PC adventure in early 1993; (before that I used Commodores - VIC-20 then C-64, and before that a TRS-80 Model 1.) In 1993, I briefly had a Magnavox Headstart Explorer, which was a 386 machine with a flip open keyboard, a CGA monitor, 3.5" floppy, and a 40 meg HD. As I recall it only had 512K of RAM too. Anyway, it was a cool machine to get into PC's with for me. I then bought a new IBM PS/1 Consultant 486 SX 25 and that machine is where I did all my DOS work, BASIC work, and Windows 3.1 activity. I had to add a sound card and a CD ROM to the PS/1, for it came with neither. I believe I paid around $1,000 for the base unit with VGA 14" monitor, and all I got was a 486 SX 25 with a 3.5" floppy and a whopping 130 meg HD. Since this was 'really' my 'heavy into' beginning with PC's - I went through a lot of software. Much of it is nostalgic to me (anyone remember Sidekick or PC Tools?) How about the cool western interactive CD game Mad Dog McCree?) Therefore, this period of time, mid 90's, becomes my computer 'lock in time'. Just as the 50's are my nostalgic growing up time - the mid 90's are my formative PC years.
Using old games and apps. from the 90's can really be fun now and then :)
 
What do you consider your "killer app" for DOS?

I particularly enjoy a satellite tracking program called STSPLUS:
stsplus1.gif
 
One thing I'd like to do someday (hopefully soon) is rebuild my old Compaq Presario 660, which I bought new in 1994. I have most of the parts, but they're scattered. And I'll probably have to rig up some rails for the CD-ROM because I know I don't have any of the weird Compaq rails. It'd be fun for Railroad Tycoon and Civilization, and probably would run really nicely off a CF card.
 
I keep two DOS machines in active form.
The non-vintage one is used as a testbed for FreeDos, the various USB solutions for DOS, and other dull business tasks. Companies with lots of DOS applications still running want to know if minimal upgrades would work or if they need to spent for a complete modern replacement. A little clutter is a modest price for knowing the answers to client questions.
The 486 is officially kept to determine if software that won't work on newer hardware or under a virtual machine work at all or if the disks/hardware have failed over the years. Really though, it's just a gaming machine for titles that need a slow CPU.
 
heh.. I used to run stsplus all the time but mostly just to make it look impressive. You can imagine my wall of computers with a few showing tv, some monitoring apps, and monitoring satellite movement. I never really got used to it enough to spot one in the sky though. Are the databases for it still being updated or have you entered things in by hand?
 
Not long ago I decided that I should archive all of the diskettes on my IMSAI machine -- a 1977 vintage system with 2 Northstar double density floppy drives. These use hard sectored media which can not be easily read with soft sectored 5.25" drives. Using assembly language, I wrote a program to run on the IMSAI which would read a diskette one track at a time and output the contents over a serial port to a DOS machine running a terminal emulation program. I was able to capture around 150 diskettes in raw format, including Northstar DOS, CP/M, and UCSD Pascal formats. I used an older laptop running Win98SE to receive the images.

After completing this project, I decided to create raw image files of all my original (factory label) IBM PC floppy's. I have around 300 of these, 5.25" and 3.5" media dating back to 1981 (DOS 1.0). I used a 486DX4 system running DOS 7.11 to do this. It has both types of floppy drives. I used INTERLNK/INTERSVR to transfer these files to my Win98SE laptop. This would allow me to write them to a flash memory stick and archive them on my "modern" desktop.
 
Being a 'relatively new' collector (with the limited budget to show for it!) I would have to say that I have them 'just to have them'...
I am partial to the (not-quite-so) early TANDY laptops... and have a (working) 1500hd w/ NEC V20/20mb, 1800hd w/ HARRIS 286/20mb, 3800hd w/ Cyrix 386sx/60mb soon-2-b 520mb... all with varying amounts of hard-2-find software on them.
I also have (broken) an 1800hd that was battery-damaged and is now considered 'parts', and a panasonic CF-270 and TANDY 2810hd... which are for all intents-and-purposes the same machine that, interesting enough, have the exact same problem... power-up issue... that I am currently diagnosing.
The 1500/CF-270/2810 have a proprietary ram SIMM design (35 pin) as opposed to the 'normal' 30 pin that is also used by the 1800 and 3800 machines. They are also built to take a proprietary modem 'cardlet' (2400/9600fax) that was common to all the models. Not exactly 'speedy Gonzales' but still would spend the $$ for one if I could find it.

I began this 'collection' IOT get another 2810 which I bought new when I was in the Navy. It and LotusWorks cut about 40 hours off our signal-processor-alignment time and got me a commendation for that.... Not anything 'fancy' but no one else knew how at the time...
It is not important to me (tho it may be to other 'collectors') but the 2810 I acquired happens to have a fairly low serial number... 000496. Yet another reason to get it working (along with the 'bragging rights' :D), while the CF-270 is a European (UK) model... not 'substantially' different but the keyboard is modified and there are jumpers to select the differences...

But I must not leave out my 'dinosaur'... the Tandy Model 4p I started out with... Tho not a DOS machine I got it mainly because I had wanted one back when I never dreamed of having that much money... It has been retrofitted with an IDE controller and sports a 2gb drive that it uses practically none of... Likely one of the 20mb laptop drives will be used to replace it... someday.
(.... and I wanted to resurrect the PROLOG-compatible Z80 assembler I wrote all-those-years ago... just 'cause.)

Supposedly the 1500/V20 can utilize CP/M software in an emulator and once I get that down it will likely be its reason-4-being... The rest... well, I just really like the design of these machines.... :mrgreen:
 
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Hi
I use it to run old DOS programs like assemblers and such. I also
use it to run my PROM programmer.
I also like to run FPC ( a Forth version ) in DOS. It doesn't
need to be in DOS, it could run in a window under xdows but
sometimes I like to play with direct access to hardware
( serial, parallel and floppy disk ). xdows gts in the way.
As an example, I have a paper tape reader with parallel
output. I've wired it so that I can read tapes with the parallel
port. Possible under xdows but not too easy.
Dwight
 
I collect old DOS machines to keep them alive. So young and old people can see and use them in my private computer museum. Time by time I play old ( very old ;-) ) DOS-Games. My application collection needs also a hardware to run on it. Most of my vintage machines are networked to a retro EISA-Server with Novell Netware 3.12 on it. There I save all diskimages of my original applications- und games-collection. Sometime I want to learn x86 assembler to program some tools for me.
 
I use a 486 DX-2 as my main DOS machine. It runs ImageDisk to support my other vintage computers, as well as Windows 95 for WinImage. I also use it with my PROM programmer, which doesn't function correctly with faster hardware (you have to burn everything on the slowest setting, and even then I get nearly 50% reject rate). When I finally get time for it, I'll be using the machine for C programming under DOS and possibly cross-assembly for 8080/8085.

Aside from that, there's a handful of machines that run DOS because of their age. My Leading Edge Model D runs DOS, as well as the IBM XT, AT, and the two PS/2 systems. The Big Blue systems run PC-DOS ("MS-DOS is for clones!"). I've also put together an IBM PS/ValuePoint 486 system for my girlfriend, who uses it to play some of the old DOS games she grew up with.
 
I think that my last real attempt at doing something with a strictly DOS machine was a couple years back when I was trying to make an old Compaq laptop (contura 3/25 I think...) function as an MP3 player. It struggled a little bit, but with a DOS based MP3 player from the net it was indeed doable, I ended up dropping the idea though after deciding that I didn't want to replace the little 50mb HDD.

Aside from attempting a real project I still play with DOS from time to time, I sometimes fire up an older machine to play some of the games that I remember from my childhood, as most of the old ones won't run correctly on modern hardware. I also find myself playing casually in qbasic at least once a year for nostalgias sake.

And to top it off, I still find myself using the command prompt on my modern Win7 machine, simply for silly little tasks that are just quicker that way. Not really DOS anymore, but the past experience is handy.
 
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