Favorite version of x86 DOS?

[OldTimeCoder]

I started with 1.1, then 2.11 and used that for the longest time although I did purchase 3.1 and 5.1 but did not really upgrade until 6.22 which I still use today. Everything below 6.22 has lousy memory usage and for the most part way too bulky to use on a regular basis. I was a programmer and as such 2.11 was small, quick, and did its job well. It was bad enough to compile and link a decent program back in the day. And so with time at a premium you went with what was the quickest and that was 2.11. When I upgraded to a 486 with 3.5" floppies I had to upgrade and on that machine used 3.32 until 6.22 came out.

The best thing about 6.22 is that it can access huge amounts of memory, well over the 64 meg limit with the right software.

 

[Caluser2000]

The best thing about 6.22 is that it can access huge amounts of memory, well over the 64 meg limit with the right software.

Just copy a himem.sys from a Windows 9x/ME system to your DOS system and "hey presto!!" Should work on earlier versions of 6.x too I believe.

 

[Ole Juul]

Just copy a himem.sys from a Windows 9x/ME system to your DOS system and "hey presto!!" Should work on earlier versions of 6.x too I believe.

The problem with HIMEM.SYS is that it's 130K and according to some, obsolete. JEMMEX is 100K smaller! I think that Microsoft lost interest in HIMEM before it was really mature because they didn't need it for their Windows product, but what do I know?

 

[Caluser2000]

Hey if it works does it really matter what method is used? I've heard of folk having issues with JEMMEX posted of various forums. My point was that accessing 64+ in dos is quite trivial and 6.22 isn't all that special. As you've mentioned you just need some core files and extend it as one sees fit.

Of course any legacy Dos and acompanying software that is not "supported" is generally considered "obsolete". It still didn't stop me getting a brand spankers OEM MS Dos 6 package last week for a whole $2 though . Non of that silly scandisk nonsence ah

Yeah yeah I know-Fools and their money and all that...........................

 

[Ole Juul]

Hey if it works does it really matter what method is used? I've heard of folk having issues with JEMMEX posted of various forums. My point was that accessing 64+ in dos is quite trivial and 6.22 isn't all that special. As you've mentioned you just need some core files and extend it as one sees fit.

Whatever works indeed. I've just been spending the evening with JEMMEX problems in fact. Funny, because it has has been perfect until I switched to a CF drive. But getting rid of SMARTDRV fixed that. Don't ask. It's bugging me.

However, since I got rid of smartdrv, it seems that LYNX crashes/locks the machine. If I do not include "noems" then it's happy and the problem appears fixed, except then I don't have room for my network card driver up top. It's a weird combination of what works and what doesn't and I still haven't found the sweet spot. I'm trying JEMM386 and HIMEMX instead of JEMMEX. I may indeed try the EMM386 again, but I think it's going to be too big for my setup. There's a lot of rebooting going on around here tonight! Good thing I'm not running a mainframe or the whole town's lights would be blinking.

 

[vwestlife]

The problem with HIMEM.SYS is that it's 130K and according to some, obsolete. JEMMEX is 100K smaller! I think that Microsoft lost interest in HIMEM before it was really mature because they didn't need it for their Windows product, but what do I know?

Actually, HIMEM.SYS is required for Windows 95, 98, and ME to load! But I don't think HIMEM.SYS was ever that large, at least in a Microsoft or IBM version of DOS. In MS-DOS 7.1 (a.k.a. Windows 98SE), it is 33,191 bytes on the disk, and once loaded, only takes up 1168 bytes of conventional memory.

Speaking of which (sort of) -- I've found that using the Windows 98SE version of EMM386.EXE with IBM's PC DOS 7.0/2000 solves the problem of the computer locking up when you press Ctrl-Alt-Del, which had been bugging me on several 486 and 5x86 systems; the original PC DOS version of EMM386 would always lock up upon Ctrl-Alt-Del, even with the ALTBOOT parameter.

 

[Caluser2000]

Whatever works indeed. I've just been spending the evening with JEMMEX problems in fact. Funny, because it has has been perfect until I switched to a CF drive. But getting rid of SMARTDRV fixed that. Don't ask. It's bugging me.

However, since I got rid of smartdrv, it seems that LYNX crashes/locks the machine. If I do not include "noems" then it's happy and the problem appears fixed, except then I don't have room for my network card driver up top. It's a weird combination of what works and what doesn't and I still haven't found the sweet spot. I'm trying JEMM386 and HIMEMX instead of JEMMEX. I may indeed try the EMM386 again, but I think it's going to be too big for my setup. There's a lot of rebooting going on around here tonight! Good thing I'm not running a mainframe or the whole town's lights would be blinking.

Good luck. There were very good memory managers available back in the day. The likes of QEMM, QEMM386 etc. Of course one of MS Dos 6.22 main features was the option to choose different boot setups, via batch files on startup depending on what you wanted to do. Looking through some old early 90s pc mags most folk tried to get that "sweat spot", the reality was it just was never really achievable for some with different settings being needed to carry out different tasks, using either various boot disks, a menu of some sort or batch files(which effectively gave you a menu to choose from anyway) to get the config they needed. It's part of the whole retro experience if you will.

OT: Just got my Warp v3 setup back under control again yesterday. What's cool is you can have one or a number of different dos sessions, the built-in pc dos or any dos-pc/dr/ms etc booting off floppy if you want without rebooting the machine. All this on the desktop and 16megs of ram. And of course you can run the OS/2 cli at the same time. Not bad considering it's age and one reason I guess it was marketed as a better dos than dos. Of course it's all history now but fun to tinker with.

Nice tip vwestlife.

 

[Pepinno]

OT: Just got my Warp v3 setup back under control again yesterday. What's cool is you can have one or a number of different dos sessions, the built-in pc dos or any dos-pc/dr/ms etc booting off floppy if you want without rebooting the machine. All this on the desktop and 16megs of ram. And of course you can run the OS/2 cli at the same time. Not bad considering it's age and one reason I guess it was marketed as a better dos than dos. Of course it's all history now but fun to tinker with.

That deserves a screenshot, me thinks.

 

[njroadfan]

The Tandy Sensation I just picked up has Helix Hurricane 2.03 installed. I recall this software getting better reviews then QEMM at the time, but its very Windows centric. None of the configuration utilities run in DOS, and most of the focus is increasing Windows GDI resources or speeding up 32-bit disk access. The machine does have well over 600k conventional memory free in DOS though.

 

[Caluser2000]

That deserves a screenshot, me thinks.

oh all right..
Baron Baldric in the a dos window, os/2 prompt and drdos 6.0 initial installation running. Best viewed in 800 x 600 and 256 colours

 

[Ole Juul]

Actually, HIMEM.SYS is required for Windows 95, 98, and ME to load! But I don't think HIMEM.SYS was ever that large, at least in a Microsoft or IBM version of DOS. In MS-DOS 7.1 (a.k.a. Windows 98SE), it is 33,191 bytes on the disk, and once loaded, only takes up 1168 bytes of conventional memory.

Oops, I was just blindly quoting what I had just been reading on an older FreeDOS thread. My mistake.

Anyway, perhaps the MS version has something going for it and I was just about to give it a second chance, but I managed to solve my problems with JEMMEX finally, so that gets to stay - for a while anyway. I think I may have had a problem because I had forgotten to exclude the mono (B000-B7FFF) range and perhaps JEMMEX may have grabbed it automatically. I'm not sure. The other problem with not being able to use NOEMS without LYNX locking up was solved by loading and unloading CWSDPMI in the start bat rather than letting LYNX do it by itself. I'm not sure why that works but it does. So, it looks like I have a smooth working system again.

Good luck. There were very good memory managers available back in the day. The likes of QEMM, QEMM386 etc. Of course one of MS Dos 6.22 main features was the option to choose different boot setups, via batch files on startup depending on what you wanted to do. Looking through some old early 90s pc mags most folk tried to get that "sweat spot", the reality was it just was never really achievable for some with different settings being needed to carry out different tasks, using either various boot disks, a menu of some sort or batch files(which effectively gave you a menu to choose from anyway) to get the config they needed. It's part of the whole retro experience if you will.

I've got QEMM but haven't taken the time to get into it. To me this is not really a "retro experience" but a practical every day working machine. I don't do too badly at finding the sweet spot because I rarely run any applications - being almost exclusively a utility and batch file person.

 

[WBST]

How do the DrDos variants compare? ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/pc/caldera/

I have used both DR-DOS 5+ with Personal Netware Lite, and NDOS 7+ (Novell bought out Digital Research and developed the pair farther) which I used on PS/2s back in the days of Model 80s and 10Mbps Ethernet adapters. Very capable memory management and Network Support (LSL + IPX/SPX), but superceded by PC-DOS 6.1/6.3 and above which incorporated the excellent Central Point PC Tools (v9?) utilities and backup capabilities.