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Which OS would you use for each Proc?

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Smack2k

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OK, want to see what you'd do for each of these procs..which OS (DOS / Win / Both) and version would you put on each of these processors below? Each machine would have sufficient if not way above sufficient RAM and all other needs (Video Cards, etc...). Want these to play games on so each can be played on the systems they were meant for:

If anyone has other ideas or other OS's that would be cool to mess with, learn, please tell me as well!

286 (12 MHZ) - DOS 3.3?

386 - DOS ? / Win 3.1

486 (33 MHZ) - DOS ? / Win 3.11

Pentium 1 (75 or 100 MHZ) - DOS

Pentium 1 (166 MHZ) - Windows 95C

Pentium 2 (233 MHZ) - ?

Pentium 2 (350 or 400 MHZ) -?

Pentium 3 (450 MHZ) - Windows 98SE

AMD (650 MHZ) - XP at this point I figured as its up to that point.

I could also cut out some of these or try other stuff with them!


Thanks guys!
 
I havent delved much into OS/2 and PC-DOS yet, so I'm just inputting for MS-DOS and Windows.
For the 286: DOS 3.3-5.0 is what I'd use. If there's an OEM version of that DOS made for your machine, then I'd use that over generic MS-DOS.
386/486: DOS 5.0 or 6.22 is good. Windows 3.1 or WFW 3.11 if you're going to be running more network related programs on it.
Pentiums are where I'd start using Windows on. Windows 95 is a good choice. I have also used Windows 98FE on P1 computers.
For the P2s, I'd use Windows 98 or ME.
P3s you can use Windows 2000, XP, or 98 if you choose.
 
Remember when Windows 95 came out? Originally, it was said that 4MB would be sufficient, although that was later upgraded. I run iOSR2 just fine on 386/20 with 13MB and no cache. I could probably run NT on the same machine with no problems at all. Win98SE runs great on P1 and 486 boxes.

You guys are just too impatient.
 
Sometimes it is a RAM limitation and not just the CPU that limits what OS to use. When 95 came out it didn't have IE installed and none of the 3d that became direct3d so it didn't need that much RAM to install, but 16MB was what made it work decently. Eventually you needed 64MB for a decent Win 9x box (assuming you are going to run apps and not sit there looking at a screen saver).
 
8086/V20 - DOS 3.3*
80286 - DOS 5
80386 - DOS 6, Win 3.1
80486 - Win 3.11, OS/2 2.x
Pentium 1 (>166mhz) - Windows 95, Warp 3
Pentium 1 MMX (233mhz) - '95 OSR2, Warp 4, NeXTSTEP 3
Pentium Pro - Windows NT 4
Pentium 2/AMD K6-2 - Windows 98se

*DOS 5 used if memory can be expanded over 2mb.

I'm mainly spoiled by I have a large stockpile of good CPU's for the above sockets.
 
I basically run DOS 3.30 on 808x and 286 systems, as the only couple I have of those have less than a megabyte of ram. 386+ gets DOS 6.22 as they have a lot more free ram. Every now and then DOS 6.22 does get booted on the 286 motherboard, but not often as I don't have a case for it yet so I haven't upgraded the ram past a meg.
 
286 - DOS 3.3-5.0 and Windows 1.01
386 - DOS 5.0-6.22 and Windows 2.11 386
486 - DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11
P1 - DOS 6.22, Windows 95, and Windows 3.1
P2 - Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0
P3 - Windows 95 and 98
AMD - XP or 2000
 
For everything up to early Pentiums, I use IBM PC DOS 2000 or DR-DOS 7 with Win3.x. For a 486 and Pentium I would probably dual boot with NT4 or Win2K. I prefer NT4.
 
yuhong said:
Pentium II was released ~a year after NT4.
Click to expand...

You're right--I got that one messed up in my mind. I tried to think of what I was running when NT 4 came out--it was probably Pentium Pro that narrowly preceded NT 4.0.

But honestly, if the point of this exercise is obtaining an "authentic" experience, why not at least be free of anachronisms? I mean MS-DOS 1.1 will probably run on most x86 platforms (it requires only BIOS support), so running it on a 3GHz P4 hardly gives one the sense of an experience...
 
marcoguy said:
286 - DOS 3.3-5.0 and Windows 1.01
386 - DOS 5.0-6.22 and Windows 2.11 386
486 - DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11
P1 - DOS 6.22, Windows 95, and Windows 3.1
P2 - Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0
P3 - Windows 95 and 98
AMD - XP or 2000
Click to expand...

I will go with "Marcoguy" post, it is same as my answer so i'm satisfied with this post.:satisfie:
 
Period correct (its what I ran on machines back in the day)
486: DOS/Win 3.1x
Pentium: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0
Pentium II/III: Windows 98/2000
Super Socket 7: Windows 98
Athlon/P4: 2000/XP (pre-XP P4s were expensive and usually ran 2K)

btw, the post currently above mine is a spammer. Ignore it.
 
Just out of curiosity, why nothing later than DOS 5.0 for a 286? I'm sure 6.x doesn't add anything a 286 can really use, and it eats up a tiny bit more of the 640k. But other than that?
 
While you can certainly install Netware easily enough, I did for a while but quickly found a lack of entertainment from the OS ;-) Just another GUI on top of dos where you can create as many fake employees as you want to pretend to manage. You could use it for the popular file sharing for systems that were pre Windows 3.11 though. I was debating suggesting a linux or BSD distro, or perhaps BeOS which was beloved by many.
 
Some of the oldest Linux distros are probably not entertaining. I think I've still got the floppy-install Slackware somewhere, but other than for email, telnet and ftpl, I don't know what useful thing you could do with it today. I used it briefly for a UUCP setup.
 
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