I believe you can't squeeze DOS sound out of this laptop. It's soundcard is incompatible with standards that DOS games utilize; and there's no PCMCIA slot to add a compatible external sound solution. You will have to use DosBox if you want DOS games with sound.

It does have a PCMCIA slot! and i am not interested in using DosBOX I want a proper DOS system!

ZaphodB wrote:

It does have a PCMCIA slot! and i am not interested in using DosBOX I want a proper DOS system!

Seems I have been mistaken. Then you should find yourself a PCMCIA sound card compatible with DOS.

I never had any PCMCIA soundcards, but these (DOS-compatible) ones are rumoured to exist:

- Roland SCP-55 (which is said to be a combination of SCC-1A and RAP-10)
- Yamaha PCC10-XG (MIDI music only)
- NewMedia WaveJammer
- IBM PCMCIA 3D sound card

The Yamaha PCC10XG is not DOS-compatible.
For the other models, check the link in my signature.

I'd suggest an older notebook, the D600 already has a Pentium-M. Given enough RAM it would run Windows 7 (without Aero).
For DOS the best bet would probably be something in the 300 MHz region, those models usually had an ISA based sound solution. The 500 MHz models already switched to PCI sound. (Maybe SB emulation for those works?)
For Windows 3.11 the machine is much faster than necessary, Windows 3.11 runs great on a 386 or 486 already, even a Pentium would be overkill.

You could try installing Windows 98SE. If you can find drivers for all important components you could try to run DOS programs from within Windows in which case Windows would hopefully emulate SB sound.. Old 16-bit Windows programs should also run.

Actually the overkill (and the fact the machine was free) is the entire point of using it!

I do have a 233MMX toshiba Tecra but that requires the use of the external disc drive (location unknown) and plenty of 'vintage' hardware (P200s, 486s, 38's, 286's even an 8088) but those are all desktops and easy to runs such things, I fancy doing somthing differnt. My main interets is the old 8bits though I have IDE and MMC cards on my BBC B and have it doing a few things it really should not be able to (telnet and FTP over TCP/IP)

Yeah, that laptop's probably too new for this. Drivers page:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/Pages/Drivers/latitude-d600-all.html

See the "historical" sections for Windows 98 drivers. I don't see any AC97 drivers for Win98. You might be able to do Win98 and a PCMCIA sound card...

what if you use win 98 would still need PCMIA card?

Maybe if I find the time I will try to install Win98 on my D600 on a separate hard disk. Since XP is soon retiring to retro status I'm looking for a new notebook anyway.
I suppose there are no Windows 98 drivers for something more common like a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS as well?
Maybe a USB sound device?