VOGONS


Reply 41 of 50, by 95DosBox

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Jo22 wrote:
It didn't work the last time I checked. This was back in '96 or so, when my father used the orginal retail release of Win95 (4.0 […]
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Azarien wrote:

This may be related to FAT32 support. Someone could check if the original DOS 7.0 (without FAT32) works.

It didn't work the last time I checked. This was back in '96 or so, when my father used the orginal retail release of Win95 (4.00.950; no bloody A, B, C, or D).
I was curious, and tried to boot the start-up disk I created on his 386 machine on my 286.
I think it said something like "This version of DOS requires a 386 processor" or something along these lines.
Anyway, it would be cool if someone could try again and confirm this. 😎

So 95 Virgin DOS could boot up on the 386, but not the 286? What was the MHz and ram installed in each system if you recall? Was this the Win95 that came on a huge set of floppy disks?

Reply 42 of 50, by Jorpho

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It is in fact possible to get an actual Windows 95 installation running on a 386.
Slowest 386 practicaly usable with Windows 95 Chicago 4.00.950?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH9wNoioj6c

The Red Hill CPU guide also suggests the same trick is still possible with Windows 98.

Reply 43 of 50, by Jo22

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95DosBox wrote:

So 95 Virgin DOS could boot up on the 386, but not the 286?

Yes, that's how I remember. But it shouldn't hurt if someone checks again.

95DosBox wrote:

What was the MHz and ram installed in each system if you recall?

Thanks for asking, it was a 386DX40 w/ 16MiB RAM and two hard drives!
He used the primary one (150MB ?) for Win95 and the second one (250MB ?) for data.
To me, this was such a monster system (I ran DOS6.20/Win3.1 on a 286-12 w/ 4MiB and 40MB partition)! 😀
Oh, and he had a sound card installed originally, too, which he used a few years earlier to make recordings
of both of us when we were singing some good night songs together (oh gosh, was I little then). 😊 I think it was a SB Pro.
But later he sold it and installed speaker.drv instead.

95DosBox wrote:

Was this the Win95 that came on a huge set of floppy disks?

Hi, it was the original CD-ROM release, I think (he had a single-speed Mitsumi LU005 drive).
Perhaps it was the upgrade version, as he always has been an early adopter of such things.
He also had (still has) a set of Windows 2.03 and Windows 3.1 floppies, both 5.25". 😁

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Reply 44 of 50, by 95DosBox

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Jo22 wrote:
Yes, that's how I remember. But it shouldn't hurt if someone checks again. […]
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95DosBox wrote:

So 95 Virgin DOS could boot up on the 386, but not the 286?

Yes, that's how I remember. But it shouldn't hurt if someone checks again.

95DosBox wrote:

What was the MHz and ram installed in each system if you recall?

Thanks for asking, it was a 386DX40 w/ 16MiB RAM and two hard drives!
He used the primary one (150MB ?) for Win95 and the second one (250MB ?) for data.
To me, this was such a monster system (I ran DOS6.20/Win3.1 on a 286-12 w/ 4MiB and 40MB partition)! 😀
Oh, and he had a sound card installed originally, too, which he used a few years earlier to make recordings
of both of us when we were singing some good night songs together (oh gosh, was I little then). 😊 I think it was a SB Pro.
But later he sold it and installed speaker.drv instead.

95DosBox wrote:

Was this the Win95 that came on a huge set of floppy disks?

Hi, it was the original CD-ROM release, I think (he had a single-speed Mitsumi LU005 drive).
Perhaps it was the upgrade version, as he always has been an early adopter of such things.
He also had (still has) a set of Windows 2.03 and Windows 3.1 floppies, both 5.25". 😁

I do have an 8088, Pc Jr, a Tandy 1000, 286, 386, and 486. So I'll narrow it down when I get a chance to unearth them and set them up side by side for some legacy tests. So far I'm playing around with my last P4 for legacy SB and later Gravis Ultrasound testing since I never played with those. I think I also had an IBM sound card somewhere that I snagged years ago which I think Sierra supported these back in the day. I'm curious how it will compare to the SB which I was used to hearing all my games. Sometimes when I listen to a game on a non SB it sounds so foreign. The exception is the Roland MT-32. It really feels like another entirely different game with the extra instruments it had.

What were these "singing some good night songs together"? I had a mix tape of SB games at one point that I listened to in the car. 😀

If I can locate that set of Win95 Floppies set that should be Win95 Virgin or 95A. I can't see them releasing 95B as there were so many floppies and came on CD which was so convenient.

Will have to backtrack on each system to see where the maxes where when it came to OS support, memory max, hard drive capacity, and CD-rom capability with ISA slot. I remember it was a nightmare using a CDrom 1x speed with Warcraft that it became a necessity to copy it off the CD onto the hard drive and use a patch. It too up almost all the space of the hard drive but that was the only game I wanted to play for a time. CDrom either worked or didn't half the time with the DOS driver. And it used up a lot conventional memory which Falcon 3.0 didn't like. Speaker.drv was good on fast systems when no sound card installed.

Reply 45 of 50, by ruthan

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Very interesting thread.. I found it by trying to find info about DR-DOS and FAT32, im trying 7.03 with Vmware and Virtualbox and im not able to make FAT32 working as system or second data disk.

About MS-DOS 7.1 on 286, it thing that some 386 new instruction or some 386+ mode (above was linked very interesting text: http://www.redhill.net.au/c/c-2.html - look at 386DX-16 its almost fascinating) is probably required and because that some part of Win98 and their had there sys. requirements: 80486DX2 66 MHz+ probably nobody care to test with 286, even Win9x has paper cpu requirements - 386DX
Even few year earlier of Win 98, was quite normal that game simply wanted 486 cpu or refused to run, at least 1 game even wanted Pentium.. and its the same even now with some introduction sets as SSE2 etc, if i remember correctly that were recent problems with Far Cry 4 that game required at least Core i3 and someone has to crack / patch it for Pentium dual core and Celeron. I always though about such requirements as about normal thing, if there was enough performance with unsupported HW, there were usually some workaround.

BTW, im using Paragon software for quite few year, i knew that, there is quite a lot russian names here for german company, but this history is fascinating. Its shame that such data critical SW like they do are some many bugs, which a have encountered, but its still the best, other solutions are even more buggy.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 46 of 50, by ruthan

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Ok, i made FAT32 working with DR-DOS for up to 100 GB HDD, i didnt test more.
Re: Dos (Mainly 6.22 / 7.1 / Freedos) multitasking / task switching tools research

Now i have some problem with EMS size size, when is Taskmgr executed, if someone is able to help - bellow in link posted above.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 47 of 50, by Azarien

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dr_st wrote:

That sounds plausible. However - what prevents them from working? I doubt they are in any way aware of DOS 7.x versions, since they were written before that.

A program trying to access (write) disk sectors using the "old ways" of DOS 6 and earlier will fail, and a message will be displayed by DOS 7.x explaining what just happened.

It is a breaking change introduced in Win9x/DOS 7 preventing older disk utilities from working (and for good reasons).

Do they check specifically for FAT version?

I doubt that. FAT16 and FAT32 are too similar, and a program unaware of FAT32 will probably see the partition as a (terribly damaged) FAT16.
There is no version marker. The only thing distinguishing FAT12/16/32 is the number of clusters in the filesystem being in a particular range. This is why you cannot have FAT16 or FAT32 partition smaller than certain size, and FAT12 or FAT16 partition bigger than certain size.

What about LFN? Are they in any way aware of its existence?

They may see weird directory entries and ignore them as disk labels /who in his sane mind would put more than one disk label on a disk? 😉/ losing or breaking them in the process (certainly not recognizing as LFNs).

Reply 48 of 50, by Thallanor

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I have been experimenting w/ MS-DOS 7.10 in anticipation of receiving my SATA/PATA adaptor and a small SSD. I have not run into issues yet, though I've also not used any utilities, only games. The PC is theoretically capable of running Windows 95, but it does not run it well. Though I suppose I only need to get as far as booting to MS-DOS at that point. Windows 98SE is my preferred route, though I am waiting on additional RAM for that computer.

Basically, I guess the point is if you have the time, have a small selection of games and applications and give a few different OSes a spin to see what works for you. 😀

Reply 49 of 50, by ruthan

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I retested 166 DOS games with DR-DOS 7.0.1 + update 01.06 (its not last one but its last where both TaskMgr + FAT32 working are working) Vmware and Virtualbox machines, details here:
Re: Dos (Mainly MS 6.22 / 7.1 / Freedos /DR-DOS) multitasking / task switching tools research
BTW from 33 not working games, 11 is working with FAT16 partition but not with FAT32 partition (DR-DOS FAT32 implementation has free space reporting bug, all these games are working fine with MS-DOS 7.1 FAT32), any retesting and reports about problematic games on physical machine compatibility are welcome, im sure that some of not working games reports are virtualization bugs.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.