I fully understand you guys, and you are giving me the best advice to be able to play classic DOS games on a future-proof system.
I'm currently away from home (working in another country) so I have to settle with playing my classic DOS games on my
ASUS EEE 901 20G via
DosBox ... until I got this old ISA-less rig off my girlfriend (
AthlonXP 1500+, ASUS A7V8X-X, 256Mb RAM) with the intention of putting in an
SB Live! and thinking it would be a piece of piss installing DOS drivers and having the classic DOS games running off that.
I'm just still in that mode (and in love) with my old hardware and it doesn't seem to die off.
Back at home (in the UK), I currently have a
DELL Dimension XPS M200s (
P1-200 MMX with integrated
Vibra16 sound with
AWE32 ISA daughterboard) and I use it for all my classic gaming.
I just prefer that genuine real DOS gaming, and until the wheels fall off this thing,
DOSBox will always come second. I even have an
AWE64 Value! ISA and I'm constantly torn whether to remain with the AWE32 daughterboard, or pull it out and stick in the AWE64 instead -
what do you guys think to this?
For years, I have been contemplating building a
3dfx system (
AthlonXP 2700+, Chaintech 7VJL APOGEE, V5 5500) and phasing out the
DELL XPS.
But the 7VJL APOGEE doesn't have ISA slots.
I love my
AWE 64 and on top of that, when I finally build it, there may be a chance that I will have the same problem with that, what I'm having now with this
A7V8X-X - that a PCI soundcard will not be able to emulate SB16 in DOS.

It's a really worrying thought for me.