If the Software forum in Marvin's is for running old games on old hardware, and the DOSBOX forums are for running games in DOSBOX (and presumably new hardware) -- what is this forum for exactly? You need DOS or DOSBOX to run DOS games after all, don't you?
Thanks for the clarification!
I'm fairly certain it started as a forum for dosbox. Running old games on new systems. Well you can't have old games around and NOT try them on original hardware. So the community went in that direction primarily. i believe dosbox works for people in 99.9% of cases. So the need has diminished for a dosbox forum.
But shitposting your recent hardware you got has taken on a life of its own. I'm just as guilty. and I don't think we need to change.
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
This forum was created in 2002 for the discussion of all the tricks and tips and solutions required to run DOS games on Windows NT-based OS's, within the NTVDM provided with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, which in many cases required a certain kind of dedication and genius to even attempt. There were even a few daring souls willing to try out Bochs around that time. Most of the time, it was intended to dedicate one thread or topic about getting a specific game working, and the discussion continue on from there. We also created "Deep Thought" to host permanent guides, procedures and tutorials.
And then came DosBox. From the get-go, we gave DOSBox a dedicated subforum of its own, but there was pretty consistent bleed-over from that subforum to this one. So we permitted some discussion relevant to using emulators as a solution to running games, but for pure emulator support discussion, we recommended using either the PC Emulation forum, or the DOSBox forums if specifically about DOSBox.
Later came Marvin and its members in 2007-2009, and people started trying to use this forum for discussion about running DOS on native hardware.
It's understandable that forums do change over the year, but if it were up to me, I'd prefer that this "DOS" forum remain about what it was originally intended for: mostly about finding solutions to running games on NT-based OS's, either by using the NTVDM or occasionally using DOSBox or another emulator to find a solution.
There's enough Marvin members here on VOGONS now that it could probably go back to its original purpose, XP has gone from bleeding edge to "retro" 😁
I'm open to changing the description to make it more clear what the intention is, but there's a fair amount of admin/moderator inertia towards changing something that was setup fifteen years ago. So it's unlikely the forum name will change.
"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen
Stiletto
A backseat moderator's dream
DOS - long may it live! 🤣
-- Regards, Joe
Expect out of life, that which you put into it.
It also seems a reasonable place for topics that are more specific to the games themselves rather than what solution is used to play them, such as game version differences or fixes or hacks such as the NRS modifications.
Those are my suggestions.
I personally joined the forum only because of my DOS based retrocomputing hobby. Not because of Windows stuff, not even DOSbox.
But i have gotten help about many things, and have expressed my opinion, and contributed a litle bit.
And yes, i use DOSbox, but only in my work computer to test stuff, now more PCem.
I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.
PS. If I upload RAR, it is a 16-bit DOS RAR Version 2.50.
