The motivation for creating this thread was that A7v333 board I eventually trashed. I stores it for close to a year. I got to thinking, if I got it fixed what would I do with it? Good for one of two things, running98 or resurrecting that old version of PClLinux I had. I already have 98 machines, and why would I mess with that old version of linux when i am now running Mint.

A friend if mine who is an engineer said it might be worth fixing if it had USB 3. I had a different take, it might be worth fixing if it had SATA ports. So I could use a new drive 🤣

Lately I had starting thinking where there's a point where old becomes too old? Certainly too old to by new components. No new PATA drives, no new AGP cards, etc

UCyborg wrote on 2025-09-28, 19:06:

@DaveDDS
But then you have to be an artist to be able to work with hardware directly. ...

I was not trying to imply that DOS should be suitable for everthing. There are lots of cases where precice real-time
performance is not as important, and vendor supplies drivers work well and are simpler than doing it yourself, Modern
O.S. make a LOT of sense in most cases...

I was just trying to point out that "pure DOS" still has a useful place.

I still have them - A Pentium 133Mhz system and a Pentium II 400Mhz system which has a dual DOS and Windows 98SE boot.

Though I rarely use them nowadays due to time constraints and secondly, been using 86Box which moved my hobby virtually, and the convenience of using it in my laptop even at work.

I have a 486DX2 that I will only ever run DOS on, I have no intention of ever putting anything else on it.

UCyborg wrote on 2025-09-28, 19:06:

@DaveDDS But then you have to be an artist to be able to work with hardware directly. […]
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@DaveDDS
But then you have to be an artist to be able to work with hardware directly.

Drivers for today's graphics cards are huge. I presume graphics would be done similarly to how Glide was done under DOS.

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/ques … -emulator-works

The 3dfx Voodoo software emulator is very interesting.
I've found 3 different versions on an older Russian homepage.
One emulates the Diamond Monster 3D, I think.

Btw, there's also a standardized, hardware-independent way of accessing graphics on DOS! Err, CP/M! No wait, on DOS and CP/M! 😁

It's the GSX extension by Digital Research. It could have become an alternative to using CGA.
Well, for productivity software and adventure games with graphics, at least.
Something like the interpreter/engine of Legend's Frederik Pohl's Gateway could have used it.

It supported the following graphics standards:

IBM CGA Monochrome IBM CGA Color Plantronics PC+ Colorplus Adapter Hercules Graphics Card Artist 2 Graphics Card […]
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IBM CGA Monochrome
IBM CGA Color
Plantronics PC+ Colorplus Adapter
Hercules Graphics Card
Artist 2 Graphics Card
NCR Decision Mate V
TI Professional Computer
And possibly others.

Source: http://toastytech.com/guis/gsx.html

More drivers for GSX (VGA, VBE etc) are available at http://www.seasip.info/Cpm/software/gsx86.html

chinny22 wrote on 2025-09-26, 05:39:

Even though Netware was dying our collage teachers would use it as it did clearly define the difference between an OS and NOS. […]
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Jo22 wrote on 2025-09-25, 23:43:

You don't have to, but I think it has certain character traits of it. It also was used as a post office (LAN mail server) in sma […]
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Disruptor wrote on 2025-09-25, 23:20:

I won't call WfW a NOS.
A classic NOS is Novell Netware (full version).

You don't have to, but I think it has certain character traits of it.
It also was used as a post office (LAN mail server) in small and medium sized offices.

WfW was also a product of its own, somewhere between Windows 3.1 and NT 3.1.
Like a third kind of Windows, if we will. It wasn't just another Windows 3.1.
It had technology backported from Chicago (Win95), but was closer to NT 3.1 in terms of professionalism.

Windows 3.1 and 95 were consumer versions of Windows, whereas WfW was semi-professional maybe.
That's why Windows NT CDs have copies of Windows for Workgroups included, but no Windows 95, I guess.

The attachment nt31fam.jpg is no longer available

About Netware. The classic Novell Netware also started from DOS and then switched to its own OS kernal.

If memory serves, it had two operation modes, actually.
In one, the Novell Netware ran exklusively and in the other one the server computer was still usable as DOS machine same time.

I'm just a layman here, though. 😅
There were different versions of Novell, I vaguely remember.
In the 80s, there was an 286 and 386 version, for example.

And in late 90s, there was the last DOS release that caused compatibility issues somehow?
I vaguely remember this, because of my copy of Novell DOS 7.
It supported two "generations" of Novell Netware (I don’t mean Netware Lite or Personal Netware).

Even though Netware was dying our collage teachers would use it as it did clearly define the difference between an OS and NOS.

Netware was a NOS in it's truest form. Novell Only wanted to worry about Networking side that is, sharing resources and managing permissions to those resources.
They were more then happy to leave disk, sound and any other hardware setup to someone else, be it DOS, Linux, Windows.
Probably a smart strategy in the beginning but as networking and the Internet became common it was only a matter of time before the OS itself would have to include this.

I understand what you mean though, Win3x is more then just a GUI shell for dos but I still wouldn't call it a stand alone product/OS.
I'd also consider say a system that has been formatted with MS Dos 7, but never had Win9x installed a true dos machine. Just has a few nice things like LFN or Fat32 support

Hi, thanks! I think I can live with that. ^^
Just for fun I've asked an LLM about WfW this night and got an unexpected answer. 😉
Again, I did that just for fun and not to support my point of view.
I've expected a negative answer to begin with.

To be fair, though, it also told me that Windows 3.0 and 95 are "operating systems".
- Which since the early days had often been debated, as we know. Especially when it comes to Windows 9x.

Windows 3.0 on otherhand was correctly called an "graphical environment" by Microsoft itself back then, though.
It was written on the cardboard box of it. Windows 3.0 MME even had the term in the splash screen.

Edited.

Edit:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-10-03, 02:06:

I have a 486DX2 that I will only ever run DOS on, I have no intention of ever putting anything else on it.

Hi, not even GeoWorks Ensemble? 😀
It just became open source, I remember. The last version based on Breadbox Ensemble, I mean.