There was some discussion of this in this thread:
Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

I particularly note https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBsv-jRiIT8 , also discussed in Re: 486 MS-DOS gaming PC, this was fun but short. and Open Source PC104 Soundcard .

Jorpho wrote on 2021-03-11, 03:40:

There was some discussion of this in this thread:
Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

I particularly note https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBsv-jRiIT8 , also discussed in Re: 486 MS-DOS gaming PC, this was fun but short. and Open Source PC104 Soundcard .

I haven't seen that video before. So, so cool

Jorpho wrote on 2021-03-11, 03:40:

There was some discussion of this in this thread:
Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

Hi, I'm the guy from that thread. Two years ago, I also started looking for a tiny computer to run DOS games, although I also wanted to target Windows 98 SE instead of XP.

What I can tell you is it's hard to get a great Windows XP gaming rig and a great pure DOS gaming rig in the same box, and it's especially hard to get that in a small box.

Sound
Essentially, computers from the last 20 years don't have ISA slots, so you need a PCI sound card with DOS drivers. Your options are the YMF7x4 (SB Pro + true OPL3), SB Live (SB16 + decent OPL3 emulation), ESS Audiodrive (inaccurate OPL3), and Aureal Vortex 2, but I would stay away from that last one as its OPL3 implementation is literally out of tune. If you want a system with one of these DOS-compatible PCI sound chips on the motherboard, there are a few with an integrated YMF744 or YMF754, but I'm not aware of any really tiny computers or Mini-ITX boards with one of these chips integrated.

There are also some surprising pitfalls you should watch out for. First, unless your board supports PC/PCI aka SBlink (and very few do), your chipset should support DDMA for best DOS sound compatibility. You'll see other discussions about that on this forum. Second, just because your board has a PCI slot, doesn't mean that PCI slot works with sound cards.

For example, I own an alix1e, which is a Mini-ITX board with a Cyrix MediaGX-derived AMD Geode LX 800 (roughly Pentium MMX class) on it. This is a really fun fanless little board, but the PCI slot is 3.3V instead of 5V, which means most sound cards could never work on it. The on-board sound does work in Windows 98 with WDM drivers intended for Windows XP, but there's no pure DOS support for sound.

I also own a Neoware CA10, which has a Via Nehemiah CPU (Pentium 2-ish performance). This is also a fun fanless little machine, but its PCI slot does not supply power to the -12V pin which many PCI sound cards use, so the PCI riser needs to be modified to supply -12V.

Video
Since tiny computers usually only have one expansion slot, and that's taken up by your DOS-compatible sound, you need the integrated video to not suck in 3-D games. This is hard to find in a tiny computer. For example, the HP t5720 thin client has a decent Athlon-based Geode NX CPU and a PCI slot, but crappy SiS741 graphics on-board. Or, that Neoware CA10 I have features S3 Unichrome graphics (roughly an S3 Savage 4). The GPU in this thing can do 3d, but it struggles a bit on late 90s games, so I imagine it's terrible at Windows XP-era games.

To sum up, you could have a lot of fun finding the most capable Windows XP tiny computer, which will really just come down to finding the best integrated GPU with Windows XP drivers. It might be an AMD G-Series embedded SoC-based solution. You could also have a lot of fun putting together a MicroATX rig with an AGP motherboard, so long as it supports DDMA for your PCI sound card, and that machine could kick ass at both Windows XP and pure DOS. In my experience though, a great Windows XP experience and a great DOS experience and a tiny package is not feasible.

I would love to be proven wrong.

LightStruk wrote on 2021-03-11, 04:51:

Hi, I'm the guy from that thread. Two years ago, I also started looking for a tiny computer to run DOS games, although I also w […]
Show full quote

Jorpho wrote on 2021-03-11, 03:40:

There was some discussion of this in this thread:
Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

Hi, I'm the guy from that thread. Two years ago, I also started looking for a tiny computer to run DOS games, although I also wanted to target Windows 98 SE instead of XP.

What I can tell you is it's hard to get a great Windows XP gaming rig and a great pure DOS gaming rig in the same box, and it's especially hard to get that in a small box.

Sound
Essentially, computers from the last 20 years don't have ISA slots, so you need a PCI sound card with DOS drivers. Your options are the YMF7x4 (SB Pro + true OPL3), SB Live (SB16 + decent OPL3 emulation), ESS Audiodrive (inaccurate OPL3), and Aureal Vortex 2, but I would stay away from that last one as its OPL3 implementation is literally out of tune. If you want a system with one of these DOS-compatible PCI sound chips on the motherboard, there are a few with an integrated YMF744 or YMF754, but I'm not aware of any really tiny computers or Mini-ITX boards with one of these chips integrated.

There are also some surprising pitfalls you should watch out for. First, unless your board supports PC/PCI aka SBlink (and very few do), your chipset should support DDMA for best DOS sound compatibility. You'll see other discussions about that on this forum. Second, just because your board has a PCI slot, doesn't mean that PCI slot works with sound cards.

For example, I own an alix1e, which is a Mini-ITX board with a Cyrix MediaGX-derived AMD Geode LX 800 (roughly Pentium MMX class) on it. This is a really fun fanless little board, but the PCI slot is 3.3V instead of 5V, which means most sound cards could never work on it. The on-board sound does work in Windows 98 with WDM drivers intended for Windows XP, but there's no pure DOS support for sound.

I also own a Neoware CA10, which has a Via Nehemiah CPU (Pentium 2-ish performance). This is also a fun fanless little machine, but its PCI slot does not supply power to the -12V pin which many PCI sound cards use, so the PCI riser needs to be modified to supply -12V.

Video
Since tiny computers usually only have one expansion slot, and that's taken up by your DOS-compatible sound, you need the integrated video to not suck in 3-D games. This is hard to find in a tiny computer. For example, the HP t5720 thin client has a decent Athlon-based Geode NX CPU and a PCI slot, but crappy SiS741 graphics on-board. Or, that Neoware CA10 I have features S3 Unichrome graphics (roughly an S3 Savage 4). The GPU in this thing can do 3d, but it struggles a bit on late 90s games, so I imagine it's terrible at Windows XP-era games.

To sum up, you could have a lot of fun finding the most capable Windows XP tiny computer, which will really just come down to finding the best integrated GPU with Windows XP drivers. It might be an AMD G-Series embedded SoC-based solution. You could also have a lot of fun putting together a MicroATX rig with an AGP motherboard, so long as it supports DDMA for your PCI sound card, and that machine could kick ass at both Windows XP and pure DOS. In my experience though, a great Windows XP experience and a great DOS experience and a tiny package is not feasible.

I would love to be proven wrong.

First of all, not every ESS Audiodrive implementation is inaccurate - the ES1938S/1946S Solo-1s are legit ESFM (just like the ISA audiodrives), and they are fairly close to OPL3, unlike the later Maestro2/3 or Allegro1 sound chips (no ESFM hardware onboard) or some of the more egregious Crystal FM implementations (I am personally partial to the one on my CS4237B, and the CS4624 on my ThinkPad T21 is "good enough"). The ESS Solo-1’s DDMA implementation is also as easy to work with as the YMF7x4’s drivers, if not even more. Technically, none of the Intel ICH southbridge (read: anything after PIIX4E) support DDMA, so if they don’t have PCLink to the sound chip, well, it would simply not work half the time since DSDMA...isn’t great. I can testify to it failing on multiple machines.

There’s definitely one or 2 games where ESFM fails, but for 98% of the stuff I play, it’s close enough to OPL3 that it doesn’t matter, and unlike some Crystal Soundfusion implementations, it does not lock up on load in games like USNF. In many cases, looking for the “perfect” solution to solve that 1% edge case means that you immediately paint yourself into the corner with no viable solution, so keep that in mind. Having some DOS support is better than no support, and with small hardware like thin clients or laptops, you have limited options to work around it.

Second, if you are going to aim for a thin client for oldschool DOS gaming, look for something that can talk both PCI and ISA on the same expansion slot, with adequate CPU firepower and with the possibility of integrated DOS audio. The idea is that the onboard audio is good when you need a stronger PCI GPU, and the ISA audio is good for legit old school audio.

There are 3 thin clients that meet the criteria:
Neoware CA2 (Via Ezra-T, S3 Prosavage, Via VT8231)
Netier 2000XL/Wyse WT8440XL (K6-2E, Trident Cyberblade A1, Via VT8231)
Igel Etherminal J+/Winnet IV (K6-2E, SiS530/6326, ESS Solo-1)
Out of the 3, I have the Winnet IV with a K6-2E+/400MHz, a Voodoo2 and onboard ESS solo which is good enough for most Win98SE games. if I need pure DOS the SiS530 works just fine for 2D, and I have an ES1868 ISA card somewhere.

I also have a Wyse WT9450XE which is a Via Ezra with aTrident Cyberblade GPU and a PCI slot , and that’s been tested with its embedded trident 4dwave audio (on the VT8231) activated in DOS and with a Yamaha YMF724 based card in the PCI slot.

Gents, awesome info! Found another candidate: HP Thin Client T5710 (800MHz version) having the Via VT8231 chipset.

stege wrote on 2021-03-10, 23:02:

Good day folks. Have recently bought a HP Thin Client T420, wonderful piece of hardware for $20. The problem with this one is there is no way to initialize the sound card in DOS, while there is no video driver for Windows XP. Other than that, the machine is beautiful and it would have made a great retro XP machine, essentially having an Athlon 1GHz (AMD GX) with a Radeon 9700 (ATI HD 8180) inside.

Hence the question. Do you know of any similar tiny PC with DOS and Windows XP drivers?

Thank you kindly.

...I have a t420 - have you ran it in any length...or at all? It’s not a retro gaming machine. The only storage onboard is USB3 based (it’s a thumb drive with a retention clip) and you literally can’t install Win98/XP/7/10 onto it (since the USB mass storage will not be seen by the installer). There’s also no audio for DOS whatsoever since it’s Intel HDA based. Modern Linux doesn’t run well in it either due to the 2GB of soldered DDR3. It’s not bad as a witness node for a cluster or as an IoT gateway, or if you need to do something CLI and relatively “small potatoes” on the machine. But other than that? Eeeeeh.

The entire system runs like one of those old A4-1450 based netbooks from 10 years ago (that’s what the GX209JA runs like). It’s an AMD based RPi2 - not much soldered RAM and not much firepower to do much. If you spent 20 bucks on it...eh, you might as well spend an extra 5-10 and get a t520 (RAM slot and mSATA), and barring that, a t640 with a Ryzen embedded R1505G is less than 120 on evilbay and can do so much more, retrogaming-wise.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I need a working sound card. I'm getting wet just thinking about configuring a nice DOS or FreeDOS machine with a working LAN connection. Haven't had the chance to fire it up because I'm still waiting for a power adapter (USB-C to HP 4.5 x 3.0mm). Also waiting to win a bid on a nice clicky mechanical keyboard. But the project is under way, just finished mounting it on the back of one of my SONY TFTs.

stege wrote on 2021-03-11, 06:56:

Gents, awesome info! Found another candidate: HP Thin Client T5710 (800MHz version) having the Via VT8231 chipset.

Ehhh. The Via VT8231/686C southbridge can do “some” DOS since it embeds the audio block from a Trident 4dwave, but there’s problems associated with it -

A) It’s not enabled in the BIOS for some VT8231 based machines (usually requires a DOS util to poke the PCI config registers to wake it up). Check the forums for the util.

B) The FM synthesis requires a 36k TSR to be loaded (viafmtsr or something like that), which depending on your luck with umbpci or DOS conventional memory juggling skills, will make some games (like Falcon3 or Return to Zork) unloadable (Falcon 3 needs, what, 604k of conventional memory and RTZ is around 587?).

C) The FM synth is CPU speed dependent (hardware assisted rather than done on hardware) so throttling your CPU down (like on the Socket7/K6-2 models) to play Wing Commander 2 or Test Drive 3 will do some strange stuff to your music. From what I remember that's not really an issue with the Transmeta Crusoes since cpuspd/setmul or throttle doesn't support downclocking, but that's a bit of a downside if you plan to play the oldies like Monkey Island.

D) The FM ican be crashy/buggy.

I consider the hardware SB support on the Via VT8231/686C to be more like an “it’s there, it’s free-to-use/bundled with your hardware but it’s not great” situation rather than “it’s a good alternative to an actual ISA sound card”.

stege wrote on 2021-03-11, 12:41:

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I need a working sound card. I'm getting wet just thinking about configuring a nice DOS or FreeDOS machine with a working LAN connection. Haven't had the chance to fire it up because I'm still waiting for a power adapter (USB-C to HP 4.5 x 3.0mm). Also waiting to win a bid on a nice clicky mechanical keyboard. But the project is under way, just finished mounting it on the back of one of my SONY TFTs.

The 4.5x3mm center positive barrel plug is common to most recent (read: made in the past 3 years) HP EliteBooks, Probooks and HP Pavilion models, so getting a power brick (45/60 or 90w will work) is not that hard, and I prefer going OEM. USB-PD is also not nearly as reliable as you might think - I actually ran into instability and/or crashes using them on other HP thin clients, so keep that in mind.

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-03-11, 15:24:

...USB-PD is also not nearly as reliable as you might think - I actually ran into instability and/or crashes using them on other HP thin clients, so keep that in mind.

Too late. 😀
Still waiting for the adapter but at least my nice retro logos are here.

Can I add Wyse VXO V90LE, it runs nice with Win98SE, no problem with drivers.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2021-03-13, 17:39:

Can I add Wyse VXO V90LE, it runs nice with Win98SE, no problem with drivers.

Yep, it’s decent with Win98SE. That being said, the audio is AC97 only, so no native DOS support if you expect to use it to play Wing Commander Privateer (won’t work in a DOS box in the Windows UI).

The general strategy of looking for a small machine with DOS audio support looks like this...which has nothing to do with modern per-se.

A) Look for something that is made back in 2000/2001 that has explicit Soundblaster support in hardware (MediaGX 1 or 2, Socket7 stuff, any oldschool SFF with SB clone hardware integrated, or anything with a SiS730) - that is often an early thin client like a Compaq Evo T20/30, an Igel WinTerminal J/J+/W, a Neoware CA2 or a Netier XL1000/2000. It can also be an old SFF like a Dell GX1.

B) Look for something that has accidental/holdover support where DOS compatibility was not a selling point (VT8231/686C southbridge SB based stuff) - that’ll be the Wyse WTx450E series of thin clients based on the first Via Epia boards (which has a VT8231), or the t5710.

C) something that has a southbridge that allows ISA Interrupts and DMA to work on PCI slots (i.e the SiS963 on the HP t5720 with the expansion bay or the VT8235 on the 1.2Ghz variant of the Hp t5710).

Intel -
The Intel 430/440 chipsets are known to play well with ISA interrupts and DMA calls for oldschool soundblaster support with PCI sound cards.

Intel ICH? (810 and beyond)...Not so much. DDMA support was dropped, you don’t typically get SBLink on small machines, and TDMA/DSDMA is not all that reliable. Support was also dropped after ICH5, so anything Atom (ICH7m and above) will not work.

VIA? Anything from the 586c southbridge to the VT8235 will work.

SiS? no ISA support after the SiS 964.

Ali/Uli? No freaking idea - probably some Trident 4Dwave audio block on the Uli southbridge, but passing ISA DMA or interrupts? Likely no - but you won’t find too many mainstream thin clients or mini boxes on Ali/Uli chipsets anyways.

NVidia? Not really - you need an Aureal Vortex2 and even then it’s a bit of a wash. With the exception of Shuttle box PCs, you won’t find nForce with PCI (note: not PCI Express) on cheap or popular machines.

AMD chipsets? Forget it. No ISA support unless it’s specialized industrial PCs running off their embedded APUs.

It can also be something that is small form factor and can support ISA natively (this can be native to the chipset or on an included PCI to ISA bridge chip that can pass DMA/interrupts...which is how some PC104 Atom and Pentium-M boxes implement ISA). Sometimes this is a thin client, sometimes it’s an SFF or sometimes, it could be a POS (Nixdorf Beetle D2) or an industrial PC. TechTangents on YouTube did a video on some Unisys POS box that is small and can fit a Pentium 233MMX with PCI slots and an ISA slot within.

Very few truly modern x86 hardware (i.e. equipped with Intel HDA sound, SATA or PCIe or an Intel Atom) will do DOS sound natively. win98 with WDM drivers? Perhaps. But drop it to DOS and it’ll be PC speakers only. The DM&P Vortex86 series might have native ISA with DMA/Interrupt support, but that’s a rarity.

Thanks ragefury32.

On another note: https://github.com/jhhoward/Faux86

Rock Pi X with Atom x5-z8350.
Run DOSBox and QEMU VM on Linux will give you a decent DOS/Window machine for retro games. ISA support isn't always necessary.
Start at $59.99 for 2GB RAM/16GB storage, likely more expensive now due to chip shortage.

Or if you want to just run everything on emulation, buy a Terasic DE10-Nano and run the MiSTer AO486 core on it.

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-03-23, 05:05:

Or if you want to just run everything on emulation, buy a Terasic DE10-Nano and run the MiSTer AO486 core on it.

MiSTer is not emulation, it's an FPGA reimplementation of the hardware. Also, the ao486 core is far from perfect. The CPU is still slow (although it's much better than it used to be), and the virtual CD-ROM device does not support CD-Audio.

Don't get me wrong, the MiSTer project is amazing. This particular core is just not enough to completely supplant all retro PCs.

LightStruk wrote on 2021-03-23, 13:25:

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-03-23, 05:05:

Or if you want to just run everything on emulation, buy a Terasic DE10-Nano and run the MiSTer AO486 core on it.

MiSTer is not emulation, it's an FPGA reimplementation of the hardware. Also, the ao486 core is far from perfect. The CPU is still slow (although it's much better than it used to be), and the virtual CD-ROM device does not support CD-Audio.

Don't get me wrong, the MiSTer project is amazing. This particular core is just not enough to completely supplant all retro PCs.

Well, it's not software emulation per-se since you are not emulating the hardware using general purpose CPUs, it's based off a modern FPGA to act as a silicon workalike.
It'll do fine to stand in for a 386/33 or a 486/33, probably even up to an SLC66, which is adequate for most of the oldies (just don't use it to play Quake - that's definitely no bueno, but Shadow Warrior or TIE Fighter should be just fine). I also heard that the later Mister builds can support bin/cue setups with audio tracks.

Here's a 2 hour stream of someone playing a more recent AO486 build -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gLH_LfStsA
It looks completely feasible to me, at least for hardware available in early/mid 1994.

Of course, you would probably need to add parts to the DE10 to make it work better, like adding DDR memory (since the onboard DDR3 has higher latency) but the potential is there.

The little fella is alive: Re: DOS Packet Driver for Realtek 8168