Is there any reason not to use DOS 6.22? As far as I know it has no weaknesses compared to earlier MSDOS versions and has the advantage that it can load itself into upper memory to free lots of conventional memory for your games. It is responsive even on a 4.77Mhz 8088 CPU.

The other DOS alternatives, whilst I am sure do have advantages, are not 100% compatible with MSDOS. So, if a trouble-free experience is a primary goal, I am confused why the others are even considered?

I am not hating. Just curious why anyone would use anything else.

6.22 is limited to 2 GB partitions.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on Today, 06:00:

Is there any reason not to use DOS 6.22?

Depends on your goal, for compatibility - it was obviously “the standard” and it will be difficult to ever completely match that- although there are some close alternatives now.

If you want convenience or your dos version to play well with other OS that use LFN or >2gb partitions then other options are better. Also if your using SBEMU, I think most people use FreeDos rather than copy JEMM/JEMMEX into a DOS 6.22 setup.

LSS10999 wrote on Today, 05:09:

I've made a thread with all the info I could get about PC-DOS 7.1 before. […]
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I've made a thread with all the info I could get about PC-DOS 7.1 before.

If you keep your system partition as FAT16, then PC-DOS 7.1 will still boot with the old boot sector you made when installing PC-DOS 7.0. Converting it to FAT32 will break it.

There are some limitations with those FAT32 utilities from PC-DOS 7.1:
- FORMAT32.COM can only create a FAT32 filesystem up to 8GB from what I tested, even though your partition may be larger.
- SYS.COM is actually the one from PC-DOS 7.0 which cannot be used with PC-DOS 7.1 (Incorrect DOS version).
- FORMAT32's /S option does not depend on SYS.COM, but it has some quirks requiring two consecutive runs to properly set up a bootable PC-DOS 7.1 partition. First FORMAT32 /Q then FORMAT32 /Q /S.

Thanks! I don't want any FAT16 partitions with PC-DOS 7.1. It seems like without some serious patching of SYS.COM from PC-DOS 7.1 or 7.0, it is unusable for transferring the OS on FAT32 partitions.

As far as I know MS-DOS 6.23, 6.24 and 6.25 were obscure and highly-specialised versions that were developed specifically for governments, military and banking clients and were never released to the general public and Windows 95 didn't even meet their security requirements. Due to very limited documentation, these versions were claimed to offer limited FAT32 support. Furthermore, MS-DOS 6.24 and 6.24B were ROM only.

It wasn't until at least the release of Windows 95B in August 1996 that FAT32 support became more available, though Windows 95B was only released by OEMs.

It's so long ago, I don't remember which games gave me trouble on Win95's DOS, but there were a few games that made me jump through too many hoops with himem, qemm, and the like to get enough free low memory to run them. So I always had a sort of dual boot with DOS 5 & Windows 95/98. It wasn't so much dual-boot, just a batch file I used for different games that would put the right system files in place and reboot to DOS 5, DOS 7, or windows (gui=yes was it?). Real dual boot was left for other OSes.

Is there no love for MS-DOS 4.x? I really want to try it out some day, just to see how wildly different it is..

appiah4 wrote on Today, 08:55:

Is there no love for MS-DOS 4.x? I really want to try it out some day, just to see how wildly different it is..

Multitasking DOS 4 (ca. 1985) or the regular DOS 4 (ca. 1988) ? Both are interesting, IMHO. :)

The multitasking version (aka European MS-DOS 4) is a bit like early OS/2, except that it runs in real-mode, among other things.
The executable format or compiler/linker format already has some similarity to OS/2, if I remember correctly.

The regular/normal DOS 4 has some interesting features such as the IFS, the installable filesystem.
In principle, it would allow DOS to handle other filesystems such as HPFS/NTFS or Unix filesystem.
Unfortunately, IFS was removed in DOS 5 again.

The updated 4.01 fixes some of the worst bugs in MS-DOS 4/PC-DOS 4.
By using UMBs and QRAM it perhaps would have been possible to compensate for the higher memory footprint of DOS 4.

Some more infos can be found at this site, I think.
https://pcdosretro.gitlab.io/

Edit:

6.22 is limited to 2 GB partitions.

Normally, yes. But I'm confident that the more than 1024 cylinder patch for MS-DOS 5 can be adapted here.
So MS-DOS 6.x would be able to handle roughly 3 GB per partition, if the BIOS allows it via int13h.
If the MS-DOS 6.x source code would be available eventually *cough* then it might be possible to properly extend MS-DOS 6.x further.

ppgrainbow wrote on Today, 05:34:

Mediocre versions of MS-DOS: 3.3 (and earlier), 4.0 and 4.01

Hey, DOS 3.30 is fine!
It's the best option for an XT with 640 KB RAM and up to 32 MB HDD.
For newer machines, too limited indeed - DOS 3.00-3.30 limits, with a riddle
Right tool for the right purpose!

Also, you forgot about DOS 6.0 - it has some serious bug, potentially causing data loss. Keep away!

RetroPCCupboard wrote on Today, 06:00:

Is there any reason not to use DOS 6.22? As far as I know it has no weaknesses compared to earlier MSDOS versions and has the advantage that it can load itself into upper memory to free lots of conventional memory for your games. It is responsive even on a 4.77Mhz 8088 CPU.

As already mentioned - bad for HDD > 2 GB.

Also, if you care about disk compression:
6.20 - DoubleSpace, contains code stolen from Stacker, better
6.21 - no disk compression
6.22 - DriveSpace, worse

Grzyb wrote on Today, 11:51:

As already mentioned - bad for HDD > 2 GB. […]
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As already mentioned - bad for HDD > 2 GB.

Also, if you care about disk compression:
6.20 - DoubleSpace, contains code stolen from Stacker, better
6.21 - no disk compression
6.22 - DriveSpace, worse

2GB was a very large amount for DOS. In 1995 I had a 1Gb drive on my Win95 PC, and it was so big I didn't really know what to do with it. Drive compression isn't something I ever used.

But, yeah. I get that some people may need more space than that. Especially now with digital releases. I mostly use original optical media, and most of the games keep the larger data (typically video or redbook music) on the disk.

My main DOS systems have 500M .. some less used ones smaller, and none bigger (I have a stash of 500M drives - a company I worked with decided they were too small and replaced them all)

Grzyb wrote on Yesterday, 22:17:

I'm confused, probably because of this failure report - 3xStart for FAT32 for IBM PC DOS v7.1? (No IO.SYS to modify, has IBMBIO. […]
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theelf wrote on Yesterday, 20:26:

yes, win3x work perfect with fat32, tested in both my DOS computers using PC-DOS 7.1+FAT32, a 286 and a 486DLC

No need to patch anything, but this patch (second one) is recommended, Making Windows 3.11 work in DOS7.10 (patches inside)

Anyways in years of using FAT32+win3.x on PC-DOS never have any corrution problem

I'm confused, probably because of this failure report - 3xStart for FAT32 for IBM PC DOS v7.1? (No IO.SYS to modify, has IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM)

Love my 286 with a 32GB CF Card... plenty of space!!

Nice, you definitely make a good use of that machine - Re: Video playback on a 286? - here's how to do it

But I'm wondering about one thing...
For >8 GB you need INT 13h extensions, right?
Is there some BIOS/driver which provides INT 13h extensions on a 286 ?

No idea about first one, i use only real hardware

About second one, i use EZ-Drive Version 9.06W, work fine with 286 and partition over 8GB work too, I configure the CF card as 993 16 63 and ez do the rest

Oh, by the way, has nothing related to best bersion of dos or hdd limits, but this software is amazing for old computers when you need more HDDs https://oldcomputer.info/hacks/4hdd/index.htm

I love DOS 6.22

RetroPCCupboard wrote on Today, 13:41:

2GB was a very large amount for DOS. In 1995 I had a 1Gb drive on my Win95 PC, and it was so big I didn't really know what to do with it. Drive compression isn't something I ever used.

But, yeah. I get that some people may need more space than that. Especially now with digital releases. I mostly use original optical media, and most of the games keep the larger data (typically video or redbook music) on the disk.

definitely, my first W95 machine had 800mb hdd, it got full-ish but never so much i needed to do anything radical, eventually i uninstalled some of the extensive bundled software i didn't use. we forget how small files used to be then

RetroPCCupboard wrote on Today, 13:41:

2GB was a very large amount for DOS. In 1995 I had a 1Gb drive on my Win95 PC, and it was so big I didn't really know what to do with it. Drive compression isn't something I ever used.

Out of curiosity I just checked size of my DOSBox directory and it's 3.3 GB. This excludes floppy and CD images which are stored elsewhere.