VOGONS


First post, by Darkman

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So Im planning to build a DOS/Win 3.11 system , which will be either a late 486 or , if I can't be bothered with the hassle of a 486, a sub 100Mhz Pentium (probably using a 430FX or VX chipset)

However, Im not sure which version of DOS is the best for this kind of setup , seems like it would either be DOS 6.22 , or DOS 7 .

So between those , which one is actually "better"? are there any benefits to using 6.22 over 7?.

Thanks in advance.

Reply 1 of 23, by matze79

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MS-Dos 6.22 for combatiblity, with himem.sys and emm386 from Windows 98.

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Reply 2 of 23, by alexanrs

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Is there anything actually incompatible with "MS-DOS" 7.10? Besides IO.SYS needing a patch to run Windows 3.11, I've never had any trouble with it. I usually stick to DOS 6.22 on 3.11 builds, though, for authenticity, but it is a bit easier to get ridiculous amounts of free conventional memory on 7.10 thanks to it supporting moving a bunch of stuff to UMBs (STACKS, FILES, etc.)

Reply 4 of 23, by tayyare

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alexanrs wrote:

Is there anything actually incompatible with "MS-DOS" 7.10? Besides IO.SYS needing a patch to run Windows 3.11, I've never had any trouble with it. I usually stick to DOS 6.22 on 3.11 builds, though, for authenticity, but it is a bit easier to get ridiculous amounts of free conventional memory on 7.10 thanks to it supporting moving a bunch of stuff to UMBs (STACKS, FILES, etc.)

MS-DOS 6.22 can do the similar if not same. I never had anything less than 615-620 KB even with all the drivers and such (ZIP, SCSI, Stacker, etc.), and never faced with any application requiring more, even during the times. It's support for FAT32 might be considered as an advantage, but I never did any DOS rigs having more than 2GB partitions, anyway.

I suggest sticking with 6.22, myself. I like 7.1, its indispensable in a boot floppy for repair/recovery/maintenance purposes, but at the and, it's a hack from Windows 98 distributions, whereas 6.22 is a real standalone OS.

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Reply 5 of 23, by jesolo

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tayyare wrote:

I suggest sticking with 6.22, myself. I like 7.1, its indispensable in a boot floppy for repair/recovery/maintenance purposes, but at the and, it's a hack from Windows 98 distributions, whereas 6.22 is a real standalone OS.

I second that. Unless you're planning on having partitions larger than 2.1 GB, stick with DOS 6.22 as an operating system for Windows 3.11.
If you do have a larger HDD, then just create logical drives of 2.1 GB each.
You could also look at other operating systems like PC-DOS or DR-DOS but, I've never worked on these operating systems myself.

Reply 7 of 23, by Jorpho

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jwt27 wrote:

Freedos with umbpci, xmgr, himemx, jemm386, 4dos, gnu fileutils, uhdd, and udvd2.

It's not such a bad idea, but last time I checked JEMM386 is completely incompatible with Windows. You'd have to set up a boot menu, if I'm not mistaken.

(Mind you, the standard EMM386 is only "compatible with Windows" in the sense that it gets disabled once Windows starts.)

Reply 8 of 23, by dr_st

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matze79 wrote:

MS-Dos 6.22 for combatiblity, with himem.sys and emm386 from Windows 98.

Out of curiosity, why would you want to use HIMEM/EMM386 from Win98? Will they even run under DOS6? Usually applications that were part of the DOS kit complain if the DOS version is different from what they were shipped with.

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Reply 10 of 23, by keropi

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jwt27 wrote:

Freedos with umbpci, xmgr, himemx, jemm386, 4dos, gnu fileutils, uhdd, and udvd2.

got any link for the gnu fileutils? you keep mentioning them and I wanna test 'em now 🤣

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Reply 11 of 23, by brostenen

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Darkman wrote:
So Im planning to build a DOS/Win 3.11 system , which will be either a late 486 or , if I can't be bothered with the hassle of […]
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So Im planning to build a DOS/Win 3.11 system , which will be either a late 486 or , if I can't be bothered with the hassle of a 486, a sub 100Mhz Pentium (probably using a 430FX or VX chipset)

However, Im not sure which version of DOS is the best for this kind of setup , seems like it would either be DOS 6.22 , or DOS 7 .

So between those , which one is actually "better"? are there any benefits to using 6.22 over 7?.

Thanks in advance.

I go for MS-Dos 6.22

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Reply 12 of 23, by jwt27

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keropi wrote:
jwt27 wrote:

Freedos with umbpci, xmgr, himemx, jemm386, 4dos, gnu fileutils, uhdd, and udvd2.

got any link for the gnu fileutils? you keep mentioning them and I wanna test 'em now 🤣

I keep saying fileutils while I really mean coreutils... Oh well.

You can find them here: http://www.bttr-software.de/freesoft/unix.htm#unixutils
Shellutils is on top, scroll down a bit for fileutils and textutils. There's diffutils, findutils and sharutils too if you find these useful.

These do require cwsdpmi, if that causes any trouble I can recommend getting hdpmi32 and renaming it cwsdpmi.exe 😀

Reply 13 of 23, by tayyare

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jwt27 wrote:

Freedos with umbpci, xmgr, himemx, jemm386, 4dos, gnu fileutils, uhdd, and udvd2.

Plus all the incompatibilities and more...🤣

GA-6VTXE PIII 1.4+512MB
Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
SB AWE64 PNP+32MB
120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
Gotek+CF Reader
MSDOS 6.22+Win 3.11/95 OSR2.1/98SE/ME/2000

Reply 14 of 23, by tayyare

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alexanrs wrote:

They run just fine, have fewer bugs, no compatibility issues and HIMEM.SYS can handle over 64MB

And new HIMEM.SYS will check the memory at boot time much faster. With the old one, with high amount of installed RAM (like 256MB) it takes ages.

GA-6VTXE PIII 1.4+512MB
Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
SB AWE64 PNP+32MB
120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
Gotek+CF Reader
MSDOS 6.22+Win 3.11/95 OSR2.1/98SE/ME/2000

Reply 16 of 23, by alexanrs

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I believe that is what the newer HIMEM.SYS does by default. The newer version is also XMS 3.0-compatible, whereas the older one is limited to XMS 2.0 (and to 64MB by extension)

Reply 17 of 23, by tayyare

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Jorpho wrote:

Why not just use /TESTMEM:OFF ?

Because no need to use it when you use new HIMEM.SYS, it's fast. 🤣

GA-6VTXE PIII 1.4+512MB
Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
SB AWE64 PNP+32MB
120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
Gotek+CF Reader
MSDOS 6.22+Win 3.11/95 OSR2.1/98SE/ME/2000

Reply 19 of 23, by matze79

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There is no Reason to keep a buggy Driver 😀 and no Problems with Himem.sys from 98.
Maybe DSA1 makes trouble with more then 16Mb installed. Use eatxms Programm for Applications incombatible with more then 16Megs.

Old himem.sys has 16Mb limit, so problem will not occur.

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https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board