Can MS-DOS Run on a New Modern PC 2024?

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Can MS-DOS Run on a New Modern PC 2023?
Today in this video I’ll try to find out is it possible to install MS-DOS on a modern hardware in 2023. Enjoy

[RamtechENG]

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[shaunclarke]

The latest official release of MS-DOS is 6.22.

What you have here is an unofficial build from a newer version ripped from Windows 9x builds.

And you are correct, the BIOS is emulating the keyboard, mouse and storage.

Without emulation nothing would work.

[ruadeil_zabelin]

One thing to mention is that motherboards that only suport EFI booting are coming out now. As soon as legacy booting is removed completely; you will not be able to use dos anymore at all on these machines. There are already some laptops out there that can't run dos because of this.

[EyMannMachHin]

The out of memory issue is probably mostly because you were not using a memory manager and didn't load system and drivers into high memory. Games like Wing Commander need nearly 600KB of the 640KB base memory. I remember having about 4-5 config.sys and autoexec.bat configurations to be able to play everything I could throw at my PC. The most I got was like 612KB free memory but that had nothing more loaded than DOS itself, keyboard, mouse and soundcard initialisation. None of the extras that would make a DOS environment more comfortable. Fun times!

[alexanrsousa]

In all fairness, getting "Out of memory" errors is part of normal DOS operation and very common with period-correct DOS machines. Real mode DOS programs are restricted to conventional memory, which is the first 640KB of RAM, and most drivers are also loaded there by default. This is why newer games worked, as they are protected mode (32-bit) software and are able to use extended memory. Just like back in the day, setting up an MS-DOS machine requires a lot of memory management tweaking to free up as much conventional memory as possible.

The first common trick HIMEM.SYS (and most XMS memory managers) tries is to use some trickery to load part of the system in HMA (which is a region of memory just above the first megabyte). For compatibility with the original PC, real-mode segment+offset addresses that cross the 1MB boundary wrap arout to the beggining of the memory, but that can be disabled on demand, allowing an extra 64kb of RAM to be use. According to the startup messages HIMEM.SYS was failing to enable that, you might've had more luck with XMGR.SYS.

The other trick are UMBs (upper memory blocks). Normally conventional memory is restricted to 640KB, followed by a 384KB addressing space reserved to be mapped to hardware devices (like video ram). EMM386.EXE (and some other memory managers) can scan the upper memory area, find address ranges that are not used by any hardware, and map regular RAM there. DOS can then move parts of itself and load some drivers there, freeing up portions of conventional memory. Since enabling UMBs in DOS setup prevented it from booting, we can assume EMM386.EXE has compatibility issues with newer machines. Using JemmEx (the same memory manager FreeDOS uses by default) could remedy that.

One other thing is that your unnoficial distribution of MS-DOS 7.1 loads DOSLFN by default. That can cause some software to believe they are running inside Windows (as DOS isn't supposed to support long file names). This is what probably prevented AIDA16 from running.

FreeDOS ships with more modern memory managers, both HMA and UMBs are enabled and working normally and it loads very few drivers by default, so you were getting 618kb of memory out of the box. Sadly I did not see a "mem" output from your MS-DOS install, but it was probably below 520KB, as Duke Nukem didn't work.

[RamtechENG]

Do you ever use MS-DOS? P.S. I made a mistake. 7.1 is not the latest version and not official. The latest official version is 6.22. Wikipedia misled me. Also may you notice a grammar error at 3:51 “Congulations”

[ruffy]

Oh my gosh! this channel is great! should have at least 1 million subscribers a long time ago! please don't stop!

[darkfalzx]

Getting the sound to work is also somewhat possible if you either get lucky and your sound hardware has a compatible driver, or you get a PCI SoundBlaster card. Using DosBox is still far more convenient.

[charleshines]

Imagine having 128 GB of RAM and only being able to use the first 640 KB LOL!!

[HailAnts]

Been a PC tech guy since DOS 3.3. Neatest thing I'm seeing here is that DOS 7 has a startup logo!

[jeffyp]

I think the green flickering is due to non SVGA compliance in the video bios. i bet something like sci-tech display doctor would fix that. i cant remember the name of it, but i recall some programs (mostly games) coming with some basic SVGA driver that was developed using DD code.

[christoney]

Seeing those games again made me smile! Thank you!

[minotaurbison]

nice job! I use PCem to emulate my old pc from the late 90's. So far I haven't found anything I can't run on it. Not as cool as getting dos to work on modern hardware, but perhaps more functional and with full sound support, unlike other virtual pc programs.

[Comp]

Can you try Windows NT4/2000? Old NT Kernel-Based Windows don't seem to work well with BIOS emulation in Modern UEFI.

[gamerk]

I'd imagine the biggest issues with running DOS natively is the amount of things expecting EMS/XMS memory which no longer exists; I expect that's the cause of the Out of Memory errors. There's probably ways to get around that by messing with various config files. I'm guessing FreeDos and other DOS emulators fake this since we obviously have enough RAM in modern PCs.

As for actually "running" the core OS, I'm not shocked it ran fine. All x86 CPUs support the "real" operating mode DOS requires to this very day, so there isn't any specific HW reason why modern CPUs can't run DOS natively.

[AleksRomero]

Amazing channel, Bro! Thanks!
of course i used DOS for a long time!
Do you remenber Warcraft Orcs & Humans?

[kzadbhat]

If you set your BIOS to legacy mode for storage, that should actually be IDE mode. Though that is also your BIOS sort of emulating an older system, or at least providing translation for older OSes.

[bittertruth]

Very impressive and out of box thinking. Great!

[dolphhandcreme]

DOS is using Bios int13 access to disk drives, so it doesn't care what settings you use in your bios (sata, ide, raid, ahci)...

[josefmazzeo]

Wolfenstein 3D was like the first 3D game I played on a 1990s era 386 PC back in 1993. I got a pirated copy from a street vendor. Then, a year or so later got into Doom and was addicted to the point of sneaking in some time at my job at the time. I recall getting a cheat guide in the bookstore for both games - internet as we know it today did not exist. Also, there is no support for multicore in MSDOS, right?