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[The Fifth Horseman]

Originally Posted by JMB

Horseman, tell me more about the DOS USB drivers. That could really make life easier in an IRQ cramped machine.

The subject was discussed on the forum before, along with links to sites that offer them. The forum search will get you to the relevant topics nice and fast, and there are better explanations there than what I can offer.

With that said, why an SB Pro rather than an AWE32 or even a GUS?

(shrug) Just personal preference.

[madcrow]

Originally Posted by The Fifth Horseman

The subject was discussed on the forum before, along with links to sites that offer them. The forum search will get you to the relevant topics nice and fast, and there are better explanations there than what I can offer.

When dealing with a real DOS box, I frankly think having to squeeze USB drivers into all that prime sub-640K real estate is a bit silly... Between SCSI drivers and CD-ROM drivers, I'm already down aroung 600K, any lower and some games are going to have problems running...

[The Fifth Horseman]

Nobody says you always have to use them all the time.
There is an utility that can load drivers when DOS is already booted, and you can also set up several variant boot configurations with or without specific drivers to increase the amount of memory available.

[GTX2GvO]

Hmmm. My Dream Dos Machine...

That's going to be either refitting the 486 on my mothers room with either a 2Gb HDD OR a 6.4Gb HDD (partitioned of course),
but alas No CD-ROM drive can fit in it.
OR I need to revive my old Pentium 1 straight from the dead.
It can handle the 6.4Gb HDD + a CD-ROM drive I still have.

Sound:
On the 486 I would accept the PC speaker, although I do believe I have a sufficient SB card for it lying around somewhere.
(Or else that Adlib PCI maybe..)
For the P1 It will be the ESS audiodrive I got somewhere lying around,
(good for DOS SB support) but it's an overall crap card, :notrust:
was glad when I replaced it with the card that's now in my P3.

Video:
My 486 has a nice Cirrus built in Video chip that had never failed in the days that I actually used the machine.
The P1 will most likely get (or still has) that Diamond PCI video card.
I don't know how much Video Memory were talking here, but both would have enough for Dos games.

RAM:
Ahh. The tricky part. (and what I suspect to have killed the P1)

First off the 486. It currently has 8MB of ram, but since I have a good S**tload of EDO RAM
I might consider either adding an 8Mb module Or replace it with a 16Mb module (more than enough)
OR replacing two 4Mb modules with two 8Mb modules. I actually don't know what makes up those 8Mb in my 486.

The Pentium 1 on the other hand....
The last time I added RAM to it, it had a total of 64Mb of ram (4x 16Mb)
The machine also Died on me the same day. :eek:
The most safest AND highest amount would really be the 48Mb configuration (2x 16Mb & 2x 8Mb) it had before.

CPU
486....... Ehhmm. Well. Why change? (66Mhz is good enough)
Pentium 1. It has a good enough (hopefully) 90MHz CPU that only needs some work done at it's cooler. (it's been collecting dust)
Or it needs total replacement by another P1 Socket7 CPU (with cooler), preferably 90MHz or Slightly better.

Network:
For me it quite simple.
No Network on either machine. Period.

OS:
The 486 currently has DOS 6.22 AND Windows 3.11. So no alterations will be required.
Since the P1 needs to be completely rebuilt to work again,
I will scrap the Win 95 (or 98SE) and freshly start with at least a DOS That supports FAT32 (DOS 7.1 ??).
So I won't need to make 4 partitions out of the 6.4Gb HDD.
For an additional OS I'm considering a straight copy of Win 3.11 out of the 486. :laugh:
(Don't install if you already have a working copy)

Think that sums it up quite nicely for both possibility's.

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What the HELL!!! Just FOUR?!?

[The Fifth Horseman]

GTX2GvO, you might want to reconsider using DOS 7.1. While it is true that with DOS 6.22 you'd have to restrict yourself to FAT-16 and consequently 400 MB partitions, DOS 7.1 does not have full backwards compatibility. Some games may just not run in it at all.

[dosraider]

And to think that just those games that don't need the full load of base memory -(the great advantage of 7.1)- will give the must trouble.
'Cause they use dos extenders as dos4gw ... and let it just be that one that gives most conflicts.
To conclude, most of the games that will profit most of your P1 will conflict with the 7.1 improved memory managers. :/
Even the improved dos32A can get in conflict with those.
You can't have it all.

Back to 6.22 and write some [menuitem]s. :laugh:

[GTX2GvO]

Originally Posted by The Fifth Horseman

While it is true that with DOS 6.22 you'd have to restrict yourself to FAT-16 and consequently 400 MB partitions.....

Actually the FAT16 limit is 2Gb per partition.
So a 6.4Gb disk would be best partitioned in four 1.6Gb partitions.

But then I have to ask myself. Why would I need four 1.6Gb DOS partitions??

[The Fifth Horseman]

Actually the FAT16 limit is 2Gb per partition.

That is true, but at such partition size the cluster size will be enormous - and consequently, so will be the amount of wasted space. That is why I do not advise using FAT-16 partitions of over 400 MB.

[madcrow]

Originally Posted by The Fifth Horseman

That is true, but at such partition size the cluster size will be enormous - and consequently, so will be the amount of wasted space. That is why I do not advise using FAT-16 partitions of over 400 MB.

Really? Actually according to Microsoft's official table, the cluster size for a 2 GB partition is only 32 KB. That may look pretty big, but when you consider than it's the same as most FAT32 partitions, things don't looks so bad.

[GTX2GvO]

Originally Posted by madcrow

That may look pretty big, but when you consider than it's the same as most FAT32 partitions, things don't looks so bad.

It would if you'd consider that with a Decent partitioner you can create FAT32 partitions that ONLY have cluster sizes of 512 Bytes! :nuts:
That's a 64 to 1 difference.

Also I thought FAT16 was Totally fixed @ 32Kb clusters.
Therefor a 400 Mb or a 2Gb partition wouldn't matter on the cluster size.

FAT16 has always been an inefficient partition table when you look @ maximum size and the size of it's clusters.

Fat32 on the other hand has better limits.
Still limits, but 2Tb partitions and 512B Clusters look a lot better.