What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?

DOSBox is one of several solutions listed here:

What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio, I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486 to
program the radios.

"Dirk Bruere at NeoPax" <dirk.bruere at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6cpn56F3gt07eU1 at (no spam) mid.individual.net...
But does it play DOOM 2?

Indeed it does! But why would you want to waste it on that, when there are
(besides the original Linux port that id wrote) a rich variety of compatible
executables? I'm partial to PrBoom (by TeamTNT), and for shiny graphics,
jDoom does it in OpenGL. So there, get doomin'! ;-)

On a similar subject, it also runs Descent nicely...

"Mycelium" <myceliumgrows at (no spam) underyourshrooms.org> wrote in message news:gtpg64569tde09mm74sso1gm81am8q9gu3 at (no spam) 4ax.com...
On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:58:33 -0500, "Tim Williams"
tmoranwms at (no spam) charter.net> wrote:
On a similar subject, it also runs Descent nicely...

Descent 3?

Ahh, now I remember. My very first and only LAN game party.
Everyone brought their PC, we setup a LAN and did Descent.
I remember it was a flight sim of sorts, flying was in the tunnels
under ground. But this was like 20 years ago before internet.

M

On Jun 28, 7:15 pm, RFI-EMI-GUY <Rhyol... at (no spam) NETTALLY.COM> wrote:
What is the trick to getting my old DOS programs to run under WIN
XP?
Some work some don't. For example with WIN98 I could run all DOS
programs very well including some radio programming software that
although the serial interface was too fast to read/write a radio,
I
could edit codeplugs with the "UBer" computer and use my slow 486
to
program the radios.

Now these same programs don't seem to do anything except open a
dos window.

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©

Athlon XP (4years old) is just fine with MS-DOS 6.22 in multiple boot.
I have a machine at work that boots DOS, Win XP pro, or Win 98se. On
the faster machines there were some quirks in DOS with Borland's CRT
unit that caused "divide by 0" errors (IIRC) but a patch fixed that
up.

G²

My XT machine supports external ROMs. The documentation (which I finally
found online, and is quite well specified) states:

-=-=-

The ROS checks for external ROMs between addresses C0000 and F4000 in 800h
(2k) byte increments. An external ROM which conforms to the following
specification will be initialised by the ROS:

1. The first two bytes contain the hexadecimal value 55AA.
2. The next two bytes contain the size in 512 (1/2K) byte increments.
3. The next byte is the initialization routine entry point.
4. The LS byte of the byte sum of the ROM is zero.

When a ROM conforming to this specification is located then the
initialization entry is called.

If the checksum test fails then an error message is displayed and
initialization is not called.

The IGA BIOS ROM conforms to above standard and if it is enabled, it is
entered (at C0000)...

-=-=-

So the ROS (Resident Operating System, i.e. the BIOS startup code)
initializes whatever's found (which, in my case, includes the hard drive
controller's BIOS and the IGA (Internal Graphics Adapter, which is high
resolution EGA with a whopping 256k RAM)). I could, in principle, burn an
EPROM that conforms to these specifications and run my own programs
instantly on startup.

Tim

Or save yourself a lot of hassle and buy an ASUS mobo. Oh wait, it
just boots to linux and you may not want that.