Author Topic: Proof that I'm officially old: DOS woes (Read 291 times)

Simaril · « **on:** September 19, 2005, 04:45:09 PM »

Not only do I remember using DOS, I've forgotten what I knew...

My son got hold of Master of Orion I, one of the truly great computer strategy games ever. Unfortunately, I cant get it running for him. We kept an old system for playing old games (we especially like X-Com, the possibly the greatest game of all time), and we have Win95 as OS. When trying to run the game, there's insufficient conventional memory by about 13kb. I checked mem/c, and have DOS resident high; I've tried varying the PIF memory properties for the shortcut without success. I've also tried editing the autoexec and config files for the shortcut, but to be honest I'm just fumbling around there after not ahveing thought DOS for so long.

I've forgotten how to unload resident programs already in memeory, other than rebooting.

Any tips or web references would be appreciated...

eagl · « **Reply #1 on:** September 19, 2005, 04:49:10 PM »

http://www.jerrypournelle.com

I *think* his website has a search function, otherwise you'll be stuck browsing back through his "view" and "mail" history. He uses some utility (I think) for old dos games, although lately he's been addicted to evercrack.

JTs · « **Reply #2 on:** September 19, 2005, 04:58:11 PM »

can you boot into dos? if so run memmaker think thats how it was spelled

Xargos · « **Reply #3 on:** September 19, 2005, 05:03:02 PM »

"Master of Orion" is a great game, still play that one once in awhile.

Simaril · « **Reply #4 on:** September 19, 2005, 05:09:06 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by eagl
http://www.jerrypournelle.com

I *think* his website has a search function, otherwise you'll be stuck browsing back through his "view" and "mail" history. He uses some utility (I think) for old dos games, although lately he's been addicted to evercrack.

Is this the guy who writes scifi, including some great stuff with Larry Niven?

eagl · « **Reply #5 on:** September 19, 2005, 05:12:25 PM »

Yea, same guy. A bit old-codger-ish but the signal to noise ratio on his site is pretty high.

ChickenHawk · « **Reply #6 on:** September 19, 2005, 05:17:24 PM »

You can pick up Master of Orion 3 in the bargin bin for under ten bucks now. It's probably not as good as the origional though.

derelict · « **Reply #7 on:** September 19, 2005, 05:31:57 PM »

What about running it off a boot disk with the appropriate commands in the autoexec and config on the disk? I seem to remember having to format a boot disk for a lot of my games.

Fishu · « **Reply #8 on:** September 19, 2005, 05:35:03 PM »

640k is enough for everyone.

Charon · « **Reply #9 on:** September 19, 2005, 06:07:54 PM »

I once got Aces of the Pacific to run with all basic drivers loaded (video, sound mouse, etc.) without a boot disk - before QEMM and 386 Max. Hand organizing load order in config.sys to clear a stubborn 5k or so. Load order is important with the load high commands, and as I recall driver size has something to do with load order. A lot of trial and error as I recall, wee hours of the morning project it was. Download a copy of QEMM or go to Ebay and get one. It should solve all the memory problems you could have.

Charon

brendo · « **Reply #10 on:** September 19, 2005, 06:49:31 PM »

Simaril,

Some memories need to stay in the past.

Im not going there.... no........................... ............................. ............................. ............................. ............................. ............................. ............................. .......
make the bad man go away!

lasersailor184 · « **Reply #11 on:** September 19, 2005, 07:39:08 PM »

I'm only 20 and I can remember Dos. I had to once keep a computer alive about 3 years past when it should have been legally declared dead.

I've forgotten it all now though.

Simaril · « **Reply #12 on:** September 20, 2005, 12:18:26 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by derelict
What about running it off a boot disk with the appropriate commands in the autoexec and config on the disk? I seem to remember having to format a boot disk for a lot of my games.

Thats what Win95 PIF lets you do, on a program by program basis. Unfortunately, the stuffautomatically loaded puts me at 560kb, and teh program needs 570. I tried removing a likely program load, and got a lock up to show for it.

I'll have to go diving into Pournelle's site...see if I get clues about what I can actuall y mess with in the PIF autoexec/config files...