21 replies to this topic

[JohnnyBlaze]

So, I was given a Dell Inspiron 1200 some time back and now I finally broke down and got an AC adaptor for it:

Inspiron 1200 Specs

So, I was thinking of turning this into a Windows 95 or 98 machine to play my older games as I used to. Can anyone give me some pointers into doing this and most importantly, which OS should I go for? 95 or 98?

I want to play games like Doom, Wolfenstein, Heretic, Duke Nukem 3D, 4D Boxing, Outnumbered, The Simpsons Arcade Game(the PC version), etc. Basically from 1992-1997.

[frogstar_robot]

You'll have a difficult time making a decent Win9x machine out of this. The Intel GMA 900 graphics are only supported in Windows 2000 and XP.

[edintv]

frogstar_robot, on Tue Aug 9, 2011 10:05 PM, said:

You'll have a difficult time making a decent Win9x machine out of this. The Intel GMA 900 graphics are only supported in Windows 2000 and XP.

But that is not a issue for Dos games. Have you tried Dos Box? is a very nice software that can run many dos games in any version of windows. Have many features and users interfaces.

[JohnnyBlaze]

frogstar_robot, on Tue Aug 9, 2011 10:05 PM, said:

You'll have a difficult time making a decent Win9x machine out of this. The Intel GMA 900 graphics are only supported in Windows 2000 and XP.

Could you elaborate on how difficult it may be? I need to know what I'm getting myself into here.

Edited by JohnnyBlaze, Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:02 AM.

[Asaki]

You might be better off with something just a little bit older

I have a few old Compaq LTE laptops that make great DOS machines; one's a 486 (no sound card) and the other's a Pentium. I think all of the Pentium machines have at least 800x600 screens though, and I know some of them scale 640x4#0 to fit the screen (the 5380 does, and IIRC has a 1024x768 screen) =/ The 5280 has 800x600 and doesn't upscale (black borders instead).

Here's a P150 (I don't know much about this model): eBay Auction -- Item Number: 220827399387

I don't know why you'd want to play DOOM, Heretic, and Duke 3D in DOS though when there are really good source ports out there.

[JohnnyBlaze]

I was given the laptop and it's too weak to be real functional so I thought I'd try this. I basically wanted a laptop version of the computers I used to play in middle school that had all these games on it. Basically the earliest I want is Windows 95 and the latest is 98. I don't remember 2000 all that much. I basically want the Windows 9x look, feel and compatibility.

If this doesn't work, I DO have an old Pentium III computer here that I could do that with....

Edited by JohnnyBlaze, Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:20 AM.

[Rex Dart]

Well, it can't hurt to just try. I'd put Windows 98 on it if I were you. You probably want to make a backup of the hard drive or at least write down the details of all the hardware so you can locate drivers, either Win98 versions when possible, or WinXP versions if the whole project fails somehow.

I can't imagine why DOS itself wouldn't run fine on that thing.

[JohnnyBlaze]

Because Windows XP has some trouble playing some of the old Windows 95 titles. A perfect example is my Activision Action Pack and Beavis and Butthead Virtual Stupidity. Though, the latter I got to work by ripping the files on the disc to the hard drive and running them that way...

[jmetal88]

A great laptop for DOS and Windows 95 stuff is the Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CDT. That might not be much help to know at the moment, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[poobah]

jmetal88, on Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:39 PM, said:

A great laptop for DOS and Windows 95 stuff is the Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CDT. That might not be much help to know at the moment, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Or a Mac running Boxer

[Vaughan]

DOSBOX is the way to go, imo. Keep XP, download DOSBOX which is free, and away you go. Far simpler.

[jmetal88]

poobah, on Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:46 AM, said:

jmetal88, on Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:39 PM, said:

A great laptop for DOS and Windows 95 stuff is the Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CDT. That might not be much help to know at the moment, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Or a Mac running Boxer

No.

[Asaki]

JohnnyBlaze, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:18 AM, said:

Basically the earliest I want is Windows 95 and the latest is 98. I don't remember 2000 all that much. I basically want the Windows 9x look, feel and compatibility.

Well, it doesn't hurt to try, I guess...but I have a feeling you might not be able to find enough drivers...

[poobah]

jmetal88, on Sun Aug 14, 2011 9:36 PM, said:

poobah, on Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:46 AM, said:

jmetal88, on Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:39 PM, said:

A great laptop for DOS and Windows 95 stuff is the Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CDT. That might not be much help to know at the moment, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Or a Mac running Boxer

No.

Yes =]

edit: Boxer works quite awesome on Mac systems.

[littleman jack]

I'd go with 98 over 95. But you may have to get an older laptop.

[NE146]

Does a virtual pc under win7/vista work well? I should try it out.. all my virtual machines are XP. Hmmmm.. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try Win98 and maybe Doom or something. Maybe it'll suck, or maybe it'll be good. Time to try!

[ApolloBoy]

Vaughan, on Sun Aug 14, 2011 8:07 AM, said:

DOSBOX is the way to go, imo. Keep XP, download DOSBOX which is free, and away you go. Far simpler.

I used to think that way about DOS games too. Then I got a real DOS PC. Needless to say, I don't use DOSBox anymore.

[jmetal88]

poobah, on Mon Aug 15, 2011 6:12 PM, said:

jmetal88, on Sun Aug 14, 2011 9:36 PM, said:

poobah, on Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:46 AM, said:

jmetal88, on Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:39 PM, said:

A great laptop for DOS and Windows 95 stuff is the Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CDT. That might not be much help to know at the moment, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Or a Mac running Boxer

No.

Yes =]

edit: Boxer works quite awesome on Mac systems.

I'm not getting a Mac. End of story.

The great thing about the 400CDT is it has a native resolution of 640x480 on its active matrix LCD, and the sound card in it has a genuine Yamaha OPL3 for FM synthesis.

I'm sorry, emulation doesn't cut it when systems like this are available.

[Asaki]

NE146, on Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:19 PM, said:

I guess it wouldn't hurt to try Win98 and maybe Doom or something.

http://www.zdoom.org

[NE146]

Asaki, on Wed Aug 17, 2011 6:05 AM, said:

NE146, on Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:19 PM, said:

I guess it wouldn't hurt to try Win98 and maybe Doom or something.

http://www.zdoom.org

I know Zdoom but that's a port for Win32. I guess I wasn't thinking about "Doom" per-se.. but any DOS game. Oh and by the way, I haven't had any luck yet.. so far the 2 games I've tried just crash. But then again I've only been trying really fast and not really trying to tweak/fix it. I'll look into it further later.. but it's looking like DOSBox is still the easy way to go.

[frogstar_robot]

JohnnyBlaze, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:02 AM, said:

frogstar_robot, on Tue Aug 9, 2011 10:05 PM, said:

You'll have a difficult time making a decent Win9x machine out of this. The Intel GMA 900 graphics are only supported in Windows 2000 and XP.

Could you elaborate on how difficult it may be? I need to know what I'm getting myself into here.

The installation may not be difficult necessarily. You won't be able to get a driver for the graphics chips and will have to run the machine in VESA mode. That will rule out a great many DirectX games or games that use other Win9x multimedia capabilities.

Also, DOSBOX does not cover all the ground on vintage 90s PC gaming. There is a difficult era that runs from about 96 to 2000 where games were produced that only run well on Win9x proper (not DOS) and either don't run in XP or don't run well. Running Win9x in a virtualizer is tough because many don't emulate x86 Real Mode well and start choking when Windows wanders into the 16-bit weeds. Virtualizers also tend not to have video accelerated well and this is especially true of Win9x guests.

[Asaki]

frogstar_robot, on Wed Aug 17, 2011 10:06 AM, said:

Also, DOSBOX does not cover all the ground on vintage 90s PC gaming. There is a difficult era that runs from about 96 to 2000 where games were produced that only run well on Win9x proper (not DOS) and either don't run in XP or don't run well.

DOSBox isn't very good for a lot of early 80s games, either. I tried running Might & Magic in it, but got tired of having to keep alternating the cycles for different parts of the game. My 486 + MoSlo runs it much better.

Though I never did try running MoSlo in DOSBox...