Buying an old and 'powerful' DOS machine for nostalgia games

[PcEthuaist]

I am looking for an old dos machine that has a floppy drive as well a cd drive and is at the top line of dos computers- one that can play every dos game at max performance. I am planning to use the machine for old games.

Please reply if you know of any good dos machines.

 

[plasmastorm]

Just use dosbox on your windows PC for free.

 

[PcEthuaist]

I know that I can do that, but I want to get an old dos machine for the full nostalgia feel. You can't play an old game if you got no old machine. If I use my new pc for dos games, I'll never play them when I got tf2 and and other new games on there.

 

[nordlead]

even with an old machine you'll never play them....

 

[PcEthuaist]

I will play them, I just want to play them on an machine rather than emulate them.

 

[phyco126]

My friend had one that had a 66 Mhz processor and a 4 MB(or 8 MB) graphics card, and 16 MB RAM way back in the day. It ran most games, but was slower with some 'newer' games from 1998.

I'm not sure what hardware DOS is compatible with, or what computers had the best hardware that ran on DOS only. I'm sure a 133 - 200 Mhz processor, 32 MB - 96 MB RAM, and a 16 MB card will be pretty high end for DOS games, without being overkill. Again, I'm not sure if DOS would be compatible with that kind of hardware, but I really don't see why it wouldn't be.

 

[PcEthuaist]

My friend had one that had a 66 Mhz processor and a 4 MB(or 8 MB) graphics card, and 16 MB RAM way back in the day. It ran most games, but was slower with some 'newer' games from 1998.

I'm not sure what hardware DOS is compatible with, or what computers had the best hardware that ran on DOS only. I'm sure a 133 - 200 Mhz processor, 32 MB - 96 MB RAM, and a 16 MB card will be pretty high end for DOS games, without being overkill. Again, I'm not sure if DOS would be compatible with that kind of hardware, but I really don't see why it wouldn't be.

Yea I am looking for any old machine that is high end for that stuff. I am trying to get 16 lan party pc's for cheap with some good lan games, like quake for example, and I feel playing with a modern pc an old game feels queer. If you know, what company and what model number was the dos machine your friend had?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

quake really needs a fast cpu, or you can run it much better with the openGL patch in win95 if you have a 3d card, something like a nvidia 128, TNT, TNT2 would work well. You will probably want a sound blaster card too. I have a nice AWE64 Sound blaster card hanging around somewhere that i used to use for old games. A 200mhz pentium mmx up to a PII/PIII would be good. PIII's should be able to be found pretty cheap, if you can find them. I used to have an AMD Duron 1ghz running a dos machine, it could barely run quake at 1024x768 without the opengl patch as its running all the 3d through the CPU.

 

[PcEthuaist]

quake really needs a fast cpu, or you can run it much better with the openGL patch in win95 if you have a 3d card, something like a nvidia 128, TNT, TNT2 would work well. You will probably want a sound blaster card too. I have a nice AWE64 Sound blaster card hanging around somewhere that i used to use for old games. A 200mhz pentium mmx up to a PII/PIII would be good. PIII's should be able to be found pretty cheap, if you can find them. I used to have an AMD Duron 1ghz running a dos machine, it could barely run quake at 1024x768 without the opengl patch as its running all the 3d through the CPU.

okay I will add that to my mental note of the range of power on the machines.
Does anyone know of a list of machines that use dos?

 

[Raiddinn]

Everything in the past used DOS (unless it was made by Apple).

I would imagine you could install DOS even on today's hardware if you wanted to.

You would have a tough time finding DOS drivers for today's hardware, but you would also have trouble finding DOS drivers for 1980 hardware too.

You could try to call up a military base telephone operator and get them to pass you to a branch called DRMO like "dermo" and try to get them to tell you who they sell the DRMOd computers to. They package up computers into huge shrinkwrapped pallets and sell them to somebody, but I am not sure who. Whoever is on the receiving end of all that probably has thousands of POS computers laying around.

Either that or put out a want ad in your local newspaper or something.

 

[PcEthuaist]

Everything in the past used DOS (unless it was made by Apple).

I would imagine you could install DOS even on today's hardware if you wanted to.

You would have a tough time finding DOS drivers for today's hardware, but you would also have trouble finding DOS drivers for 1980 hardware too.

You could try to call up a military base telephone operator and get them to pass you to a branch called DRMO like "dermo" and try to get them to tell you who they sell the DRMOd computers to. They package up computers into huge shrinkwrapped pallets and sell them to somebody, but I am not sure who. Whoever is on the receiving end of all that probably has thousands of POS computers laying around.

Either that or put out a want ad in your local newspaper or something.

so you suggest calling up the military and asking where they sell their old pc's to? Sounds wierd but I guess I'll try that...lol they'll probably get suspicious and tap my phone line

 

[mouse24]

lol I know I know this probably isn't what you wanted, but just grab a cheap mobo + atom proc and use the onboard graphics, if you're buying 16 pcs then you don't want to shell out tons of money to get worse hardware then cheaper better hardware.

I mean even on a 1ghz atom proc it wouldn't be able to play any newer games

 

[nordlead]

You could probably install dos on current hardware, but you'll have one major problem. Most dos games didn't throttle themselves. Instead they ran as fast as the cpu. I used to play this one game and to make it harder we would throw on the turbo (taking it from 33MHz to 66MHz).

Unless of course, when you mean DOS games you mean mostly 3d games like Quake and Wolfenstein 3D. However, I typically think of the 2D games like Scorched Earth, Red Baron (I think that was the name), and so forth that we used to play on an old IBM XT (4.77MHz).

Anyways, Quake only takes a 75MHz processor and any open GL capable graphics card, so whatever you can get your hands on will work.

 

[PcEthuaist]

lol I know I know this probably isn't what you wanted, but just grab a cheap mobo + atom proc and use the onboard graphics, if you're buying 16 pcs then you don't want to shell out tons of money to get worse hardware then cheaper better hardware.

I mean even on a 1ghz atom proc it wouldn't be able to play any newer games

I'd think that an old dos machine would be cheaper since the power in those things since they are really underpowered and old. I am not looking for a modern mobo, I am looking for old dos prebuilt systems. even an underpowered atom system these days cost many dollars and I think shelling out for dos systems will be cheaper.

 

[PcEthuaist]

You could probably install dos on current hardware, but you'll have one major problem. Most dos games didn't throttle themselves. Instead they ran as fast as the cpu. I used to play this one game and to make it harder we would throw on the turbo (taking it from 33MHz to 66MHz).

Unless of course, when you mean DOS games you mean mostly 3d games like Quake and Wolfenstein 3D. However, I typically think of the 2D games like Scorched Earth, Red Baron (I think that was the name), and so forth that we used to play on an old IBM XT (4.77MHz).

Anyways, Quake only takes a 75MHz processor and any open GL capable graphics card, so whatever you can get your hands on will work.

but can I manually throttle the game speeds? I am mainly looking at quake (it being a major one), but I am also looking at 2d games as well.

 

[PcEthuaist]

I have quake on steam on my specs below.....

I know I can get quake on steam but I don't feel it has the same value in a digital format. I'd also have to pay 160 to have quake on all systems, but if I get the cd version used I can get it for cheaper.

 

[phyco126]

I have no idea what brand my friend had.

Honestly, your best bet is to watch craigslist and look at ebay for anything Pentium 2 on down. I would seriously cap your processor to 200 Mhz though, specifically due to throttling on older games. Might not be a problem for all the games you are looking for. Also, keep in mind that old doesn't always mean cheaper. Looking at PIII based computers that people are selling for $200+ on ebay. Not much luck finding anything significantly cheaper.

 

[PcEthuaist]

I have no idea what brand my friend had.

Honestly, your best bet is to watch craigslist and look at ebay for anything Pentium 2 on down. I would seriously cap your processor to 200 Mhz though, specifically due to throttling on older games. Might not be a problem for all the games you are looking for. Also, keep in mind that old doesn't always mean cheaper. Looking at PIII based computers that people are selling for $200+ on ebay. Not much luck finding anything significantly cheaper.

wow, I can only imagine they are in love with their machines. Well, maybe I'll just see if craigslist has some old dos pc's

Also, will 200 mhz be able to render unreal tournament at full settings at a smooth frame rate?

 

[tsnor]

LOL, wish you were local. I have 3 machines in the basement that would fit your specs including a $3600 (new) micron P100 with seperate cache on a stick, a bunch a 486s and even an old 8086 with D0S3 and lisp. I've been waiting for the local 'dump your junk for free instead of paying $50 per to recycle' day. Even have a CGA monitor to go with the 8086.

Just post a few signs at work or school or on trees, people will be GLAD to give you their systems.