Current motherboard compatible with DOS games (yes DOS)

  • Thread starter Thread starter danielc56
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danielc56

Hi,

My Biostar M7MIA motherboard finally gave up the ghost this week. It
was one of the final boards to come with an ISA slot (for my
SoundBlaster 64 card). It also had Socket A and DDR memory slots. I'd
use Windows for regular work, and boot into DOS to play old games
natively, no emulation necessary.

I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
software. I know its a bit of a longshot, but I'm looking for any help
I can get. I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
the following:

1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)

2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
drivers.

I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games. And if
I use an old motherboard I'll just run into the replacement problem
again sooner than later. To save money, I'd like to keep as much of my
current PC as possible (case, PSU, hard drives, etc.) I probably could
afford a new entry CPU, and DDR2 memory, if needed.

If you've heard of any ATX board with DDR/DDR2 RAM that meets one of
the sound criteria I'd love to know. Thanks!

danielc56
 
http://www.nextag.com/pci-to-isa-adapter/search-html
Click to expand...

JAD,

Thank you for the reply. But I don't understand how a PCI/ISA
converter would work in this case. Using my SB64 card over the PCI bus
would introduce all sorts of recognition issues with DOS, drivers, and
game config issues, wouldn't it? Would the card appear (and behave) as
an ISA soundblaster card, even though it's connecting to the
motherboard through the PCI bus? Would it only work with a plug-n-play
OS? So many questions, I know...

danielc56
 
Hi,

My Biostar M7MIA motherboard finally gave up the ghost this week. It
was one of the final boards to come with an ISA slot (for my
SoundBlaster 64 card). It also had Socket A and DDR memory slots. I'd
use Windows for regular work, and boot into DOS to play old games
natively, no emulation necessary.

I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
software. I know its a bit of a longshot, but I'm looking for any help
I can get. I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
the following:

1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)

2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
drivers.

I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games. And if
I use an old motherboard I'll just run into the replacement problem
again sooner than later. To save money, I'd like to keep as much of my
current PC as possible (case, PSU, hard drives, etc.) I probably could
afford a new entry CPU, and DDR2 memory, if needed.

If you've heard of any ATX board with DDR/DDR2 RAM that meets one of
the sound criteria I'd love to know. Thanks!

danielc56
Click to expand...

Danielc56:

One of the last motherboards made that included ISA slots was the:
Soyo SY-P4I 845GV ISA.

http://www.soyousa.com/products/proddesc.php?t=d&id=194

You can still find them occasionally or you can purchase a new system
from this site that specializes in systems for industry.

http://www.nixsys.com/products.php?cPath=50

HTH & GL

--
\\\||///
------------------o000----(o)(o)----000o----------------
----------------------------()--------------------------
'' Madness takes its toll - Please have exact change. ''

John Dulak - Gnomeway Services - http://tinyurl.com/2qs6o6
 
Daniel Mandic:
crap
Lagging, crackling, not working etc.

e.g. Elite, Elite II. Just try ;)....
Click to expand...

I know you said you didn't have the money but if I were you I'd consider
building a micro system with embedded processor and isa slot just for my
dos games. It would be fun, shouldn't be too expensive and wouldn't take
up hardly any space. Best of all, it should never be obsolete.

http://www.amdboard.com/geode_commell_lv650.html

general website
http://www.mini-itx.com/
 
I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games.
Click to expand...

That's too bad, because I think that would be your best bet. Do you have
room for just the second box and not the monitor etc.? If you do, you
could stack the boxes and toggle between them with a KVM switch. I did
that and it was a very good solution... I only stopped using it because I
now use an old laptop for DOS.

Charlie
 
I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
software.
Click to expand...

A lot of MS-DOS games actually run just fine under Windows XP with it's
built-in emulator. You'll need to use VDMSound to get sound to work in
most games, though.
I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
the following:
Click to expand...
1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)
Click to expand...

Well, if you search around you can find motherboards using modern
chipsets that have ISA slots. They're for instrustrial use though, so
they're going to be expensive and you'll have too look carefully to see
if you can disable the onboard video and stick a real PCI-E video card
in there. You might need to also check to see if ISA DMA is supported,
a crude PCI-ISA bridge, like an add-in card, won't support it.

Hmm... The MB-886 sounds like it will do the trick. It uses LGA775
CPUs (eg.. Core 2 Duo), DDR2 memory, has a 16x PCI-E slot, SATA, IDE,
etc... and a single ISA slot. Apparently, it costs over $300 so you'll
have to ask yourself if an ISA slot is worth $200 to you.
2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
drivers.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to find something like that.
The best solution, other than a ISA motherboard, is a PCI SoundBlaster
Live! and a motherboard that generates NMI on SERR# correctly. The SB
Live! backwards compatability is excellent, both under MS-DOS and Windows
9x. Unfortunately, I don't sure how many modern motherboards support NMI.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] (e-mail address removed)
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //
Click to expand...

Ross,

Thanks for the valuable info! I'm glad to know that someone's keeping
the ISA fire going!

The iBase board you mentioned (MB-886) looks pretty good. A real
modern product. That $300+ price is high, but maybe I'll get it with
my tax return next year. I have an AGP card, so I'd have to look at
replacing that as well. Although iBase also makes a couple P4/Celeron
boards with ISA slots.

I looked at the manual, and there are jumpers to disable the onboard
video. The ISA slot is listed as (slave), any idea if that has an
influence on ISA DMA ability?

In the meantime I plunked down for a cheap socket A motherboard from
newegg.com. I lost my ISA card temporarily, but I couldn't pay to
replace so many components right now. But come early 2008, maybe I'll
be playing Duke Nukem and Tie Fighter natively on my Core2Duo, hehe...

danielc56
 
I looked at the manual, and there are jumpers to disable the onboard
video. The ISA slot is listed as (slave), any idea if that has an
influence on ISA DMA ability?
Click to expand...

It probably just means that ISA bus mastering isn't supported, and
soundcards don't use that. You should probably e-mail and ask them
before ordering though.
But come early 2008, maybe I'll be playing Duke Nukem and Tie Fighter
natively on my Core2Duo, hehe...
Click to expand...

Well, in the mean time you might want to check out the Win95 of Tie
Fighter, it's graphics have been updated from the MS-DOS version.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] (e-mail address removed)
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //
Click to expand...

I also have the Tie Fighter '95' version. Not as much fun as playing
the original version for DOS, IMO...

I've got one more question. What's the difference between a 'regular'
motherboard and an industrial motherboard? iBase characterizes their
products as industrial motherboards. Other than high price, is there
anything that sets these boards apart from those normally found in PC
cases?

danielc56
 
Ross Ridge said:
Basically, they support things like ISA slots. Apparently there's
a fair number of companies still using old ISA boards to control or
monitor things. I guess these things either can't be replaced or it
would cost more than $300 to do so. I notice their ATX motherboards
also typically have four serial ports, where on a modern motherboard
you're lucky to get one. They also have watchdog timers, which can be
used to reset the computer when it appears to have crashed.
Click to expand...

IIRC, when we evaluated an iBase motherboard a few years ago, they used
components with better temperature ratings so their motherboards could
have a higher temperature rating. Seems like they also had other
features like on-board flash RAM and digital I/O that some industrial
applications can take advantage of, and one of the serial ports could be
configured as either RS-232 or RS-422.

Regards,

Dave
 
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