When your BIOS is more advanced than your operating system.

*"There is no reason to do this. That is why I did this."* If there was ever a phrase that encapsulated this channel perfectly this would be it.

I wrote major portions of MS-DOS 6.2 (smartdrv, himem, diskcopy, single disk setup, etc) in the summer of 1993. It was my very first project on my first day at Microsoft! Thanks for the memories! I think it contains the only dialog I ever wrote with a single option (R)etry. If Smartdrv cannot lazy write data to the disk under MS-DOS, there is no other option. Retry, or retry.

"There is no reason to do this. That is why I did this." That is why we love you.

"Your computer has a disk larger than 512mb.." You don't say!

No PC speaker emulation? Take that pile of shit back!!!

Guy: Windows 7 is the best! Other guy: No Windows XP is better! Me: What about MS-DOS 6.22?

This sounds like the recipe to accidentally inventing a functioning time machine.

I didn't think LGR could get any more random or awesome...I was completely wrong.

And to think I couldn't even get XP to work with Skylake.

1) The reason DOS wouldn't boot is because you used the FDISK program from DOS 7, which supported FAT32 and LBA mode. When you launched FDISK, it asked you if you wanted to enable support for large disks. You selected "Yes". You needed to select "No." You still would have been able to create partitions, but you would have been limited to a maximum partition size of 2GB. Those partitions that you created with large disk support enabled were created with a FAT32 file system, which DOS 6.x and lower don't support. In addition to that, I didn't see where you set the primary partition you created as "Active." If memory serves me correctly, you had to manually set primary partitions as "Active" in the old FDISK utility. The reason DOS 6 didn't boot was because of operator error ... not incompatibility with the newer hardware. 2) I'm surprised that the PC case didn't include a PC speaker with it. I've built quite a few modern PCs in the last year and every case I've bought (most were Cooler Master brand) came with a PC speaker / buzzer. 3) The colors being off was indeed odd. I know you tried two different monitors ... but what interface were you using? HDMI? DVI? VGA? It's very possible the color distortions were due to the interface rather than faulty emulation from the board. CGA. EGA, and VGA are all analog. Seems logical to me to stick with VGA since it's in the same class of technology (analog vs digital.) 4) Duke3D would have run fine in 640x400 resolution (NOT 640x480) if you had manually edited the duke3d.cfg file. This would have been non-VESA but in a higher resolution. Keep in mind that VESA was simply a standard that some video card manufacturers followed that allowed basic hardware acceleration by programs that simply followed the VESA standards. Even in the days of DOS, many card manufacturers didn't follow the VESA standard 100%, thus the need for such utilities as the old UNIVBE program.

"Volume Drive in C is LOLWUT" got a chuckle outta that

These are the voyages of the starship LGR. Its five-year+ mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new weird software and hardware combinations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

And of course the external FDD is wood grain.

Thanks, I love these "lets try and put two things together that aren't supposed to work and see if they work" kind of videos! Too bad you didn't run any dos benchmarks lol!

Hey just wanna say I've never heard of you but when I clicked on your video and watched for the info in the title, I really enjoyed your format. You do a great job at conveying the info in a way that keeps me interested and also doesn't waste my time. You're awesome.

Stop apologizing for making pointless videos. We wouldn't be here if they actually had a point.

So basically adding early 90s DOS to a late 2017 pc equals 2008 fallout 3 filter.

Awesome! I was doing the same thing when I used to build computers for people! The first thing I did after first powering up a freshly assembled machine - boot from CD into DOS and run Elite 2/3 to watch butter-smooth intro and listen to the music (when it was still that much compatible with SB audio ofc). :) Good times, good times...

Pc turned off - 18 degrees Pc turned on with MS-DOS - -24 degrees

980Ti not good enough for the Duke.

The absolute madman!

Omg so nostalgic... I remember that install process like it was yesterday....

Back in the day when games struggled with (S)VGA/EGA/CGA compatibility issues due to the huge amount of different graphics chips out there, many people used software called Scitech Display Doctor and it would fix a number of those issues by providing proper VESA support. UniVBE in particular is the driver that does all this. That may solve at least some of the issues seen in this video?

Duraga1 spirit is here...

Do people not install PC speakers anymore? I built a 6700k gaming build last year and installed the PC speaker. It's great for telling if you're not getting any picture on your screen bc it's the monitors fault or if your PC isn't posting. Besides, I love the post beep, it's something from the past that I can carry over today!

I was really hoping you were going to try a game designed specifically for 33Mhz

I like the opening statement of MS DOS. It has an improved support for large HDDs over 2GB. You go MS DOS. :3

You need to set the boot flag on the partition table in order for the BIOS to boot from the partition you installed DOS. Probably FreeDOS does this during the install. Had the same problem doing something similar to keep a legacy system running on DOS on a modern computer. The NVMe needs no driver because the BIOS is translating the interface (LBA -> CHS) and providing the BIOS interrupts that DOS uses to access the hardware. Running format /s would install the bootloader sector on the NVMe but it does not change the active boot flag. I had to do this from a sys rescue CD running Linux and gparted. I think I used disk editor on DOS to do the same but i haven't done it in a while so I just used gparted.

When your BIOS is way more advanced (UI, usability, etc) than the actual installed OS...

me: wat os do you want? m8: any idc me: [open this video]

Running almost 40 years old MS DOS at SSD and Ryzen in 2017. Now I've seen everything in this world and beyond!

This made my day.

This channel is so great for people with 90s nostalgia

Board speakers are a thing of the past? Lol 😂 you haven't seen catastrophe until you know exactly why motherboard speakers are still useful.

Great stuff! I found this very entertaining. Keep it up my friend.

The latest chipset to support sound in DOS is VIA K8T890. No chance with newer hardware.

At the beginning in Fdisk did you made the 2 GB partition ACTIVE? otherwise indeed it won't start.

Great vid. I always wondered what would happen when you try to shove an old OS onto new gear straight up. I'm always doing it with stuff it was meant for when the opportunity arises, but never got a chance to do this. Good show!

LGR : Plays Keen on 980 Ti 980 Ti : Am I a joke to you ?

Hey guy, your brand new pc drops frames on jazz jack rabit Can't handle 75 fps Gotta upgrade

5:05 So I'm like really tired and borderline lucid dreaming/awake while watching this video, and your hand and the Roland entering the video actually scared the shit out of me and I jumped/yelped. Holy shit dude.

i always wondered this, thanks for taking us through it

Amazing, just truly amazing friend your videos never decline to please thanks for everything. Cheers friend from Canada 🇨🇦

I still own a MS DOSmachine : it's a PIII-800 EB with a Voodoo3 and a soundblaster AWE32. With a fast CD, a ZIP 250 and a 8GB compactflash, it rocks !

Even though the sound didn't work, I was able to hear all the Commander Keen sounds in my head

These drive names lol, "LOLWUT" and "USBELIEVEME".

Came for the experiment, stayed for the LGR. Shame about the lack of sound. You saved me a lot of time and web searching!

You deleted your new video while I was in the middle of watching it... Why?

This is irrelevant, but your background music in your videos is always flawless. I'm sure it's just some nice royalty-free jazz, but god damn is it just fine. Makes watching your videos feel good while having a meal or a nice drink.

Love your stuff man! Keep it up!

Awesome video; makes me appreciate DOSBox even more!

Nothing wrong with the color on Keen, doll. You just have the Fallout 3 edition installed. Yellowy pee green mush for everyone.

Of course, the floppy drive has to be woodgrain. :)

I always install a buzzer module when building PCs.

I had hoped you were going to partition the entire HDD as dozens of 2.4GB partitions. Thanks for doing this so that I don't have to, ever. We love you Clint!

So this is what software rot looks like. Even your screen gets covered in a figurative green mold.

You sir, are a national treasure. Thanks for this.

your video is useful! you just saved me about a day or two trying it out myself! :D thanks!

Now use windows 98 on a quantum computer!

This is why vintage builders prefer motherboards with at least one or two ISA slots, so you can drop in an original ISA SoundBlaster or compatible board.

I did this when I built my i7-6700k system. It played Jill of the Jungle just fine, although only with PC speaker sound effects. That was also the only time that PC speaker has ever made noise.

Cool review buddy! good job ;D

I remember in 1995 my dad showed me Doom on his NEC notebook that had DOS and Windows 3.1 on it. The sound was just electronic tones but on his Windows desktop at work he had it with full stereo sound.

freedos is interesting ... is it possible you could install freedos on old computer? maybe next video you could explain the different between freeDOS, MS-DOS and DOSBOX..

First you tried "FORMAT C: /S", but it was taking too long. After making a smaller partition you did "FORMAT C:", which did not make the disk a system disk. You should have just done "FORMAT C: /Q /S" the first time. This would have done a (Q)uick format and made the disk a (S)ystem disk. Once quick formatting showed up in DOS, almost nobody waited for full formats anymore. :-)

Enjoying your channel thanks for sharing

I love your videos !! Keep it up !

You know something, it was only last week I was wondering about the extent of backwards compatibility on modern systems and it's interesting to know that x86 support really is genuinely there. The old x86 tax is being paid in full :)

How did dos detect an nvme drive in the first place??

Great stuff, thanks for sharing! From memory you can transfer the system and set the boot partition active / fix boot sector using the "sys" command. i can't remember if its an exe or a com, heres the syntax (after booting from a bootdisk and also after u ran setup.exe): "sys a: c:" I used this so many times....... those good old days....... mmmmmm......

Me in 2017: This guy must be stupid Me in 2019: This is stupid, but I love it. Case also needs woodgrain.

LGR, Did you try the same stuff with a modern Radeon card to see if you get the same weird color palettes?

It's not pointless because it's fun!

Oh dear. My dad was even more of a god to me when he was actually able to get the sound to work on Day of the Tentacle back then. And it kind of broke my heart to see Commander Keen 4 and not hearing the tune that is still burned into my brain. Thank you for this trip back to my childhood.

Great video, man! Thanks!

So glad we have dosbox :-)

It's a long shot but it might be possible to get audio output from the spdif output from the 980ti

enjoyed! thank you LGR

I'm impressed you managed to get this working. I couldn't even get my old 2013 AMD FX 8350 system to run Windows XP x64 lol.

Was the BIOS set to legacy or uefi during DOS install?

Pigtail speaker, like the one you showed, usually comes with PC enclosure! There's rarely an integrated buzzer on the mainboards, they're gonna save those few cent, hoping that the enclosure will supply one anyway. The big ones are certainly dead though.

That was really cool to see. I love the old computer software

dude, you just brought back some amazing memories for me... the question I have is that all those games are long gone for me, where can I even find old apps and games? I have an old 486 (I think) that has a bad power supply and hard drive and I've been toying with the idea of trying to get it running and playing those old games again

Is the RAM even running in dual channel while they are placed in 2 slots right next to each other like that?

I just got a AM3 motherboard with 2 PCI slots to use to create a FreeNAS build with (I do not use those slots except for the bracket space). You can see where I'm going with this. I wonder if you use a PCI video card and a PCI Sound Blaster-compatible sound card, will it work? Newegg makes it really easy to find those boards. I found a Ryzen one with 2 slots; a Socket FM2 with 3 slots. For Intel, it looks even easier. A Socket LGA1151 board has 3 slots. I thought this would be harder

Dude why did I not subscribe sooner. Love a few of your videos today.

It would be interesting to see if you could the modern PCIe Creative SoundBlaster dedicated sound cards like the Z/ZX series working where the integrated ones didn't.

You could try using Scitech Display Doctor (adds VESA/UniVBE compatibility) with Duke Nukem 3D and see if that fixes the VESA incompatibility problems. Not that there is any actual reason to of course but would be an interesting experiment.

You cannot enable large disk support under Fdisk on a Win98 boot disk. Doing so, causes it to create a FAT32 partition. DOS 6.22 does not know how to read FAT32. So either use the DOS 6.22 fdisk or say No to large disk support. The reason FreeDOS works is it has support for reading FAT32 partitions.

Given your knowledge of old PC gear, I think it'd be fun to review a piece of modern hardware that is comparable to older stuff. For instance, I saw a USB 3.0 based video card that outputs xvga on sale at Fry's for 9.99. It would be interesting to see a win 95/98 era PCI comparison, compatibility/emulator investigation and hardware comparison / teardown. Enjoy your videos and your style is very entertaining. Let me know of you ever make it up to north dallas (half price books!) Would love to have coffee and chat about old PC games!

Interesting.. subscribed. I really enjoyed this video.

Interesting video... PC onboard speakers is not an audio device where you have an audio codec when producing sounds. It's more like an oscillator using a hardware timer chip, or beeper or buzzer in modern terms. The speakers can be controlled by writing into hardware ports. You can use debug.exe in your ms DOS program and write out values to the ports 61, 43, or 42. Say you want to write value FF to port 61, then launch debug.exe at the the dash prompt, type "o 61 FF" (without the ") & so on... you may use the web to get the port reference.HAVE FUN!

I'd love to see someone install Windows ME on a modern PC.

Commander Keen was one of those series I played over and over and over again as a kid, along with Solar Winds and Castle of the Winds

I recently set up a Dell Dimension L500cx with FreeDOS. My hope was that you may have found a way to set up sound on a PCI sound card. I guess I'll follow the suggested source you mention in the video. On the bright side, Commander Keen 1 looks fine on the cheap video card that shipped with the Dell Dimension. I guess, sometimes, less is more.

Well, this is a good point when you need to replace an old pc with old software that was still usable to drive something, for example an expensive pump or to revive other old equipment. You can still use the software. I think I will go for FreeDOS, because of the USB support.

Compatibility testing is not pointless.

Thanks for the tutorial

Just a year ago I booted (free)DOS from a USB to update my firmware ("BIOS")