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comment on flushing predecode queue (pre-Pentium) (DOSX)

posted by Rugxulo Homepage, Usono, 27.04.2008, 20:20

> DN didn't start at all. It displayed bottom toolbar and hanged. Probably
> alloc some XMS on start. I used this version:
> DN+
> by Rainbow based on DN Open Source v1.51.04/DOS. Later DNOSP runs
> much slower on slow machines.
Ah, okay. BTW, there's a real mode and a DPMI version of DNOSP. (Can't remember, but NDN might need a 486DX. I know it definitely needs an FPU, but do try it anyways if you're adventurous.)

> > Just curious, but what kinds of programs do you run on it? Games?
> > Programming (e.g. DJGPP)? How big is the HD? How much RAM? (Just
> curious.)
>
> It has 4MB RAM (1MB onboard+some expansion module).
Same as my first 486. Not a huge amount, but enough to run DOS + Win 3.x and games like King's Quest 6 (which could run with text or sound, floppy or CD-ROM version).

> It also has IIT387
> coproc.

That's good, at least. My 486s were always Sx (no FPU). Not essential for most stuff but certainly nice.

> Original HDD was dead (i think 120M) and I replaced it by 500M.
Should be enough for reasonable DOS use. ;-)

> It'n not usable for games, it hasn't soundcard and LCD is very ugly & slow
> monochrome.

Well, it may not be an ideal game machine, but there are still some games that could be fun (Dungeon Crawl? NetHack? ADOM?). (I regret the lack of soundcard more than the mono screen.)

> I used it before for some simple programming in Borland
> Pascal. Also have prehistoric DJGPP GCC 2.7.2 on it but it's very slow.

DJGPP203.UHA (djdev 2.03p2 + gcc 2.95.3 + bnu 2.16.1 + cwsdpmi r5 + rm)

Granted, you'll have to unpack on a newer machine with more RAM first and repack with something your 386 can handle (.bz2 or .zip or whatever; use "bzip2 -sd" to decompress if necessary). But at least it's kinda modern (2.95.3 is dated 2001 and support through PPro). Yeah, DJGPP is kinda slow (even though it started out on a 386), just avoid newer versions (even slower!), and avoid -O2 if you can help it.

Or try OpenWatcom. ;-)

Or try smaller compilers (Micro C, Small C, BCC/Dev86DOS, Desmet C, Turbo C).

> I
> have installed win 3.1 and monkey linux (minidistro runs on UMSDOS FS) but
> it's quite slow.
The RAM thing is probably the main barrier (although a 386 is no speed demon either, and neither is a 486). I think UMSDOS is kinda slow itself, though, and obviously Linux is not very 386- or 486-friendly. Maybe NetBSD or Minix would be a better fit?

> Now I have much better NB but i just like old HW to my collection :)
Yes, it's good for testing or just playing around with.

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