Could this thing run (potentially) FreeDOS or a DOS emulator?

[rozojc]

Hi all,

I've been following up on the Raspberyy Pi for some time now, and was wondering if anyone has thought of using this for old DOS games (I did search the forums for both DOS and D.O.S. and got no results)...

If, as according to the FAQ, the general performance will be that of a Pentium II, and with 256 RAM, if there was any way to run say FreeDOS in this thing, it would be a great little-energy saving-cost effective computer for my old collection of Sierra Games

I haven't even checked on FreeDOS for a while, and know not if there are any DOS emulators for Linux compiled for ARM, but it would sure seem an interesting possibility....

[grumpyoldgit]

As I understand it, not only Freedos would need to be compiled for ARM but the games would too.

[rozojc]

Mmmmm, hadn't thought of that... I'm not very knowledgeable in these things... Would a DOS emulator work? Or does a DOS emulator only emulate the operating system and not the x86 processor?

[Pirx-Danford]

I am pretty positive it will just be a matter of recompiling the sources of one of the open source DOS emulators.

So imho the reply is "yes it very probably will be able to"

11+8 why must it be an odd number? I hate odd numbers!

[drgeoff]

dosbox was discussed at http://www.raspberrypi.org/for.....-raspberry

[rozojc]

You're right, not sure why when I searched DOS it did not show up...

Although my approach/question is slightly different from that discussed in that thread. The thread you mentioned ended up being more of a discussion on running Windows on top of DOSBox, whether XP, 2000, Vista, etc would work and so on and so forth.

I did find out by reading it (had no idea) that DOSBox emulated the x86 as such, and there seem to be ARM builds (although I don't find them anywhere mentioned in DOSBox's site), so yes, it should make a decent environment for running old PC Games... I think...

Not sure how fast or slow it would run though, although it does not seem to need running on a graphical environmet.

Thanks for the input, hopefully someone will at some point get DOSBox to work on the R-Pi and post instructions for us interested in running oldish games!

[grumpyoldgit]

A number of posters on here are of a certain age and I suspect would be very interested in being able to play some of these old games on the Pi. I would imagine it could take up a whole area on the revamped board.

[pauldow]

rozojc said:


You're right, not sure why when I searched DOS it did not show up...


The search will only work for terms of 4 to 84 characters. It doesn't seem to give an error if you only use 3, but it just ignores the search.

I now regret turning in my copy of Sublogic Flight Simulator to get an upgrade rebate. That would have been interesting to see on the RPi.

[jamesh]

pauldow said:


rozojc said:


You're right, not sure why when I searched DOS it did not show up...


The search will only work for terms of 4 to 84 characters. It doesn't seem to give an error if you only use 3, but it just ignores the search.


You can use the Google Search button on the front page of the site - that accepts 3 character search terms.

[rozojc]

Thanks! I'll try that next time!

[andyl]

rozojc said:


If, as according to the FAQ, the general performance will be that of a Pentium II, and with 256 RAM, if there was any way to run say FreeDOS in this thing, it would be a great little-energy saving-cost effective computer for my old collection of Sierra Games


If you want to play Sierra games it might be better to look into installing ScummVM - http://www.scummvm.org/

[rozojc]

Thanks, I have seen that, but I love the idea of having a dedicated computer just for this

[merlino3737]

Here is a thread on dos emulation for games on the Nokia n800 which is weaker than the RP and similar to ARM.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthre.....hp?t=15893

I ran Word-perfect on mine and it was similar in speed to a 386..

I'm no expert and just used what was developed for the Nokia by following the site linked above (actually its predecessor).