4 ms·

I don't think any hardware running MS-DOS will survive that long.

by Iv 6y ago

flomo 6y ago
Modern x86 PCs still can boot DOS, no? (If not, sounds like a bug.) The bigger issue would be ISA control cards and the like. A HN user recently posted a link of "new" ISA boards for sale, but the latest CPU support was Pentium 4 (about 20 years ago).
- Iv 6y ago
  I am not even sure of that. Booting DOS requires a legacy BIOS mode and some legacy video modes that I am not sure manufacturers support anymore.
  - djxfade 6y ago
    I think most (if not all) modern PCI-E GPUs still supports this. If I am not mistaken, this is what is preventing them from working on ARM right now (Raspberry PI 4, Apple M1, etc.), because the driver expect specific BIOS features
    - exikyut 6y ago
      Aaaand that's why X11 has an x86 (v86) emulator in it, so Suns (circa late 90s/early 2000s) could use PC-focused graphics cards with BIOSes containg x86 initialization code. ._.
- userbinator 6y ago
  but the latest CPU support was Pentium 4 No, you can find plenty of ones that will hold a recent i7: https://www.dfi.com/product/index/1502 https://www.dfi.com/product/index/1502 https://ipc.msi.com/product_detail/Industrial-Motherboard/ATX/MS-98L9-V2.0 https://ipc.msi.com/product_detail/Industrial-Motherboard/AT... http://ibase-usa.com/english/ProductDetail/EmbeddedComputing/MB950 http://ibase-usa.com/english/ProductDetail/EmbeddedComputing... (I wish they would make "ultimate" mobos with all the interfaces in between too --- I mean if ISA with a Coffee Lake CPU is possible, how about a pair of IDEs, floppies, and parallel ports too...)
  - flomo 6y ago
    Good to know - thanks.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    A board with ISA, Extended ISA, PCI, AGP, PCI-X and PCIe would be fun.
  - exikyut 6y ago
    Are there PCI IDE+floppy+parallel(+serial+joystick+PS/2+etc) controllers out there that are bug-for-bug indiscernible from the controllers mounted on motherboards?
- msla 6y ago
  > Modern x86 PCs still can boot DOS, no? Even if you assume it can boot DOS, it doesn't mean it can run DOS. No DOS has drivers for a lot of modern hardware, and they're never going to be written. > (If not, sounds like a bug.) BIOS is buggy? Say it ain't so! Say! It! Ain't! So!
  - bonzini 6y ago
    Just virtualize it or even emulate x86 on ARM. You can even emulate an ISA bus over GPIO.
  - jlgaddis 6y ago
    My ~4-year-old workstation -- with a pair of 8C/16T Xeons, 128 GB of RAM, and NVMe storage in a PCIe slot (not to mention everything else) -- boots into and runs FreeDOS just fine. Additionally, over the last several years, I've used it on probably a dozen or more different "makes and models" of enterprise server hardware to update firmware (BIOS/HBA/NIC/SSD) and can't recall experiencing any major issues while doing so (fortunately, more and more of these bootable firmware update utilities are now Linux-based!). That's with FreeDOS 1.0, by the way. A quick check shows that it was released in 2006, making it a fair bit older than the servers I most recently used it on. For what it's worth, FreeDOS 1.2 was released four years ago and the third release candidate of 1.3 was just released this past summer. It seems that FreeDOS, at 26, is still alive and, in fact, doing quite well! To be clear, I've not actually attempted to boot any of the other DOS systems in, well, quite a long time -- at least 10 years for MS-DOS and likely 20 years or more for DR-DOS and PC-DOS -- as I haven't had any reason to. FreeDOS has been a superior replacement since before the turn of the century. In my case, FreeDOS is booted via (i)PXE and the "hard disk" (image), which contains the various firmware images, utilities, etc., is downloaded via HTTP and loaded as a ramdisk. In those rare instances when it's actually been needed, it is just so absolutely useful. Honestly, I'd be a bit surprised if MS-DOS (a.k.a. PC-DOS) did not (for the most part) also "just work"(TM) ... ... and, now that I've said that, I'm fairly confident that MS-DOS 5.0 (1991, IIRC?) is also available on the netboot server. I can't confirm that at the moment but (assuming it is) now I'm quite curious so I'll try to remember to try booting my workstation into it the next time I happen to restart it.
- tjoff 6y ago
  USB to ISA adapters do exist. I'm sure there are compatibility edge-cases but not sure a P4 would be perfectly safe from that either. http://arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isa.html http://arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isa.html
  - voxadam 6y ago
    The problem with such adapters is that being USB based they're timing is far from deterministic. One very common use case for ISA based interfaces is industrial automation where realtime determinism is very common requirement.
    - beagle3 6y ago
      Doesn’t usb support isochronous scheduling? It did for v1.0
jbay808 6y ago
I wonder how many transit systems worldwide are running on DOS right now?
- Iv 6y ago
  And will for 80 more years?
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Ah, yeah the hardware probably won't still be running in 2107, but will be running in 2040. Of course, if New York's subway controls are anything to go by, 2107 is pretty reasonable.
- Frenchgeek 6y ago
  Or in the industrial sector: Milling machines running Windows 95/98 (fun times getting it to talk with windows 10 on the network) or working with floppies are still around: Those beasts are too expensive to not run until dead.
imhoguy 6y ago
I guess some said same about buildings and bridges centuries ago.

I don't think any hardware running MS-DOS will survive that long.

by Iv 6y ago

I don't think any hardware running MS-DOS will survive that long.

Modern x86 PCs still can boot DOS, no? (If not, sounds like a bug.) The bigger issue would be ISA control cards and the like. A HN user recently posted a link of "new" ISA boards for sale, but the latest CPU support was Pentium 4 (about 20 years ago).

Iv 6y ago
I am not even sure of that. Booting DOS requires a legacy BIOS mode and some legacy video modes that I am not sure manufacturers support anymore.
- djxfade 6y ago
  I think most (if not all) modern PCI-E GPUs still supports this. If I am not mistaken, this is what is preventing them from working on ARM right now (Raspberry PI 4, Apple M1, etc.), because the driver expect specific BIOS features
  - exikyut 6y ago
    Aaaand that's why X11 has an x86 (v86) emulator in it, so Suns (circa late 90s/early 2000s) could use PC-focused graphics cards with BIOSes containg x86 initialization code. ._.
userbinator 6y ago
but the latest CPU support was Pentium 4 No, you can find plenty of ones that will hold a recent i7: https://www.dfi.com/product/index/1502 https://www.dfi.com/product/index/1502 https://ipc.msi.com/product_detail/Industrial-Motherboard/ATX/MS-98L9-V2.0 https://ipc.msi.com/product_detail/Industrial-Motherboard/AT... http://ibase-usa.com/english/ProductDetail/EmbeddedComputing/MB950 http://ibase-usa.com/english/ProductDetail/EmbeddedComputing... (I wish they would make "ultimate" mobos with all the interfaces in between too --- I mean if ISA with a Coffee Lake CPU is possible, how about a pair of IDEs, floppies, and parallel ports too...)
- flomo 6y ago
  Good to know - thanks.
- xxpor 6y ago
  A board with ISA, Extended ISA, PCI, AGP, PCI-X and PCIe would be fun.
- exikyut 6y ago
  Are there PCI IDE+floppy+parallel(+serial+joystick+PS/2+etc) controllers out there that are bug-for-bug indiscernible from the controllers mounted on motherboards?
msla 6y ago
> Modern x86 PCs still can boot DOS, no? Even if you assume it can boot DOS, it doesn't mean it can run DOS. No DOS has drivers for a lot of modern hardware, and they're never going to be written. > (If not, sounds like a bug.) BIOS is buggy? Say it ain't so! Say! It! Ain't! So!
- bonzini 6y ago
  Just virtualize it or even emulate x86 on ARM. You can even emulate an ISA bus over GPIO.
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  My ~4-year-old workstation -- with a pair of 8C/16T Xeons, 128 GB of RAM, and NVMe storage in a PCIe slot (not to mention everything else) -- boots into and runs FreeDOS just fine. Additionally, over the last several years, I've used it on probably a dozen or more different "makes and models" of enterprise server hardware to update firmware (BIOS/HBA/NIC/SSD) and can't recall experiencing any major issues while doing so (fortunately, more and more of these bootable firmware update utilities are now Linux-based!). That's with FreeDOS 1.0, by the way. A quick check shows that it was released in 2006, making it a fair bit older than the servers I most recently used it on. For what it's worth, FreeDOS 1.2 was released four years ago and the third release candidate of 1.3 was just released this past summer. It seems that FreeDOS, at 26, is still alive and, in fact, doing quite well! To be clear, I've not actually attempted to boot any of the other DOS systems in, well, quite a long time -- at least 10 years for MS-DOS and likely 20 years or more for DR-DOS and PC-DOS -- as I haven't had any reason to. FreeDOS has been a superior replacement since before the turn of the century. In my case, FreeDOS is booted via (i)PXE and the "hard disk" (image), which contains the various firmware images, utilities, etc., is downloaded via HTTP and loaded as a ramdisk. In those rare instances when it's actually been needed, it is just so absolutely useful. Honestly, I'd be a bit surprised if MS-DOS (a.k.a. PC-DOS) did not (for the most part) also "just work"(TM) ... ... and, now that I've said that, I'm fairly confident that MS-DOS 5.0 (1991, IIRC?) is also available on the netboot server. I can't confirm that at the moment but (assuming it is) now I'm quite curious so I'll try to remember to try booting my workstation into it the next time I happen to restart it.
tjoff 6y ago
USB to ISA adapters do exist. I'm sure there are compatibility edge-cases but not sure a P4 would be perfectly safe from that either. http://arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isa.html http://arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isa.html
- voxadam 6y ago
  The problem with such adapters is that being USB based they're timing is far from deterministic. One very common use case for ISA based interfaces is industrial automation where realtime determinism is very common requirement.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    Doesn’t usb support isochronous scheduling? It did for v1.0

jbay808 6y ago

I wonder how many transit systems worldwide are running on DOS right now?

Iv 6y ago
And will for 80 more years?
- jbay808 6y ago
  Ah, yeah the hardware probably won't still be running in 2107, but will be running in 2040. Of course, if New York's subway controls are anything to go by, 2107 is pretty reasonable.
Frenchgeek 6y ago
Or in the industrial sector: Milling machines running Windows 95/98 (fun times getting it to talk with windows 10 on the network) or working with floppies are still around: Those beasts are too expensive to not run until dead.

imhoguy 6y ago

I guess some said same about buildings and bridges centuries ago.