If a DOS palmtop would come out would you buy one? [poll]

michaelweaser

I am just wondering if one would come out in 2016 if any of us would buy one. I am semi-obsessed with DOS palmtops like hp 200lx or poqet pc, if they would come out again i would want it to be svga, at least 4gb of ram , ram can be used as a ram disk, and also it would have DOS in rom, i really wouldn't care if it would be ROM-DOS, FREEDOS, DRDOS, or MS-DOS. I would want it to also have full soundblaster support, and support wifi. I don't know what GUI it would have or could use.

garirry

DOS is absolutely pointless for modern consumers, especially for a machine dedicated to it. Might as well just install DOSBox or install DOS in a VM.

robobox

michaelweaser wrote:

I am just wondering if one would come out in 2016 if any of us would buy one. I am semi-obsessed with DOS palmtops like hp 200lx or poqet pc, if they would come out again i would want it to be svga, at least 4gb of ram , ram can be used as a ram disk, and also it would have DOS in rom, i really wouldn't care if it would be ROM-DOS, FREEDOS, DRDOS, or MS-DOS. I would want it to also have full soundblaster support, and support wifi. I don't know what GUI it would have or could use.

You should know that DOS 6.22 doesn't see more than 64 MB of RAM. Plus it is too old to have any "Wi-fi" drivers laying around. You might get an SVGA driver tho. If you really want something like that in abandonware check out Windows 2000, because DOS alone is not very good. Also, you would be able to use all the specs with it.Because anything that is DOS(even Windows 9x) cannot use that memory.EDIT: And to top that DOS did not run on Pocket PCs. Windows CE did.

BOD

DOSBox for android. Your "handheld" already exists.

dosbox

BOD wrote:

DOSBox for android. Your "handheld" already exists.

Yep, plus you could hook up your IBM/Lexmark Model M for more nostalgia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjh7zAuaw-0

SomeGuy

I recall being fascinated when some of the first MS-DOS based pocket computers came out (I don't recall what model(s) they were off hand). The same power as my Kaypro 2000, but without the back-breaking weight. More importantly they could run arbitrary custom DOS software rather than being limited to what the vendor supplied. But even by that time other pocket computers/PDAs were already using various GUIs.

But to make something like that today, even the most limited embedded chips would likely have at least 100 times that capability. So it wouldn't make sense for anyone to manufacture such a thing today.

michaelweaser

robobox wrote:

michaelweaser wrote:

I am just wondering if one would come out in 2016 if any of us would buy one. I am semi-obsessed with DOS palmtops like hp 200lx or poqet pc, if they would come out again i would want it to be svga, at least 4gb of ram , ram can be used as a ram disk, and also it would have DOS in rom, i really wouldn't care if it would be ROM-DOS, FREEDOS, DRDOS, or MS-DOS. I would want it to also have full soundblaster support, and support wifi. I don't know what GUI it would have or could use.

You should know that DOS 6.22 doesn't see more than 64 MB of RAM. Plus it is too old to have any "Wi-fi" drivers laying around. You might get an SVGA driver tho. If you really want something like that in abandonware check out Windows 2000, because DOS alone is not very good. Also, you would be able to use all the specs with it.Because anything that is DOS(even Windows 9x) cannot use that memory.EDIT: And to top that DOS did not run on Pocket PCs. Windows CE did.

Well there are a few wifi cards that do have dos drivers mostly pcmcia or pci , but most are limited to wifi hotspots with no password, there where only 1 or 2 that could do password protected wifi hotspots and also that the 64mb limit is because of the himem driver , can't just use a different himem driver? and didn't windows 3.1 have its own driver so it could see more than 64mb of ram?

WalkingContradiction

Although, a pocket DOSbox that used dedicated hardware emulation would be pretty nice for playing DOS games on the go... It would probably perform better then DOSBox for android or iOS (yes it exists). I had iDOS for the longest time and all it was good for was text based games. Although, this was probably due to it being on an iPhone 4, which has a CPU clock of 800MHz.

michaelweaser

michaelweaser wrote:

robobox wrote:

michaelweaser wrote:

I am just wondering if one would come out in 2016 if any of us would buy one. I am semi-obsessed with DOS palmtops like hp 200lx or poqet pc, if they would come out again i would want it to be svga, at least 4gb of ram , ram can be used as a ram disk, and also it would have DOS in rom, i really wouldn't care if it would be ROM-DOS, FREEDOS, DRDOS, or MS-DOS. I would want it to also have full soundblaster support, and support wifi. I don't know what GUI it would have or could use.

You should know that DOS 6.22 doesn't see more than 64 MB of RAM. Plus it is too old to have any "Wi-fi" drivers laying around. You might get an SVGA driver tho. If you really want something like that in abandonware check out Windows 2000, because DOS alone is not very good. Also, you would be able to use all the specs with it.Because anything that is DOS(even Windows 9x) cannot use that memory.EDIT: And to top that DOS did not run on Pocket PCs. Windows CE did.

Well there are a few wifi cards that do have dos drivers mostly pcmcia or pci , but most are limited to wifi hotspots with no password, there where only 1 or 2 that could do password protected wifi hotspots and also that the 64mb limit is because of the himem driver , can't you just use a different himem driver? and didn't windows 3.1 have its own driver so it could see more than 64mb of ram?

Is this true If you use the himem driver from windows 9x in ms-dos 6.22, that you will be able to use up to at least 4gb of ram? So its just a dos driver issue? so you just really need to get a updated driver for dos 6.22 for it to recognize up to 4gb of ram?

robobox

michaelweaser wrote:

michaelweaser wrote:

robobox wrote:

michaelweaser wrote:

I am just wondering if one would come out in 2016 if any of us would buy one. I am semi-obsessed with DOS palmtops like hp 200lx or poqet pc, if they would come out again i would want it to be svga, at least 4gb of ram , ram can be used as a ram disk, and also it would have DOS in rom, i really wouldn't care if it would be ROM-DOS, FREEDOS, DRDOS, or MS-DOS. I would want it to also have full soundblaster support, and support wifi. I don't know what GUI it would have or could use.

You should know that DOS 6.22 doesn't see more than 64 MB of RAM. Plus it is too old to have any "Wi-fi" drivers laying around. You might get an SVGA driver tho. If you really want something like that in abandonware check out Windows 2000, because DOS alone is not very good. Also, you would be able to use all the specs with it.Because anything that is DOS(even Windows 9x) cannot use that memory.EDIT: And to top that DOS did not run on Pocket PCs. Windows CE did.

Well there are a few wifi cards that do have dos drivers mostly pcmcia or pci , but most are limited to wifi hotspots with no password, there where only 1 or 2 that could do password protected wifi hotspots and also that the 64mb limit is because of the himem driver , can't you just use a different himem driver? and didn't windows 3.1 have its own driver so it could see more than 64mb of ram?

Is this true If you use the himem driver from windows 9x in ms-dos 6.22, that you will be able to use up to at least 4gb of ram? So its just a dos driver issue? so you just really need to get a updated driver for dos 6.22 for it to recognize up to 4gb of ram?

it may be possible but it works up to 512 mb.and thanks for letting me know people have wifi on Dos

michaelweaser

WalkingContradiction wrote:

Although, a pocket DOSbox that used dedicated hardware emulation would be pretty nice for playing DOS games on the go... It would probably perform better then DOSBox for android or iOS (yes it exists). I had iDOS for the longest time and all it was good for was text based games. Although, this was probably due to it being on an iPhone 4, which has a CPU clock of 800MHz.

This is why I would want to have one that has dedicated hardware instead of emulation, I think real hardware is much better than emulated hardware. I am thinking of designing one that is going to be open-hardware. I just need help on getting it together, on what cpu to use, how to get soundblaster compatibility , etc.

timjames474

I personally don't see myself buying anything dedicated to DOS when i can have all i need to run it downloaded in minutes for free thanks to the people at oracle from making free virtualization software and WinWorld/Duff for having DOS images for use

buricco

DOSBox isn't very efficient. DSx86 could get pretty good performance on a 33 MHz ARM, more than enough for a game like Commander Keen 4.

calvinb

Except why would I carry that around?

michaelweaser

I want to do this because of what was said on wikipedia on hp 200lx, there was a Japanese company that was designing in the late 2000's one since dos palmtop's where very popular in Japan, apparenly on what i read that this was a scam and people lost lost of money. This DOS palmtop doesn't have to run DOS all the time, i might leave it run windows or even linux, but the main OS will be DOS. I am going to design like a umpc computer, just have the hardware to be 100% with dos and still have drivers for dos.

yourepicfailure

Doqtor Kirby

Mmh. I'd much rather prefer a palmtop running Windows 10 Mobile.

But at that point I might as well just get a Lumia 950 XL.