The Woes of DOS in Modern Times

As Microsoft will tell you, there’s brisk traffic in computing nostalgia right now. But don’t forget: Windows 1.0 was reliant on MS-DOS. And for years, DOS was the only real solution for technically demanding games on the PC platform.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to play DOS games in 2019, even if they’re old enough to hang out in dive bars. Phil’s Computer Lab has a lot of interesting resources and a useful YouTube page. Vogons is an informative forum and fun to lurk in, too.

But there are a lot of caveats to installing DOS on new hardware. It’s possible that getting everything just right won’t even be possible now. The reasons… aren’t simple.

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Doom’s 25. This isn’t quite about that.

Originally I’d hoped to write up a big piece celebrating Doom on the day of its twenty-fifth anniversary. That may yet happen, but after a month-long bacterial sinus infection and twenty consecutive days on antibiotics I’m going to keep my ambitions a little more humble. I’d like to talk about Sigil.

Continue reading “Doom’s 25. This isn’t quite about that.”