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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Old MsDos
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| NickMikhay Newbie  Joined: 05/02/2026 Location: United StatesPosts: 5 |
Hello, I was just wondering if there are any small sbc computers such as the Maximite, but which can run dos. There is this great program for CNC machines, which must run in real-mode and hence does not work with more recent OS’s. What I did before was use an old windows98 machine to run in dos mode, but for some reason it stopped booting, something with the hard disk I suspect. I looked online and found a hard drive adapter which turns sd cards into hard drives, and plan on re-loading my setup. I even found an older dos 6.22 which installs from 3 floppies, rather than 98, which you can also piece out the dos files from. This is fine and all, but I was just thinking, how hard would it be to whip up a board that can run MS-DOS. Considering how fast it can run on modern hardware, we will probably need to slow it down some. I have seen it done plenty of times, guys building apple iic, and other vintage computers, but have not seen anyhing that runs DOS, like a 486 machine. I am sure someone is still using or making them! Anytime there is a good idea, chances are someone has already thought of it too, so that is why I ask, if any one knows of such a project, or can make a recommendation. It would be really nice to have something small to run the machine (the size of a maximite), and not have to lug around a micro atx case with it. The program is called TurboCNC, maybe some of you have already heard of it. It only costs $60.00 now, and you even get the source code. Pretty solid program, but occasionally it quits during the middle of a job when you do a feed override during movement, I guess you have to push the button slowly while it is moving and not while it is changing direction, nut neverless it is a great program. I have also considered getting a FPGA kit and experimenting with it to build the busses, “how hard can it be?”, right. It is actually a lot of work, to build by yourself, something that took years of development in professional organizations like IBM and Microsoft, that was kind of he lesson learned. For some reason everyone seems to like RISC, while there doesn’t seem to be much difference between it and an CPU like the 486, or even better a 8016, or 8088. |
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| robert.rozee Guru  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2498 |
there are a number of alternatives, some cheap while others quite expensive. probably the cheapest option would be to run an emulator on a RPi, although you may hit issues with I/O access. another is to simply buy any cheap low-end PC and load MSDOS onto it - in theory even modern computers should be able to do this. or there are projects containing an 8088 processor, a single large RAM chip, and a 'helper' processor (such as an ATmega1284P than manages all the other stuff that a PC motherboard would normally contain. one example is here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/vintage-computing/v20-mbc-an-easy-to-build-8088-8080-computer/ cheers, rob :-) addendum: for the above running MSDOS 2.11 see: https://github.com/keyvin/v20mbc-msdos and more info in general: http://retro.hansotten.nl/category/v20/ Edited 2026-03-08 12:35 by robert.rozee |
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| gadgetjack Senior Member  Joined: 15/07/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 190 |
Also look up FABGL on the esp32 layout. It does a decent job of running some dos programs. |
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| tgerbic Senior Member Joined: 25/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 108 |
There were some industrial computer boards in the 80s and 90s that were fully PC compatible, usually with 286, 386 or 486 processors that were pretty small. Some in the 6" to 8" square sizes. I think I still have one. Great for running PC DOS with the necessary interfaces. There were also some small form factor PC motherboards in the 12" to 14" range. May need a serial/parallel and video adapter but reasonably small, probably fit in a micro sized AT case. I have a couple of 486 models. It might help if you look at alternatives to the typical AT/ATX compatible motherboards, perhaps on ebay or similar sites. What I do is have a pentium PC packed with interfaces and drives that multiboots five flavors/configs of PC DOS. I have another XP machine, packed with interfaces and drives. Yes they take up room but some things just need older hardware and OS's, or an ISA bus. I think it is now a waste of time (unless done as a hobby project) to build a board to replace an old PC. Must faster, cheaper and more compatible to just hunt a single board PC with all or most interfaces on it. You might even find a piece of vintage test equipment that has an 8088 to 486 PC inside with a working serial and parallel port. I have used EMC/EMC2 in the past on linux and it worked well. It has morphed into LinuxCNC. That might be an alternative environment if you want real-time operation. I have not run TurboCAD but have heard good things about it. |
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| Andy-g0poy Regular Member  Joined: 07/03/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 85 |
Have as look at this: https://www.xda-developers.com/how-turned-my-raspberry-pi-into-classic-dos-pc/ Many people use linuxcnc http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?LinuxCNC_Supported_Hardware The big issue is with delays, many multitasking os's don't like running real time functions, the solution is often to offload the motor driver functions to small sub processors. I've no idea regarding the faux86 program ( the first link) but RotarySMP @RotarySMP on Utube drives a thumping big CNC mill with linuxcnc and produces nice work. Andy |
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| tgerbic Senior Member Joined: 25/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 108 |
Just had one more thought about an alternative. There used to be some ISA board PCs that could be plugged into an ISA slot backplane that might be an alternative. They were standalone PCs and I used some to make a modem/voice gateway back in the late 80s. Though I have not seen one in a long time, USR had a PC plug in card (one of my great ideas) for the Total Control chassis to provide a services platform. It might be adapted to run outside the chassis. Might me less work than making a PC from scratch and would be a good DOS platform. |
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| tgerbic Senior Member Joined: 25/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 108 |
While modern PCs can run all sorts of things, the downside is usually interfaces. Most today will not support floppy drives, don't have parallel ports (or have bios support for parallel) or may only support one or no serial ports natively. While you can get some USB drive support (very limited), USB serial and USB parallel ports, they will not run under DOS. Video will probably be a big driver issue as well running with DOS. |
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| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 5753 |
Not sure what TurboCAD is, but if it is to drive a CNC from a PC using the parallel port, it could be similar to MACH3 or MACH5. There are people that are succesfully running MACH3 on modern PC's with USB parallel port. You may have to google how they did it (special drivers ?). A friend of me has bought ESTLCAM which uses a USB interfaced board that controls cheap chineese stepper drivers for his lathe. Designed for modern Windows. When using this interface (parallel port) it may very well be a drop in replacement for your current hardware: LPT port When you are willing to look at the estlcam software, for 100 euro you are up and running. Volhout Edited 2026-03-08 17:44 by Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8650 |
There are 8080 and 8086 emulators for the Raspberry Pi which might be a better platform. Also, there is LinuxCNC which might be better, and would probably run on much easier to get hardware than DOS stuff. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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