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General discussionIntel NUC / other mini-PC and MS-DOS?(18 posts)(18 posts)
(18 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 28, 2016
In case you want to use a real harddisk or SSD with DOS, you need to configure the hard drive controller in the BIOS/UEFI setup as legacy IDE instead of AHCI or RAID. Not all modern computers still support that legacy mode though. Not sure about the NUC computers.
Depending on what you want to do with the computer, using FreeDOS instead of MS-DOS might be a good idea. It supports so much more "modern" stuff (e.g. long filenames and USB support for mass storage devices - which makes copying files off of a running computer so much easier).
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HereForTheBeer: Now that I think about it, a NUC should work so long as we stick with a Celeron or Pentium. We're already using those processor families when we make desktop PCs to replace dead legacy PCs, and you can get those in a NUC.
The CPU type really does not matter, those are just marketing names, nothing more. Any X86 CPU will support DOS. It is usually the peripherals that can cause problems. Of course using anything more powerful than a Celeron is most likely a waste of money for a DOS computer.
Post edited September 28, 2016 by jpilot
Posted September 28, 2016
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HereForTheBeer: Next: download and offline installation of drivers and anti-virus, and then get this thing online. At some point I'll have to take it over to someone else's house to access a faster internet connection. Windows Updates at 768kb... ugh.
There was a recent thread about Win7 update woes, and quite a few solutions were given on how to grab the updates to use on an offline computer. Tell me if you can't find the thread so I can go looking.
Posted September 28, 2016
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jpilot: In case you want to use a real harddisk or SSD with DOS, you need to configure the hard drive controller in the BIOS/UEFI setup as legacy IDE instead of AHCI or RAID. Not all modern computers still support that legacy mode though. Not sure about the NUC computers.
Depending on what you want to do with the computer, using FreeDOS instead of MS-DOS might be a good idea. It supports so much more "modern" stuff (e.g. long filenames and USB support for mass storage devices - which makes copying files off of a running computer so much easier).
It does have a legacy option but for some reason it wasn't working for me. Keep in mind that I'm no IT guru so it may have had everything to do with me and not the hardware. And that problem ultimately led to a better, even more portable solution to the main problem we were trying to solve.

I'll play around with FreeDOS one of these days. They key is the machine software, so if the OS and the software will work then that may be a viable solution. Pretty sure that it would run under DR-DOS back in the day but I never tried that OS myself; anyway, I don't think it's somehow locked to MS-DOS.
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HereForTheBeer: Now that I think about it, a NUC should work so long as we stick with a Celeron or Pentium. We're already using those processor families when we make desktop PCs to replace dead legacy PCs, and you can get those in a NUC.
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jpilot: The CPU type really does not matter, those are just marketing names, nothing more. Any X86 CPU will support DOS. It is usually the peripherals that can cause problems. Of course using anything more powerful than a Celeron is most likely a waste of money for a DOS computer.
Agree. As you say, the P and C options are cheaper so that's what we've used in the past on full desktops, and I didn't feel like finding out that - for some really oddball reason - it wouldn't work with an i-series unit. Why wouldn't it? No idea, but I'm doing this experiment on my dime so I'll stick with the cheaper option for now. ; ) The new embedded PCs are using a 1GHz Celeron M so we're covered on the new stuff, and the new software has no problems with the i7 on my laptop.

If I'm feeling really froggy, I may someday try a ComputeStick for this application. That would blow the minds of a lot of customers.
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General discussionIntel NUC / other mini-PC and MS-DOS?(18 posts)(18 posts)
(18 posts)