Current motherboard compatible with DOS games (yes DOS)

Hi,

My Biostar M7MIA motherboard finally gave up the ghost this week. It
was one of the final boards to come with an ISA slot (for my
SoundBlaster 64 card). It also had Socket A and DDR memory slots. I'd
use Windows for regular work, and boot into DOS to play old games
natively, no emulation necessary.

I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
software. I know its a bit of a longshot, but I'm looking for any help
I can get. I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
the following:

1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)

2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
drivers.

I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games. And if
I use an old motherboard I'll just run into the replacement problem
again sooner than later. To save money, I'd like to keep as much of my
current PC as possible (case, PSU, hard drives, etc.) I probably could
afford a new entry CPU, and DDR2 memory, if needed.

If you've heard of any ATX board with DDR/DDR2 RAM that meets one of
the sound criteria I'd love to know. Thanks!

danielc56

http://www.nextag.com/pci-to-isa-adapter/search-html





<danielc56@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1186160760.624257.112910@d30g2000prg.googlegr oups.com...
> Hi,
>
> My Biostar M7MIA motherboard finally gave up the ghost this week. It
> was one of the final boards to come with an ISA slot (for my
> SoundBlaster 64 card). It also had Socket A and DDR memory slots. I'd
> use Windows for regular work, and boot into DOS to play old games
> natively, no emulation necessary.
>
> I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
> software. I know its a bit of a longshot, but I'm looking for any help
> I can get. I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
> the following:
>
> 1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)
>
> 2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
> drivers.
>
> I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games. And if
> I use an old motherboard I'll just run into the replacement problem
> again sooner than later. To save money, I'd like to keep as much of my
> current PC as possible (case, PSU, hard drives, etc.) I probably could
> afford a new entry CPU, and DDR2 memory, if needed.
>
> If you've heard of any ATX board with DDR/DDR2 RAM that meets one of
> the sound criteria I'd love to know. Thanks!
>
> danielc56
>

On Aug 3, 10:37 am, "JAD" <john d...@harvesting.addys.for.****.spam>
wrote:
> http://www.nextag.com/pci-to-isa-adapter/search-html
>
> <daniel...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1186160760.624257.112910@d30g2000prg.googlegr oups.com...
>
> > Hi,
>
> > My Biostar M7MIA motherboard finally gave up the ghost this week. It
> > was one of the final boards to come with an ISA slot (for my
> > SoundBlaster 64 card). It also had Socket A and DDR memory slots. I'd
> > use Windows for regular work, and boot into DOS to play old games
> > natively, no emulation necessary.
>
> > I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
> > software. I know its a bit of a longshot, but I'm looking for any help
> > I can get. I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
> > the following:
>
> > 1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)
>
> > 2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
> > drivers.
>
> > I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games. And if
> > I use an old motherboard I'll just run into the replacement problem
> > again sooner than later. To save money, I'd like to keep as much of my
> > current PC as possible (case, PSU, hard drives, etc.) I probably could
> > afford a new entry CPU, and DDR2 memory, if needed.
>
> > If you've heard of any ATX board with DDR/DDR2 RAM that meets one of
> > the sound criteria I'd love to know. Thanks!
>
> >danielc56

JAD,

Thank you for the reply. But I don't understand how a PCI/ISA
converter would work in this case. Using my SB64 card over the PCI bus
would introduce all sorts of recognition issues with DOS, drivers, and
game config issues, wouldn't it? Would the card appear (and behave) as
an ISA soundblaster card, even though it's connecting to the
motherboard through the PCI bus? Would it only work with a plug-n-play
OS? So many questions, I know...

danielc56

http://www.mameworld.net/dosmame/other.php

PCI dos drivers
--
Mac Cool

Sorry, but no such luck.

--
---------------------
DaveW
<danielc56@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1186160760.624257.112910@d30g2000prg.googlegr oups.com...
> Hi,
>
> My Biostar M7MIA motherboard finally gave up the ghost this week. It
> was one of the final boards to come with an ISA slot (for my
> SoundBlaster 64 card). It also had Socket A and DDR memory slots. I'd
> use Windows for regular work, and boot into DOS to play old games
> natively, no emulation necessary.
>
> I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
> software. I know its a bit of a longshot, but I'm looking for any help
> I can get. I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
> the following:
>
> 1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)
>
> 2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
> drivers.
>
> I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games. And if
> I use an old motherboard I'll just run into the replacement problem
> again sooner than later. To save money, I'd like to keep as much of my
> current PC as possible (case, PSU, hard drives, etc.) I probably could
> afford a new entry CPU, and DDR2 memory, if needed.
>
> If you've heard of any ATX board with DDR/DDR2 RAM that meets one of
> the sound criteria I'd love to know. Thanks!
>
> danielc56
>

Mac Cool wrote:

> http://www.mameworld.net/dosmame/other.php
>
> PCI dos drivers

crap
Lagging, crackling, not working etc.

e.g. Elite, Elite II. Just try ....



Best regards,

Daniel Mandic

danielc56@hotmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My Biostar M7MIA motherboard finally gave up the ghost this week. It
> was one of the final boards to come with an ISA slot (for my
> SoundBlaster 64 card). It also had Socket A and DDR memory slots. I'd
> use Windows for regular work, and boot into DOS to play old games
> natively, no emulation necessary.
>
> I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
> software. I know its a bit of a longshot, but I'm looking for any help
> I can get. I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
> the following:
>
> 1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)
>
> 2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
> drivers.
>
> I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games. And if
> I use an old motherboard I'll just run into the replacement problem
> again sooner than later. To save money, I'd like to keep as much of my
> current PC as possible (case, PSU, hard drives, etc.) I probably could
> afford a new entry CPU, and DDR2 memory, if needed.
>
> If you've heard of any ATX board with DDR/DDR2 RAM that meets one of
> the sound criteria I'd love to know. Thanks!
>
> danielc56
>

Danielc56:

One of the last motherboards made that included ISA slots was the:
Soyo SY-P4I 845GV ISA.

http://www.soyousa.com/products/proddesc.php?t=d&id=194

You can still find them occasionally or you can purchase a new system
from this site that specializes in systems for industry.

http://www.nixsys.com/products.php?cPath=50

HTH & GL

--
\\\||///
------------------o000----(o)(o)----000o----------------
----------------------------()--------------------------
'' Madness takes its toll - Please have exact change. ''

John Dulak - Gnomeway Services - http://tinyurl.com/2qs6o6

Daniel Mandic:

> Mac Cool wrote:
>
>> http://www.mameworld.net/dosmame/other.php
>>
>> PCI dos drivers
>
> crap
> Lagging, crackling, not working etc.
>
> e.g. Elite, Elite II. Just try ....

I know you said you didn't have the money but if I were you I'd consider
building a micro system with embedded processor and isa slot just for my
dos games. It would be fun, shouldn't be too expensive and wouldn't take
up hardly any space. Best of all, it should never be obsolete.

http://www.amdboard.com/geode_commell_lv650.html

general website
http://www.mini-itx.com/

--
Mac Cool

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:06:00 -0700, danielc56 wrote:
>
> I don't really have room for a separate PC just for DOS games.

That's too bad, because I think that would be your best bet. Do you have
room for just the second box and not the monitor etc.? If you do, you
could stack the boxes and toggle between them with a KVM switch. I did
that and it was a very good solution... I only stopped using it because I
now use an old laptop for DOS.

Charlie

On Aug 4, 7:54 am, Ross Ridge <rri...@caffeine.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
wrote:
> <daniel...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >I'd like to keep my DOS partition rather than use DOSbox, or similar
> >software.
>
> A lot of MS-DOS games actually run just fine under Windows XP with it's
> built-in emulator. You'll need to use VDMSound to get sound to work in
> most games, though.
>
> >I'm wondering if there's a modern motherboard with one of
> >the following:
>
> >1) An ISA slot (yeah, right!)
>
> Well, if you search around you can find motherboards using modern
> chipsets that have ISA slots. They're for instrustrial use though, so
> they're going to be expensive and you'll have too look carefully to see
> if you can disable the onboard video and stick a real PCI-E video card
> in there. You might need to also check to see if ISA DMA is supported,
> a crude PCI-ISA bridge, like an add-in card, won't support it.
>
> Hmm... The MB-886 sounds like it will do the trick. It uses LGA775
> CPUs (eg.. Core 2 Duo), DDR2 memory, has a 16x PCI-E slot, SATA, IDE,
> etc... and a single ISA slot. Apparently, it costs over $300 so you'll
> have to ask yourself if an ISA slot is worth $200 to you.
>
> >2) On-board sound known to work in native DOS, with downloadable DOS
> >drivers.
>
> Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to find something like that.
> The best solution, other than a ISA motherboard, is a PCI SoundBlaster
> Live! and a motherboard that generates NMI on SERR# correctly. The SB
> Live! backwards compatability is excellent, both under MS-DOS and Windows
> 9x. Unfortunately, I don't sure how many modern motherboards support NMI.
>
> Ross Ridge
>
> --
> l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
> [oo][oo] rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
> -()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
> db //

Ross,

Thanks for the valuable info! I'm glad to know that someone's keeping
the ISA fire going!

The iBase board you mentioned (MB-886) looks pretty good. A real
modern product. That $300+ price is high, but maybe I'll get it with
my tax return next year. I have an AGP card, so I'd have to look at
replacing that as well. Although iBase also makes a couple P4/Celeron
boards with ISA slots.

I looked at the manual, and there are jumpers to disable the onboard
video. The ISA slot is listed as (slave), any idea if that has an
influence on ISA DMA ability?

In the meantime I plunked down for a cheap socket A motherboard from
newegg.com. I lost my ISA card temporarily, but I couldn't pay to
replace so many components right now. But come early 2008, maybe I'll
be playing Duke Nukem and Tie Fighter natively on my Core2Duo, hehe...

danielc56