Category: Geeks r Us
I justmade an incredibly cool discovery! I always knew that Windows 3.1 and DOS ran separately. You could pop out of one and go into the other. Of course, this isn't true with XP, since it doesn't have actual DOS inside it, just an emulator. But I thought the same was true for 95 and 98 as well or at least that there was no way of entering DOS apart from the command prompt found in Windows. I was happily wrong on both counts! Apparently, it contains MS-DOS 7, which is unsupported officially (they say the last supported stand-alone version is 6.22) but which I know as a fact can run on it's own. I can even enter it without needing to use Windows and can have the computer boot directly to full DOS! I found all the details here.
http://www.ctyme.com/msdos7.htm
It so happens that I have a working laptop with Windows 98 on it and even a full version of JFW 3.7! If I'm correct, this means that I can use the Windows command line to install a DOS screenreader so that when I boot without Windows, I can start up the reader and be on my way. Of course, I don't intend on staying with MS-DOS forever, but this will give me a nice experiment until I can either collect the drivers needed for this laptop, find a better one or get a desktop, put Enhanced DR-DOS onto some floppies and have someone install it for me. At the very least, I can finally! start my QuickBASIC tutorials because I have all the necessary keys and play around with all sorts of software. I can even switch from one opperating system to the other and try out some Windows applications if I wanted. This is so cool! Now I just need to get over to EBay and buy that $10 adapter. lol I lost mine.
Actually, I just thought of something. I know that this particular machine (the 310 that is) has a bios and some other drivers that specifically work with DOS. I've been under the impression that a machine must have at least certain core drivers in order for DOS to be properly installed on it with no other opperating system. But is this actually true? What would happen if I loaded it onto a machine that was originally designed for XP? More importantly, could I load it onto a Windows 3.1, 95 or 98 machine if there aren't any specific DOS drivers available, since those versions of Windows had real DOS in them or does all of that depend on the fact that Windows and it's drivers are loaded? Sorry if this is confusing.
Yes! Just got my answer from a DOS user and I was right! I really can use my Windows 98 laptop as a DOS machine! Let the fun begin!