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DOS or Windows
dabone:
>If you go pure DOS, what do you use to edit INI files?
>Back in the day I used Norton Commander for that stuff and more, but I >don't have a copy of that anymore.
edit.com
or for the really old dos users around here..
edlin....
Later,
dabone
Chris:
EDLIN? AIEEE!!!!!!!!!
I'll use COPY CON before EDLIN... :P
Most people around here will disagree with me, but I say if you're building a single-purpose MAME cabinet with no USB controllers, go with DOS. USB, however, is extremely handy. I run Windows solely for USB support, but I was much happier when my cabinet was DOS, and it was more stable and booted much faster. Basically, it felt more like a real arcade machine, whereas people recognize my current cabinet as Windows.
The biggest disadvantages of DOS are: no USB support, very few front-ends for DOS, no hardware stretching, it can be difficult to find DOS drivers for modern hardware, especially sound cards, and memory limitations (EMM386 can't see more than 128 MB of RAM; QEMM will see 256MB). The "no hardware stretching" issue is bigger than it sounds: I spent a good while trying to find the best resolution for each game, as MAME's autoselected resolution was sub-optimal about 20% of the time. Get Scitech Display Doctor for DOS at http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/ent/free_titles.html; it'll give you many more low-resolution display modes.
The other big disadvantage is that every time you talk about your machine on this board, people will come out of the woodwork to tell you how awful DOS is and that you "need a modern operating system to get the most out of modern hardware". It gets tiresome defending a DOS decision after a while.
--Chris
Hoagie_one:
--- Quote from: Buddabing on October 06, 2004, 08:58:03 am ---
--- Quote from: Thenasty on October 05, 2004, 07:27:13 pm ---
--- Quote from: Buddabing on October 05, 2004, 02:45:01 pm ---
Most of the fancier frontends are Windows-only, but Kymaera and GameLauncher have DOS versions.
Regards,
Buddabing
--- End quote ---
I always thought that Kymaera is for Windows. Does it really run in Pure DOS ?
--- End quote ---
Link to announcement
Maybe I should have said "Kymaera WILL be available on DOS".
--- End quote ---
And Linux it seems
dmish82:
Yea, i know it's hard to defend DOS and i was going to go with it but I think it'd be too troublesome to find drivers for my video card and on top of that I'm looking at getting 2 Act Labs guns for my machine which means again, I wouldn't be able to use the guns w/ DOS. Looks like it's gonna be Windows here. Thanks.
Chris:
--- Quote from: dmish82 on October 06, 2004, 01:45:27 pm ---Yea, i know it's hard to defend DOS and i was going to go with it but I think it'd be too troublesome to find drivers for my video card and on top of that I'm looking at getting 2 Act Labs guns for my machine which means again, I wouldn't be able to use the guns w/ DOS. Looks like it's gonna be Windows here. Thanks.
--- End quote ---
The Act-Labs guns are what pushed me over the edge from DOS to Windows. If you want two guns, Windows 2000 is not an option; you need either Windows 98 or Windows XP.
--Chris