Ask Slashdot: DOSBox, or DOS Box?

An anonymous reader writes "Are DOS game emulators like the highly-respectable DOSBox good enough now, or is there still no substitute for the real thing? Like a lot of Slashdotters I'm getting older and simplifying, which means tossing out old junk. Which means The Closet full of DOS era crap. And I'm hesitating — should I put aside things like the ISA SoundBlaster with gameport? Am I trashing things that some fellow geek somewhere truly needs to preserve the old games? Or can I now truck all this stuff down to recycling without a twinge of guilt? (Younger folk who didn't play DOOM at 320x200 should really resist commenting this time. Let the Mods keep them off our lawn.)"

DosBox should do it for personal gaming.

[Sinthet]

Lacking any modern computer hardware until around 2007 or so, I feel I can relate to you, despite being one of the younger folks here. I grew up slaughtering hordes of Nazis in Wolf3D during the PS2 era, along with saving chicks with Duke Nukem, then getting my nerd on with Shadowland (I think thats what it was called :/). Anyway, I have a strong nostalgic love for these old DOS games, and I've yet to run into a problem playing them on DOSbox (Under Linux, just fyi). However, instead of tossing all that retro goodness, I'd put it up on ebay. You'd make a buck or two, and some other nostalgic fanboy will wet himself in joy. Everyone wins!

Re:Long term...

[cpu6502]

Unless your game is using a non-standard keyboard. Example: Try playing Sid Meier's Red Storm Rising on an emulator. Since he wrote it to work with a C64 keyboard, you really need a C64. Hence the need for the original hardware.

But other than that, yes I agree emulators are easier to maintain and keep working. Unless you are playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time which uses the unique N64 controller, and is nigh-impossible to play on an emulator.

Re:Good riddance

[PsychoSlashDot]

It's that word. "Closet". That says it all.

The question being asked wasn't "should I get rid of all of the fun stuff I use every day that's sitting in my entertainment room?" Instead it was "can I throw out my unused crap that's all in storage, neglected?"

All that stuff about emulators is just a smokescreen. You're not playing your legacy DOS stuff now, you won't tomorrow, and the day after that you'll be dead. It's a real trick to recognize when you're saving stuff because you have sentimental value attached to the memories, not the stuff itself.

I bit the bullet...

[pongo000]

...and destroyed about 1000 floppy disks chock full of games, shareware, and what not. My grand plans were always to "show my kids" what I grew up with...but now they're almost out of school, and aren't the least bit interested.

So practicality trumped nostalgia. The disks, machines, drives, everything are gone forever. I still have pangs of guilt over the decision, but also remind myself that realistically I would never run anything under DOS again.

Only one thing you need a physical box for...

[damn_registrars]

All the games you have on 5.25" floppy. Once you get all that from floppy to images, you can junk the box and bask in the glory of having one less physical system. As an added bonus, your spouse will thank you - or if you're still single, you'll have a slightly better chance of finding one.

Re:Good riddance

[epyT-R]

no.. it just suggests to her that you'll willingly submit to her whims and judgments about your lifestyle when you're married and she asks you (tells you) to sell your hobby (whatever it is) off so 'we' can afford to do whatever is that she thinks is important..

if you like that stuff, keep it.. if she hates it, you're with the wrong girl. just hit it and leave it.

Re:I bit the bullet...

[pongo000]

...and destroyed about 1000 floppy disks chock full of games, shareware, and what not.

I cried a little

So did I, believe me...

Re:Good riddance

[leamanc]

I think you hit the nail on the head. It's really about getting older, priorities shifting, and having less time to play around with this old stuff.

Being a long-time Apple user, I used to love to let people donate their old hardware to me, and I'd spend time digging up the latest System Software/Mac OS it would run, cram all the 30-pin SIMMS it would take into it, and installi the latest versions of Excel, Photoshop, etc., it cold run. I would proudly show it off to those who could give a shit, to show how old hardware could still be useful, how I could bridge it into my WiFi network, connect to OS X boxes, and even how "fast" these things could be when running age appropriate software.

Then a year after my daughter was born, we bought our first home. Moving out of our rented home, I decided that anything that couldn't run the latest version of OS X had to go to the trash. With life changes that come with more responsibility at work, the aforementioned kid, getting old and not being able to stay up all night jacking with computer crap, I knew I didn't need all that old junk. It was hard to part with it, but I feel much better now, leaving it in the past.

The real test was when I ran across a pretty nice Apple //c at the local Salvation Army for $5, complete with the //c green monitor. That was my first computer. Oh, the memories! Wouldn't I just love to get that beast up and running? I resisted, went home and loaded up Lemonade Stand in Basilisk and realized I'd never use the damn thing, and it wasn't even worth $5 to me, considering the amount of time I'd spend on getting it up and running and maintaining it. Unlike the olden days, my time is worth something these days, and downtime is even more valuable to me.

To sum up, let it go. Throw the crap out with next week's trash pickup. (Err, I mean recycle it all responsibly.) If you ever do get the urge to play some of those old games, DOSBox will always be there, along with torrents or other repositories full of disk images of all that old software.

Re:DOSBox FTW

[DNS-and-BIND]

which forces you to use a cracked copy (for some retrogamers this is a big deal as they want everything unmolested).

You know, back then, we always used the cracked version, even for software we owned. I don't know what could be more authentic. Dumb hipsters.

Re:For DOS games, sure.

[Moryath]

No, they were just using more complicated processors because more complicated processors were available. Follow the generic rise: 4bit->8bit->16bit->32bit->64bit->DesktopCPU + DesktopGPU. That final step's the real killer.

Well... except for the PS3. Thing's so fucking terrible to code for that IBM even gave up on their promised "octopiler" compiler for it and said they could never ever get the damn thing to work. It's one big thing holding the PS3 back from "theoretical power" as opposed to what can actually be done with it - the other thing being that it's permanently stuck in 3rd place for this generation, and nobody in their right mind except for Sony's in-house developers will do anything as mind-blowingly stupid as to fail to code and release Xbox360 port that looks and plays just as good. Most of the time, the Xbox360 is the primary code and the PS3 version is the port.

Re:Zelda: Ocarina of Time

[Samantha Wright]

Some people just aren't comfortable with controllers that aren't XBOX [photobucket.com] HUGE [tinypic.com]. And y'gotta admit, the N64 controller was pretty big. I could see how a 360 gamer would feel, y'know, less alienated than usual on an N64.