I am finding that I want a DOS machine again. I am capable of building it myself, but am unsure of where to start and what parts and pieces will work with DOS. I know DOS had its limitations

Will DOS 6.22 work on modern Motherboards with modern CPUs?

Will DOS recognize GigaBytes or RAM?

How big of a HDD will DOS handle?

Can DOS handle USB drives?

Can DOS handle Blu-Ray DVDs?

Thanks for any help/ideas

I know that there are certain pieces of software that really do require a true DOS machine to function, but why wouldn't you just use DOSBox and see if it suits your needs? In comparison to a DOS machine, it's frankly more stable and user-friendly.

Why an actual machine when there are perfectly workable emulators such as http://www.dosbox.com/?

As for your questions :
No.
No, 1 MB is the max, or ~16MB when running in extended memory mode.
~16TB with a Minimum filesize of 4 KB and maximum filesize of ~4GB, ~2 TB at default. In MS-DOS 7.1 using FAT32.
No.
No.

Here you will find many useful infos: http://www.jumpjet.info/Application-Software/DOS/Hardware.txt

https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/beginners-guide-to-installing-and-optimizing-ms-dos-6-22/

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MS Virtual PC will work i guess.

Or you can create a virtual machine you go to Start->All Programs->Windows Virtual PC->Windows Virtual PC (or navigate to \Users\\Virtual Machines). At the top of the Explorer window you will see the option "Create virtual machine". Click on that option and create one.

To create a DOS 6.22 "machine", you will need a floppy drive and a bootable copy of DOS 6.22. When you start your virtual machine you will need to hit the DEL button, enter the BIOS and set the boot order.

(VM must boots from the DOS floppy disk.)

Once DOS is booted you can then run fdisk to create a partition on the VM's HDD, then format with the /s parameter.

If you want to play DOS games, you are better if you install DOSBox. http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1

I doubt you will be able to share resources between Win 7 and a DOS VM. You will need to use a floppy or a CD to be able to transfer things between the DOS VM and your Win 7 computer.

DOS 6.22 supports FAT 16 only while DOS 7.1 supports FAT 16 and FAT 32. DOS doesn't support NTFS. (if your drives are NTFS formatted)

Your virtual machine will have no access to your host HDD unless you set up the OS for network access. !!!

However, i don't know how that works, and probably doing that in DOS will be no easy.

You can try VirtualBox* and VMware Player** too.

*https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

**https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/7_0%7CPLAYER-700%7Cproduct_downloads

It'd probably be cheaper to buy an old 486 PC on ebay, that's what I did. I doubt you'd be able to build a fully compatible DOS PC using modern components anyway.

I agree with what Narmy^D said above, so here is a step by step guide how you should proceed !!!

How to Install and Configure MS-DOS 6.22 (However that's an authentic guide installation, if you want to go that way)

http://www.legroom.net/howto/msdos

That is what I would suggest.


I'll also bring your (AlBQuirky) attention to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS, which may make life easier.