Hi, I'm fairly new to using dos by itself, let me tell you what I'd like to do if its possible. I have an older computer I'd like to install dos only on and I will only be running one program, its a game emulator for dos, if possible I'd like to boot directly into that program, basically turn the computer on and have it go directly into that program without any commands. If anyone can help I'd be grateful, first off, how do I put dos alone on the harddrive and second if possible, how do I boot directly to this program. Oh and also, the mother board has onboard sound which I'd like to use with the emulator, am I going to have any trouble getting the onboard sound to work if I dont have drivers for it? Thanks ahead of time for the help.

Going directly into the program is not a problem. Just add the line that starts it in your autoexec.bat file. Installing dos should be easy too. Just get the installation disks for whatever version you want. Microsoft's pure dos went up to 6.22. Later versions were integrated with 9X and ME. There's also non-MS versions out there. 6.22 and older dos, as well as the version that came with the first 95, are only capable of running on FAT16 hard drives. This pretty much limits your drive/partition size to no more than 2 gig. If you want larger partitions or need FAT32 you'll need one of the other versions. And yes, dos sound drivers will be the most difficult thing to find. You may be better off disabling the on-board sound and installing an old ISA sound blaster card.

Thanks a lot, you've been extremly helpful so far... could you decribe to me in a little more detail how to edit the autoexec.bat file? I'm not that experienced with dos at all really, actually I wouldnt even know where to start. I'd really appreciate it, I think the computer does have an isa slot, so that might work out fine, if not I think I could probably get a pci card with dos drivers right? Also, I think the hard drive is like 3 gigs, so I guess I just need a version of dos newer than 6.22? Thanks again in advance!!!!

Any file with a .bat extension is called a batch file. Just typing in the name of the batch file at the command prompt will run it. Autoexec.bat runs automatically on startup. Batch files contain lines that run in order. The lines are just dos commands that could also be entered from a dos prompt. The convenience of having them in a batch file is they will all run when the batch file runs. A batch file can be created or edited with a text editor like 'notepad' in windows. The dos EDIT command is the most convenient way to do it in dos. To edit in a line that starts the program just start the editing program, open c:\autoexec.bat and add the command that starts the program as the last line. Typically in autoexec.bat there will be a PATH statement. That tells the OS where to look for a command if it's not in the current directory. If you type in a command that is not in the path or current directory you'll get a 'bad command or file name'. If your program, for example is in a directory named 'games' you may want to add C:\GAMES to the path statement. Or in the autoexec.bat line that runs the program you could preface it with a path. So if the command that starts it is START the line would be c:\games\start. If c:\games is part of the path statement you could just have START as the line starting the program since the OS would know where to look. Dos is more complicated than I could explain here. I've just given some basics related to your specific situation. You may want to look for a dos manual or on-line site for more info. For the 3 gig drive you may be able to divide it into one primary 2 gig partition and 1 extended partition. Then you'd create a virtual 1 gig drive in the extended partition. I don't know if you can partition it that way with 6.22. If not you could use a FAT32 capable bootdisk (such as win98) and create FAT16 partitions that way and then install 6.22. I'm not familiar with non-MS dos so I can't say which are FAT32 capable and which aren't. Someone may post in with that info. Some PCI cards and even on-board audio will have dos drivers. You really won't know until you check their site or driver disk. Almost all ISA cards had dos drivers available.

There you have it - all of DOS, in a nutshell! ; ) It'll be easier once you actually, y'know, pick a DOS version Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'... till you can find a rock

http://www.mwpms.uklinux.net Above has perspective of 16bit FAT16 standalone DOS. FAT32 and NT compatability a no-no.................

Wow, thanks so much everyone, I really appreciate it!!!!