I want to start dos application which grabs data from serial port and save to disk BUT also need to play some mp3 music. So, tried some kind of "multitasking" dos (Russian) but when music starts, sound is "flickering". "tickering", you know, not continoues but fragments in samples. Someone says to use drdos, unfortunately I can't load emm386.exe (don't know why) and when finaly starts tasker, the background job, aplication, program) stops(!) when I push it to background?! Later found that this is 'normal' for processors 8088, 286, 386... but I test it at celeron 900. So, does anyone tried somekind of multitasking dos (or sw - tama?) with success to play music in background (or even TSR) and runs main application in forgraund? Thanx.

? http://www.sandh.com/os.htm ?

Try DESQview or DESQviewX from http://www.chsoft.com/dv.html You will also need QEMM 8.03 or 9 from the same page.

Someone says to use drdos, unfortunately I can't load emm386.exe (don't know why) and when finaly starts tasker, the background job, aplication, program) stops(!) when I push it to background?! DR-Dos' Task manager needs DR-DOS's emm386 to be loaded in order to multitask. If it is not, it will start in task switcher mode. In your case, emm386 is probably not starting due problems detecting useable memory in the ROM area (above 640k and below 1MB). Try excluding parts of this area in emm386's DEVICE line in config.sys (like X=A000-FFFF, to exclude everything)

what do you meand with "some kind of 'multitasking' dos" ? BTW: If you are using Dr-DOS multitasker, then you have to install an additional driver. You will find it at http://www.drdos.org -> Download.