Retro DOS Emulation Setup!

I'm an old man let's get that out of the way I'm 40 which basically means that I'm knocking on death's door I've seen lots of things in my life I saw the first Nintendo I saw the second Nintendo I saw the rise of the internet or the worldwide web as we called it probably some other important stuff happened in that time and now I I'm old which means that it it's time to reflect and reminisce and recall and recount and remember the the simpler days because I was there at the dawn of PC gaming way way back eon's past in the ancient days of the birth of the digital operating system Doss I'm talking about Doss let's do the Doss thing today and and quick before I crumble into [Music] dust hey there Tech tweb here you're there that's where we are and that's a good place to be for uh for watching the video I've made uh a few dos videos in the past I showed you how to play DOS games on your Miu mini I showed you how to run Doss on your Android device and I even hooked up a joystick to play descent on my rp3 plus that was a that was a fun one good times but one thing that I've never done that I've wanted to do for ages is make a proper video of how to turn a PC into a Doss PC in a way that feels like an authentic dos experience and I wanted to do that to show it to you and to show you how to do it and to show you a ton of games but as I started working on this script I realized that there is way too much here to squeeze into one single video and I I don't want to do that I don't want to rush through this project that I'm super excited about just to squeeze it into one video that nobody will end up watching because it's like an hour long ain't nobody got time for that am I right yeah I am so here's the plan consider this video the first in a multi-part video series today we're going to have a quick history lesson about the origins of Dos and then I'm going to show you my super nerdy dos emulation setup that I put together and show you what it's like to game on it and then in the next video I'm going to give you a full tutorial of how to use Doss and show you around my custom dos build that I'll have for you to download and then in the next video which will probably be the final video I it's going to be all about the games I'm going to show you how to find dos games how to get them running and I'll show you all my favorite old dos games that I loved when I was a little dweeb and a few that I've only recently discovered so you'll get three videos instead of what I spoil you you know [Music] that but first and first mostly I want to cover the basics what is dos and why should you care Doss stands for dis operating system and it's one of the first operating systems ever made the most common version of Dos was made by a little little known company called Microsoft maybe you've heard of them they made Ms Doss and that's kind of where they got their start and that was the operating system of the home computer back in the day the interesting thing about Doss is that it spans many generations of computing while video game consoles had to go through stepwise generational improvements computer games evolved linearly they weren't bound to console Generations the evolution of games on the computer coexisted beside the evolution of games on consoles and these two branches of the gaming Tree of Life influenced each other but are both very distinct in the types of games that worked well on their platforms I would argue that certain game genres like role playing games and strategy games and adventure games and simulation games were miles ahead on home computers compared to what was happening in the Home console world and consoles had the games that worked better there like platformer Games sports games arcade style action games any multiplayer game however PC games were always at the top of the pack in terms of pushing boundaries of what is possible graphically not only that but PC game development wasn't a closed system the way it was on consoles you didn't need special development kits or or anything anyone could make dos games on whatever computer that they had and all this is why there was so much interesting stuff released during the period of time where dos dominated the PC World and the sad thing is that these games are kind of lost to time because they're often ignored in the Retro Game World and rightly so because they can be a bit wonky to get working and since we're all addicted to Retro handhelds these PC games do not control well there it's possible to play them with some tinkering but unless you've been doing that because you have Nostalgia for dos games you probably haven't been exposed to much of the true dos experience and that's what you're going to experience today [Music] I am so freaking excited to show you my Doss emulation setup this ladies and gentlemen is the latest addition to my cozy Retro Game quarter my dedicated dos computer it's a monitor a PC a keyboard and mouse all with a cool classic retro Vibe and it's running a build of dosbox staging that I spent a lot of time tweaking and customizing to get just right it's called dweeb dos and you can run my dos build on any computer but for the true authentic Doss experience I think having a dedicated setup is really the way to go sort of like having a retro handheld to play Game Boy games even though you can play them on a big fancy computer it just sort of feels right you know and the more retro feeling your dos setup is the better for the monitor I had this old 4x3 ratio LCD monitor that I had kicking around from back in the day it it's not fancy it's got a chunk missing out of it and it's a pretty crappy LCD screen it's like 10 24x 768 resolution and it didn't look authentically retro it was black and boring so I did a thing I painted it I took it apart separated the pieces of plastic and I spray painted them beige and I even painted the power button red so that it matched the rest of my setup you guys know how much I like everything to match after all this turned out so good it's kind of dumb and pointless but so am I so you know what do you expect and next up we have the PC you can run this on any PC literally any cheap mini PC or desktop PC or whatever you have lying around will do the job for this sort of emulation because it's not demanding at all however because I need everything to match my solution is to use this the io amo1 retro Mini PC this thing is actually pretty powerful it has a ryzen 5800 u in it I reviewed it on my channel check out the review link below after you watch this video if you want to know more about it this is over kill for a pure dos PC but I I had to use it this thing looks like an old Mac classic computer but one thing I did was paint the little fake rainbow emblem red so that it matched to the rest of my setup and I put a DOS prompt sticker thing on it it looks much more dossy like this I like to turn this computer on the side so it looks like a computer standing there I'm not a huge fan of the cables coming out of the top but you can always hide those behind a glomba and for the keyboard I went with the 8 bit D retro mechanical keyboard I am nuts about this keyboard this is a big thick chunky mechanical keyboard tactile Brown switches with physical dials for the settings and it just has such a great old school NES look to it I love this keyboard so much you have no idea it's nostalgic but it's also a genuinely great keyboard so I bought the matching Mouse and it's it's freaking terrible sorry to be the bearer of bad news it looks great it matches the keyboard it looks like a cool retro Nintendo Mouse but it's just a garbage Mouse it's a super lowquality sensor it's uncomfortable it's awkward terrible touchpad for mous wheel no middle mous button click it does work you can use it as a mouse I'm using it because I love the look of it but that's the only good reason to get this hopefully 8bit dough do an actually good retro M someday and that's it that's my retro feeling do emulation setup and I'm I'm so happy with it it captures The Nostalgia but with with all the modern conveniences that you want in a PC and that's the main thing that I wanted to show you in this video but before we go I want to give you a quick tour of what's to come mainly my custom build of dosbox staging dweeb Doss that's the system that I have running on here in breathtaking orange Amber monochrome it starts up by default when you boot the PC so you're taking right right into Doss but if you need to exit and go to Windows for file management or to download games that's easily done but I also set it to be able to boot right back into Doss at any point with a keyboard hot key you just press the key combo and you're in Doss in like 3 seconds no matter what you're doing so don't worry Commander Keen is literally at your fingertips anytime anywhere as it should be I have a CRT Shader applied to the screen that I added myself I have some quality of life features added to the Dos build like a text editor and even dos Navigator which is how we used to do file management back in the day before Windows came along and ruined our lives forever and a few other things that I'll show you later you can add games super easily there's just a directory in my Doss build where you can dump your games and the way you navigate around is just dos this is what I wanted this is what I've been waiting for just good old dos command navigation you can mount ISO images and I have a nice easy script to do that which you can easily edit for any game with an ISO this is just a little taste I'm I'm going to show you how to do all this stuff in the next video in the series so sit tight and be patient damn it and the games load up and they work amazing you can download tons of free Doss games from abandonware websites or download copyrighted games from ROM websites if you're a filthy pirate and you can buy dos games from Gog or even steam and those versions also run totally fine in my dosbox build you won't have any compatibility issues no driver issues no sound card stuff the keyboard works the mouse works everything [Music] works and I have been having the freaking time of my life playing these old Doss games again you know that feeling that you had when you got like your first retro handheld or started dabbling with emulation on your computer and you got to re-experience your favorite Nintendo or Atari or Sega games again as an adult and you felt that magic of retro Nostalgia well I've been having that same experience again but because it's PC games now it feels like it's for the first time going through the archives of Dos history and finding all these games that I loved when I was a kid has been like hanging out with little Tech beep and finding a ton of new games that I didn't get to play has been like a lesson in gaming history these games are just as important as Mario Brothers or sonic or whatever and being able to play them in a way that feels like the real deal is finally what has made it special for me all over again I am so happy with my Doss setup I'm loving my dos box build dwee dos and I'm having just a blast playing these old dos games if you're an old man like me or an old woman not like me and you grew up playing Doss games on your parents computer then you're probably going to love trying this out and taking a trip down memory lane and if you're not so old that you're knocking on death's door you'll probably love trying games from this era and seeing the dawn of PC gaming with your own eyes and if you're not interested in Doss or early PC gaming well that that's that's weird that you watch this entire video you must really hate yourself or love me that's a possibility I guess let me know which it is in the comments below but that's all you get for today the next video will be coming up very soon and if you're watching this in the future it will be linked at the top of the description below subscribe so you don't miss the next video in the series or more videos like this if you like this video then check out some of my other Doss content also link below and if you want to pick up any of this stuff the keyboard or the mouse or the PC there's links for that stuff down there as well and that's it from me for today I'm techweb thanks for watching bye-bye a

Channel: TechDweeb

Views: 31,292

Keywords: techdweeb, tech, dweeb

Id: FIUQXBgLi6s

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024