MS-DOS is the first thing I put on nearly every retro PC I build here, from an Amstrad PC1640 up through Core 2-era machines like the Dell Dimension E520 and OptiPlex 760.
The one that keeps working
A pattern shows up across a lot of these builds: DOS is consistently the easy era, and it’s Windows 98 that struggles once a chipset gets a few years newer than it should be. The OptiPlex 760 build put it plainly — DOS better than expected, Windows XP the natural fit, Windows 98 possible but awkward. The E520 told a similar story. Neither machine was ever going to be a clean period-correct Win98 box, but both ran DOS without much drama.
Sound is usually the deciding factor. Later chipsets and onboard audio tend to have thin or nonexistent native DOS support, which is where something like SBEMU earns its keep — it can get Sound Blaster-compatible audio out of hardware that was never meant to have it.
DOS is also the target for MiSTer’s ao486 core when I want DOS gaming without a period PC at all.
