Thread

1. smackeyacky · 1790374416 · focus · HN ↗

   I know of a DOS machine at a wool testing place that uses an ISA card based imager for measuring the micron and other things. They also have a supporting DOS machine with a dBase looking database on it. When I spoke to the owner he didn’t really understand the risks involved in running ancient hardware and in fact had a storage room with period PCs in it if the machines failed. He didn’t have much of a backup plan for the imaging hardware though.

   My opinion is that if these guys are still running this gear, they already have a strategy in place (no matter how flawed) and would likely retire before throwing money at something they consider a non problem.

   Good luck with the idea. It likely is a tiny niche market with customisation for every customer and given they are normally hardware constrained AI may not be much of a help.

   All of them have no money as well.

   1. mlaux · 1790378074 · focus · HN ↗

      My idea is basically a DOS runtime with hooks on interrupts and I/O that would allow for either migrating databases to modern formats, or converting I/O accesses for modern USB peripherals. Customization for every customer and AI not being much of a help are pluses for me... lack of money not so much.

      1. jasomill · 1790485726 · focus · HN ↗

         For anything business-critical, I'd tend to want to rely as much original code as possible, running actual MS-DOS on emulated hardware that could be tailored to suit your I/O needs.

         Lots of forkable code exists to get started with this, QEMU, 86Box, DOSBox, PCjs, MAME, …

         And if you do want to go the route of implementing DOS and BIOS interrupts yourself, DOSBox does this.

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