Doom requires a 386. Doom needs a 32 bit processor. Doom has a dos extender(dos/4gw) built in that allows it to address more system memory. Wolfenstein requires a 286.
@@mikem9536 I'm lucky because I only had a legit copy of 3.1 and it happened to work alright. DOS is preferred (used 6.22) but it was a fun experiment since I used the first copy of Windows I used as a kid.
Cool video. I clearly remember a friend of mine in maybe '96 or '97 borrowing my copy of doom or doom 2 and saying he ran it on an old 286. He said it ran horribly. I think it had 2mb ram, but maybe upgraded to 4mb. This thing was an antique even then. He may have been full of it, but that's a weird thing to lie about. Wish I had more info on that pc. Memories :)
Thank you, and yeah its possible it was a 286 that was upgraded to a 386 since some motherboards supported it, by 96 or 97 maybe even a then common 486 was used, who knows! My sister asked if I could run Doom on this and wanted to try it without googling it first!
Thanks for the info, and maybe it was upgraded. His granddad or uncle (?) was a tech guy. I remember he said it was unplayably choppy. And the monitor was monochrome. Sounds like a youtube video lol.
Alone In The Dark, Skifree For Windows, Street Fighter 2, Space Quest 5 all worked too. Blown away that Alone In The Dark worked even though it ran like a dog.
I remember running SF2 on my 286 back in the day. It was amazingly slow I did spend alot of time playing it. The game took 6mb of HDD space. i prob only had a 20mb or 40mb drive at the time.
This stuff is way behind my time (born in 2004) but nonetheless a very cool video! Also, protected mode is 32-bit only. 286 is 16-bit. It is completely impossible without recompiling. Can’t run 32-bit code on a 16-bit machine, period.
Back in those days, I had a Tandy 3000HL which was a 286 8 mhz , and a Tandy 2810 Laptop, which was a 286 16 with 20 mb hard drive , vga screen and vga out. I played Wolfenstein 3d and Blake Stone Aliens of Gold on the Laptop. But the desktop played Wolfenstein 3d not as well and as I recall it was too slow for Blake Stone, but not by much, I am surprised you could not play Wolf with a more full screen. I also enjoyed "Street Fighting Man" which was a side scrolling game that faintly looked like 3d. And "Jet" by Sublogic, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Arctic Fox. Arctic Fox , which was a 3d tank game, did not support EGA or VGA graphics, but looked fine on Tandy 16 color graphics. I used a Tandy 1000EX for that. It was pretty 3d for the time. One comment. Having memory above 640k and making it useful to programs were two different things. Motherboards sometimes came with drivers for "Expanded" [aka Lims memory] and "Extended" memory. If you have a 16 mhz it probably had that. There was always an argument about which you should have if both were available. I used Windows 2.11 with 640k but It seems like I used Expanded memory on the desktop after I got memory boards. Like an AST or better yet, Intel Advantage. There was no support over 640k on the mother board itself, which was common for 8 mhz machines. I used Windows 3.1 on both, mainly for Microsoft Word For Windows 2.0. In those days, you needed a menu based config.sys and autoexec.bat with different options for which program you were going to run since you would need about 4 or 5 different configurations to run the variety you might run. Games with Expanded Memory and a CD Games with Expanded Memory and no CD Windows Communications program like "Pro Comm" for going on line. I found MsDos 4 to be adequate, despite it's unpopularity at the time. It was like the Windows 8 of the era in that regard. I was not able to play better 3d games until I went to a 486 DX 33. That started me on Doom and mainly Doom II. Also, a little Hexan and Heretic.
Thank you for your detailed recollection and notes! To start bottom up, you are right I actually use a menu based config with my Windows 95 machine, to select extended memory, expanded memory, cd, no cd, etc just to get specific games and programs to run how they prefer. I'll have to look into that for my 286 as well, once I start to bring it back into rotation. I have a Sound Blaster 16 isa waiting for it... As far as the memory goes, you're probably right on that. Best I can tell I think this desktop was a purpose-built business machine around a few specific functions, and not a fully kitted-out hobbiest machine. Seemed largely untouched when I got it as far as add-ons go. I remember my dad being a huge Radio Shack guy and I'm pretty sure we had a Tandy similar to that but I can't confirm, but I also was lucky to have at one point a hand-me-down IBM thinkpad with huge bezels and an external trackball mouse that was strapped to the side and Windows 3.1(3.11 for Workgroups?). Ran anything Apogee and ID I could get my hands on. Commander Keen, Blake Stone, Wolf3d, Duke Nukem, Secret Agent Man, Jill of the Jungle, Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego, etc. Great memories!
@@Nick-ology Speaking of 286's , I bought a PS 2 Model 50, the ISA version, not the MC. It had only 512k. I put in two more 30 pin 256k modules, but it didn't recognize it. Years later, I read that the memory just looks like standard off the shelf 30 pins, but are wired slightly differently. A bunch of trace cutting and rewiring is needed to make it work. This is the same as IBM laser printer memory. I still have that. I want to see what it will do with 1mb or 2.5 mb of memory in Windows 3.1.
