windows 3

Community Forums/General Help/windows 3

slenkar(Posted 2011) [#1]
im running windows 3 on a Nintendo DS,
I want to know if its possible to play a dos game in a window and use other windows while the game is running,

thanks


TaskMaster(Posted 2011) [#2]
No. In Windows 3, and 3.11, any graphics in a DOSBox required the DOSBox to be full screen.


slenkar(Posted 2011) [#3]
ok thanks


*(Posted 2011) [#4]
Aye, in Windows 3.11 (when I had it on me old 286) DOS games dropped back to DOS to run, seeing as Windows 3.11 required DOS to run correctly.


Perturbatio(Posted 2011) [#5]
I seem to recall some games would run directly in windows (dune 2 maybe) but it had to have special memory management, was it DOS4GW? I'm sure there were also potential memory issues as well.

My brain has pretty much forgotten most of this now.


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#6]
I think you are thinking of windows 95 which was the first one to have the flat memory model and was able to some extent emulate graphics modes in a window.

Win 3.x itself ran as a full screen dos graphics application (well, do did 95/98, but not in the same way). The only games you could play windowed on it if i remember correctly were either games specifically desined to be run in widows or text based ones. Although most games were for dos in those days and trying to run them under windows at all was messy and slow.

DOS4G(W) was a memory extender for DOS to get rid of the 640K limit and using the full memory map up to 32MB.. or was it 64? Nothing directly to do with windows at all, which still needed a 640K base memory and EMS/XMS. AFAIK windows 3.x did not benefit from it at all.

MS introduced a similar flat memory system for windows 95 (..or they just nicked/bought it=)

This is how i remember it anyway, although its been a wile so i could be a little wrong here or there. :)

Last edited 2011