You can still buy new MS-DOS computers, for use with legacy equipment and software, like industrial machinery. The most powerful CPU this company is offering is a Pentium D from 2006:

https://nixsys.com/legacy-computers/ms-dos-computers

For an extra $95, they'll pre-install MS-DOS 6.22 for you, but it will of course only use 64 MB of the 1 GB RAM the machine comes with. That's a luxurious amount already. I've never used more than 48 MB with MS DOS and it was already more than plenty.

Motherboards for the LGA 775 socket were among the last to support ISA cards, which are why companies buy these new legacy computers in the first place. There's machinery out there worth millions and running entire factories, complex scientific instruments or medical equipment that requires interfacing with ISA cards. I've seen this myself and fixed a few of these systems. It's fun to take a machine off the factory floor that has been quietly doing its job for many decades. You wouldn't believe how much of the world is running on truly ancient hardware.

While it would be theoretically possible to e.g. create a new hardware interface and compatible software, this would not only be prohibitively expensive on its own, but require costly and lengthy certification on top, which just isn't feasible most of the time. That's where PCs like these come in. They may seem outrageously expensive given the ancient hardware they consist of, but compared to the equipment they'll be used with, they might as well be free - and on top of that, they come with a warranty, support hotline, etc. - unlike cobbling something together from old parts found on ebay.

[–] brokenlcd@feddit.it 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Last week i had to fix a cut and bend machine of that kind ( essentially it cuts steel sheets to a specific lenght with a guillotine and bends it into shape with an hydraulic press); it was originally just a cutter and the bending half was added afterwards: the cutter with the HID ran on a 486 board with a dos clone and was connected to the bender's controller board via an isa card; i checked the bender's board and it turned out to be a 6502 board... Talk about ol'reliable. I ended up needing to replace the 486 board with a pentium board( thankfully there are "industrial" boards with isa slots still made for older pentiums) and running everything trough freedos because someone slammed the steel sheets in the control cabin while feeding them in the machine. I was surpised to find a 6502 based embedded computer running with equipment that came standard with a flat panel monitor for the HID, but i guess when the machine's minimum lifespan is marked in decades you go for well tested stuff.

I am still resisting the temptation to go back there, dump the roms and reverse engineer the whole thing though

[–] glennglog22@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I would reckon it would be as powerful as the last most powerful machine to support Windows 9x (WinME falls under that category) since they were DOS-based.

[–] wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

for those curious, it would be something along the lines of a AthlonXP and a Geforce 6000 series. there were Win98 drivers for that stuff.

[–] 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

Or WinME. It's also DOS based... sooo 🤔... PIII I guess.