Old Computer using MSd-DOS has died! need to move software

[baz_]

Hey guys and girls,
Quick question, I have a customers computer that its rather old lol she still backs-up to floppy disc.
Anyway, They are using an old accounting software called GoodNews how ever the MB has died, I can get a replacement MB but was wondering is there any way to get an old MS-DOS application working on an a new computer? If so how would I get it to run, as they use old printers etc? Or am i best trying a replacement MB of the same model etc?

 

[Moley]

DosBox would likely do the trick - http://www.dosbox.com/

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

You will probably struggle to find a replacement motherboard. There is also the issue that if you can it's either likely to be very 2nd hand so not likely to be reliable. If you can source a new one then it's going to be a specialised niche product and will cost an insane amount. But the chances of finding the exact same motherboard would be very slim.

The other thing to bare in mind with motherboards of this era is they are not plug and play. Clock speed and CPU voltage had to be set manually and getting this wrong could be catastrophic. Prior to the original Pentium most processors had symmetrical pin layouts so you could even install processor the wrong way round (which didn't end well).

Do you know how old the PC is, what processor it has and what version of dos it was running?

There are a few options I'd look at.

DOSBOX.
Using a virtualisation package like VMWare or Virtual Box to run MS-Dos.
Using a virtualisation package like VMWare or Virtual Box to run Windows 9x which has some support for DOS apps.

It's most likely that the only way to identify the best way forward will be trial and error.

Whatever you do get them using a modern system as soon as possible.