I downloaded an old PC game onto my laptop and had to use DOS Box to run it, because Windows 11 wouldn’t allow a 16-bit application to run.
Why is it that a much more powerful laptop can’t deal with software my PC had no problems with 20 years ago? Same thing with backwards-compatible video games.
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Operating systems run on a set of instructions that are essentially equivalent to being able to speak a certain language. Lets say modern operating systems ‘speak’ English, and older ones ‘speak’ German.
Your 20 year old game was designed to run on an operating system that speaks German. When you try to feed it into an English speaking operating system, your computer doesn’t know what to do with it because it can’t read German.
The reason the game works when you run it through DOS Box is because DOS Box is literally acting like a language translator. It’s taking the game written in German and translating it into English so your computer knows how to read it.
It has nothing to do with how ‘powerful’ your computer is. You can have a ‘English speaking’ super-computer but if you feed it a nursery rhyme written in German, it still can’t read German.
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