Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FreeDOS Turns 10 Years Old Today

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the in-the-beginning-was-the-command-line dept.

Jim Hall writes "The FreeDOS Project turns 10 years old today! PD-DOS was announced to the world on June 28, 1994. The PD-DOS project was later renamed to the FreeDOS Project. We've come a long way in 10 years. Today, FreeDOS is ideal for anyone who wants to bundle a version of DOS without having to pay a royalty for use of DOS. FreeDOS will also work on old hardware, in DOS emulators, and in embedded systems. FreeDOS is also an invaluable resource for people who would like to develop their own operating system. While there are many free operating systems out there, no other free DOS-compatible operating system exists. Read more about the FreeDOS Project history in the About FreeDOS page."

5 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. DOS is still alive! by oldosadmin · · Score: 5, Informative

    DOS is still alive as a great platform for limited uses.

    If you need some utilities to go along with freeDOS, try my site, Old Os or if you have problems setting it up try our forums.

    --
    Jay | http://oldos.org
  2. Re:Does it play games? by Mesaeus · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's where you use DOSBox, a DOS emulator (mainly) for old games. It doesn't play all dos games yet but every release gets better.

  3. Re:Does it play games? by vadim_t · · Score: 5, Informative

    Runs Descent, Descent2, Jazz Jackrabbit and One Must Fall 2097 for me. Although DOS4GW doesn't work on it, but you can replace the extender with the Zurenava DOS Extender, for example.

    The site's in Russian, but it's simple to use. You run it on the game executable to replace the extender it uses. After that it works fine. Some games seem to lock up on exit on my laptop, but everything works fine during play, so it shouldn't be a huge problem.

  4. Re:os development by BladeMelbourne · · Score: 5, Informative
    User accounts on Win9x/ME can offer preference/config personilisation for different users sitting at the computer. Convenience was the goal, not security. As Win9x/ME reside on FAT16/32 filesystems, any user can gain access to any file.

    If one of those users wanted "complete control" of the computer - all they have to do is reboot the computer with an OS on a bootable CD (Knoppix, Gnoppix, etc). This can be done to take control of Linux, Win2K, WinXP, etc. NTFS is no obstacle, nor are the myriad of file systems available for use by a Linux installation. Encrypted file systems can prevent root access - but very few people have the time for this setup - plus recovery can be a real beatch.

    The strong point of DOS is not being able to run another OS - it's being able to have more control over how you run certain applications. It can also facilitate recovery when things go wrong. The hardware requirements are less. Flexibility is a good thing. There is no need to port legacy apps that have been working flawlessly for years.

    I personally dont use FreeDOS - I still have a Win98 partition with DOS installed. If I didn't own Win98 - FreeDOS is something I would explore for the rare occasions I would want to play old-school games.

    DOS 6.22 (unsupported) can be downloaded free from: Micro$oft.com

  5. Re:DOS is small! by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just did a bootable 1.44MB FreeDOS floppy that plays mp3/ogg files with MPXplay, and then put it on to a bootable CD-ROM with all the music content I like. Voila, free, open source, standalone car/home/whatever music player which does not need a hard drive (for swapping). Just boot from ATAPI CD-drive and play some tunes, even at your friend's house!

    Now try to do that with Linux/Windows/*BSD.

    I did it three years ago:

    http://freshmeat.net/projects/mjbd/

    --
    Do you have ESP?