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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. FreeDOS for BIOS flashing by jedrek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use FreeDOS quite (well, relatively speaking) often, but only for one thing - flashing my motherboard BIOS. I got rid of floppy drives long ago, after my last one died back in the previous century, and haven't looked back. Usually, I'll download the FreeDOS ISO, inject the drivers into it and burn it to a CD-RW. Then just boot up from the CD, flash the BIOS and I'm good.

  2. 10 years in the making! by ljavelin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find it humorous that it's still in Beta after 10 years of development.

    I'm not poo-pooing the effort, but you have to admit that that's a long time before declaring 1.0!

  3. Dell and FreeDOS by ed1park · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Funny that this should come up as I only noticed yesterday that Dell sells systems with FreeDOS now.

    http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare .a spx/desktops_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

    This is great as I've been buying the cheapest SC servers to avoid the microsoft tax. With prices starting at $319, i can now afford to buy the 20 or so systems i was planning on for the business. nice

  4. Re:Legality of APIs by IvyKing · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'd be curious to know if Microsoft (or Novell -- PC-DOS) owns copyrights or patents on any of the DOS APIs. They're all implemented as interrupt 21h calls I beleive (its been a while), so nothing really has a name (as far as trademarks or patents go). Curious none-the-less, though.

    Considering that the original API's were based on CP/M, I don't think M$ would have much of a leg to stand on. In addition, Seattle Computer still retained some rights to DOS after it was sold to M$. Thirdly, back in the 80's, M$ allowed a couple of the big guys to sell their own versions - most notably Compaq with version 3.31 (first DOS to support more than 32 MB per logical partition).

  5. DOS is small! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't see why some people dislike DOS.. Is it just because you teens have not ever used it, or your Linux/WinXP is so much cooler? Whatever, I don't care. You still have to use DOS to upgrade your motherboard/GPU BIOSes. You know what a BIOS is, do you.. I've even made one!

    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 would have if I'd know how to do it. Preferably with a BSD system.

    I was looking a player that could play tracker songs (you know, those before mp3s when 80386 and dinosaurs ruled the earth), mp3s and oggs, but no DOS player can do that as far as I know. XTC-Play could do tracker songs and mp3s, but not oggs.

    I will eventually put a website of the bootable FreeDOS ogg/mp3 CD project. Maybe post it here..