FreeDOS 1.1 Released

But what use would I have for it? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-04 05:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

I mean seriously, how am I going to use it?

Running old programs maybe?

Re:But what use would I have for it? by Millennium · 2012-01-04 05:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Someone needs to make a CoreBoot-style bootloader that uses this. Then they could call it "DOS Boot".
Re:But what use would I have for it? by j-pimp · 2012-01-04 05:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

I mean seriously, how am I going to use it?
Running old programs maybe?
POS apps. Embedded apps. Yes all legacy stuff, but even in a VM, emulating UDMA and a DVD drive is useful.

--
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-04 05:55 · Score: 4, Informative

The same as for Linux. Program, learn, experiment.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by ruanime · 2012-01-04 05:58 · Score: 4, Funny

I mean seriously, how am I going to use it?
Running old programs maybe?
Yeah I would, maybe one day I can start that BBS that I always wanted.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by MightyYar · 2012-01-04 06:00 · Score: 5, Informative

Mostly I've used it for running old games (via DOSBox), but I've encountered it when using BIOS updates and other standalone boot utilities.

--
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by TopSpin · 2012-01-04 06:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

I actually used it extensively last November to develop an Option ROM BIOS extension. DOS is a convenient long real assembly code testing environment. Compile a COM program with NASM on Linux, use mtools to copy the output to the (live) VirtualBox FAT floppy image and execute in (Free)DOS.

--
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Re:But what use would I have for it? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-04 06:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

I asked Dell to sell me a Vostro 200 ST with FreeDos instead of Windows and avoided paying for an OS I wasn't going to use.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by Enderandrew · 2012-01-04 06:15 · Score: 2

Does FreeDOS support fossil drivers?
Though in all seriousness, you can run a classic BBS over telnet with synchro.net and it is fantastic.

--
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Re:But what use would I have for it? by TheGratefulNet · 2012-01-04 06:20 · Score: 4, Funny

DIL_
(system hung...)
Dammit! I gotta go rebuild dilo again. again!

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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Re:But what use would I have for it? by hawguy · 2012-01-04 06:29 · Score: 5, Informative

I mean seriously, how am I going to use it?
Running old programs maybe?
I use it for installing BIOS and other hardware driver updates that need a DOS boot disk. The process goes something like this:
http://www.tummy.com/journals/entries/jafo_20080920_234755
Re:But what use would I have for it? by Cro+Magnon · 2012-01-04 06:31 · Score: 4, Funny

I mean seriously, how am I going to use it?
Running old programs maybe?
POS apps. Embedded apps. Yes all legacy stuff, but even in a VM, emulating UDMA and a DVD drive is useful.
But don't most Piece Of Shit apps run under Windows?

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Re:But what use would I have for it? by Joce640k · 2012-01-04 06:31 · Score: 2

He asked what *HE* would use it for...

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No sig today...
Re:But what use would I have for it? by pclminion · 2012-01-04 06:56 · Score: 2

Funny you mention fossil drivers and running a BBS over telnet, because I did exactly that back in 1995. The recipe is this: shell account on UNIX server. Custom fossil driver (written by me). The driver dials the shell server. The shell account runs a small daemon, ibbsd (also written by me), which listens on a port, and does a netcat-style copyover -- on the PC end, the BBS software thinks it's waiting for a regular modem call. The fossil driver does the magic there.
You could telnet myisp.com 14919 and get the Renegade login prompt. I never did get virtual multi-connections working, that would have required designing a real protocol between ibbsd and the fossil driver and, being a teenager, I didn't have the ability or wisdom at the time.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by toriver · 2012-01-04 07:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Run it in VirtualBox - I had better success running some old DOS games in that combo than in DosBox...
Re:But what use would I have for it? by MBGMorden · 2012-01-04 07:20 · Score: 2

While I can see your sentiment, I think to some degree it may just be a case of seeing the past through rose-colored glasses.
Back in the day the BBS's were great for someone who was first being introduced to anything resembling a networked computer. I had had a computer that I was hacking away on for a few years before I got my first modem, and once I discovered that I was pretty much CONSTANTLY on some BBS or the other. A lot of that time was browsing file archives, or playing games (Legend of the Red Dragon anyone? :)) . It was an exciting time, but it was also very limited compared to what we have today.
Heck one of the major challenges back then was actually finding out what the numbers to the BBS's were. Luckily I eventually found one around here (the Ashley Oaks BBS :)) that kept a running list of all of them in this area. It would call all of them on the list periodically and if they were unreachable for an extended period of time it removed them. It was great.
One thing that hasn't changed vs the internet though was that a lot of the BBS's had an "adult" image section. To a kid in his early teens that had a great appeal to it too :).

--
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Re:But what use would I have for it? by Droog57 · 2012-01-04 07:21 · Score: 2

Yeah, good memories.. I still have a couple of shoe boxes in my garage full of 3.5" floppies, full of 100-250k programs that I downloaded from local BBS's in the 80's. I kept them all, mostly because I'm a data packrat, but also because I spent SO much time downloading them all over my 1200 baud modem.. Doubt that they would even work nowadays, and I'd have to dig up an old PC with a floppy drive to even check. Oh, and if anybody cares, I have a full version of Windows 2.0 on 5 1/4" (floppy) floppies. No way to check that either, although it's been in a dry, EMI free place for many years, so decent chance of being functional. C:\> dir /w

--
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
Re:But what use would I have for it? by LWATCDR · 2012-01-04 07:31 · Score: 3, Informative

Actually yes. I know of people that keep old dos computers around just to run one old program.
Also Embedded systems. DOS is light and small and does not get into your way. If you have a crash you can almost bet money that the problem is 100 your code.
Under DOS you can also bit bang hardware interfaces that would be difficult to do with anything else.
As to uses let me give you an example. Their are some old devices that used 3.5" floppies but with a custom format. There are programs for dos that can read that data. If you have one of those devices then this is exactly what you need.
And of course to flash bios.

--
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by Hadlock · 2012-01-04 08:02 · Score: 2

Quake for Steam ships with (I think?) DOSBox. Once you buy the game it downloads the non-DRM game and you could conceivably install it on FreeDOS. Other games, like the DOS version of Tie Fighter has some features (an entire campaign, I think?) that you don't get even in the Windows or Collector's Edition version. In both instances I ended up using DOSBox though.

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moox. for a new generation.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by hawguy · 2012-01-04 08:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

A) Sounds like you don't care that it's FreeDOS, it was just what you used because the vendor used it.
It's true that I didn't care that it was FreeDOS, but I didn't use it because the vendor used it, I used it because the vendor gave me an EXE and said "Here, run this in DOS". I don't have easy access to a Windows machine to create a DOS boot disk (I don't even know if it's possible to do that these days?), I used FreeDOS.
So even if I don't care that it's FreeDOS, I use it because it's Free and it's DOS compatible (thus runs the application I needed it for). Which seems a bit like telling a Mac fanatic "Sounds like you don't care that it's from Apple, you only use it because you like the GUI and applications that run on it."

B) I'd like a better system anyway, for the whole process, but I've been wanting that for 20+ years anyway.
And yes, I'd like a better system too, I have some newer hardware that has firmware updaters that actually run in Linux.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by Grishnakh · 2012-01-04 09:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

With Linux, you get to learn about a real OS, which uses things like protected memory, processes, virtual memory, etc. If you come up with something useful, then you can deploy it on Linux systems everywhere or share it with the world so others can use it on their Linux systems.
With FreeDOS, you're only learning about an obsolete program loader. No one would create a serious application to run in DOS any more, because to do so would be utterly stupid. It's a lot like getting a Commodore=64 to learn about computers; they were fun in their day, but they're so utterly obsolete any more that it's pretty pointless unless you have a lot of time to burn.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by MichaelSmith · 2012-01-04 09:21 · Score: 4, Funny

POS apps
No, I don't think Eclipse runs in DOS.

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Re:But what use would I have for it? by Hatta · 2012-01-04 10:07 · Score: 2

DOSBox runs its own DOS like interpreter, not FreeDOS. You *can* boot FreeDOS on it, but I'm not sure why you'd want to.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:But what use would I have for it? by MightyYar · 2012-01-04 12:35 · Score: 2

It gives you some utilities that the built-in DOS doesn't have,

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:But what use would I have for it? by arth1 · 2012-01-04 15:56 · Score: 2

Great as MSDOS is no longer available.
If you have an MSDN subscription, MSDOS 6.0 and 6.22 are available for download from Microsoft.

I'm now waiting on FreeQEMM by SensitiveMale · 2012-01-04 05:50 · Score: 4, Funny

and FreeDESQview as well.

Re:I'm now waiting on FreeQEMM by DarkOx · 2012-01-04 06:14 · Score: 2

FreeDESQview would be amazing, I still have my toy zeppelin.

--
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Re:Writing Viruses for AV by Kenja · 2012-01-04 05:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

Right... because prior to Windows 95 there where no viruses! So there's NO WAY that the old floppy disc you have with your copy of Elder Scrolls could possibly have a virus on it.

This is DOS we're talking about. There has never been a more virus filled OS in history. What kids today think of as viri are just worms and trojans. DOS has REAL virus issues. Self replicating bastards that attach onto other executables.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"

Re:Kid's first OS by meloneg · 2012-01-04 05:59 · Score: 2

Kids these days! It was *AMAZING* when I upgraded to a PC w/ DOS. Third system, if I recall correctly.

Is No One Excited? by eno2001 · 2012-01-04 06:03 · Score: 4, Informative

I remember the early days of Slashdot where this would have everyone talking. It's pretty damn cool. At this point it's prefect for reproducing real old school gaming. DOSBox is great for that too. But look... you're running a real DOS here! No VM needed! Pull out your 486! Get out your 1994 era Pentium 90! Relive the days when computing was actually fun! I installed FreeDOS with GEM (which was the better GUI compared to Windows back in the day until Apple ruined it by suing Digital Research) on a laptop from 1998. That thing is a BEAST now. Seriously, doesn't anyone get excited about this stuff anymore?

--
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o

Re:Is No One Excited? by bill_mcgonigle · 2012-01-04 06:29 · Score: 4, Informative

Anybody who flashes BIOS ought to be excited.
Real CDROM support means we should be able to have a .288 file that doesn't need to be mounted loopback and modified with mcopy for every different flasher. An big BIOS images aren't a problem anymore.
One stock boot image that gets written to the ElTorrito sector and then jump to the CDROM drive to continue execution of the startup script.
Boilerplate FTW.

--
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OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Re:Is No One Excited? by Pharmboy · 2012-01-04 06:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

I am, so that likely brings the total of excited people up to 6, maybe 7. Everyone else is busy marveling over their iPad and iPhone (oooh, round corners....) and other walled gardens. Like you, I miss being able to actually communicate directly to the hardware, from the command line. I miss hand tweaking my config.sys and autoexec.bat files to squeeze out an extra 500 bytes (yea readers, 1/2 of a kb) of lower RAM. Using QEMM and DesqView to quazi-multitask by multiple line BBS on my 486 with 4mb of ram. (3 lines, but I still have plenty of ram left for a prompt to do maintenance while monitoring chat) There was a certain empowerment that came from operating a computer back then. We actually knew exactly how much power the system had, because we easily found ways to saturate it, just to get every ounce of power out of it. Back then, we did things just because we COULD, and we enjoyed learned from crashing and burning stuff.
I also remember the good old days when the Internet was hard to use. THOSE were the days. No spam, no popups, and if you could find a website, likely it had real information on it because only computer "experts" and universities had servers. The days before the "Browser Wars", when every Congressman didn't know what the Internet was, instead of now where they know what it is, but still have no idea what it is. And who could forget BBSes, Gopher, and Veronica, Archie, and password protected FTP accounts brimming with goodies like Wolfenstein.... :)
That said, I don't MISS those days, but at 47, I'm glad I got to be a part of those days, and the days before that with CPM, portable computers with 8086s that weighed 50 pounds, original Macs, and even a VIC 20 with no storage device. You can't recreate them, or duplicate them, so those days are gone for good. It's up to us to create new ideas to eventually become "the good old days".

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Re:Is No One Excited? by SirGarlon · 2012-01-04 06:50 · Score: 2

If someone released a new version of the Model T Ford, would you expect many people to be excited?

Absolutely! Haven't you ever been to an antique car show? If Ford put the Model T, or an updated replica, back into production I think it would create a lot of excitement.

--
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Re:Is No One Excited? by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2012-01-04 07:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

Slashdot today is more of a political geek site, where a specific demographic comes to rant about copyrights, the DMCA, Apple, etc. Probably generates more revenue that way. I remember when programming articles used to make it to the front page.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Is No One Excited? by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2012-01-04 07:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

Nostalgia is a deceptive mistress. It tends to glorify things that weren't objectively good but carry sentimental feelings. You miss communicating directly with hardware and editing DOS startup files, but the DOS developers who had to support everybody's esoteric PC hardware sure don't. In fact, those days were a step back from the initial push in the 60s and early 70s toward higher-level abstraction that we've only now come back around to but took a detour from during the initial commoditization of low-end PC hardware. But you explained why you liked it--a sense of mastery that mentally justified the time investment.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Is No One Excited? by rubycodez · 2012-01-04 07:30 · Score: 3, Informative

so submit a programming article
Re:Is No One Excited? by Droog57 · 2012-01-04 07:37 · Score: 2

This brings up an excellent point that I've been considering for a while now. I was forced to work with a Win7 PC and absolutely hated the changes made to Explorer. I looked at some boards and saw that I am far from being the only one with the same issue, but 99% of those posts were replied to with (paraphrasing) "Get with it, new is good". No, it's not. It occurs to me that most Computer/SmartPhone/Tablet manufacturers would rather that you didn't have deep access to the OS or file system. And tailor all current OS's to limit access as much as possible. I bet that 10 years down the road, you won't be able to see the root of your HD no matter what you (legally) do. And therein lies the pernicious nature of "Upgrades". LESS power to the people, and power to the people was the driving force behind the PC revolution in the first place. We have been had by Apple, MS etc. They want total control. I know it sounds like I wear a tinfoil hat, but think about it, it's where we are heading, and Apple is, perversely, the worst offender. If Woz wuz dead (sorry woz, I know your out there), he'd be rolling already. PS, can freedos run with 16gb of RAM?

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"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
Re:Is No One Excited? by geminidomino · 2012-01-04 07:50 · Score: 2

Agreed. Fuck that. I miss TIE Fighter, Ultima 2, and PROCOMM+ terminals pointing at old BBSes. I don't miss having to spend 4 hours tweaking a three-level config.sys menu to squeak out an extra 2k out of 8MB of ram...
Re:Is No One Excited? by Droog57 · 2012-01-04 08:35 · Score: 2

You totally miss my point. Yes, if I'm at work, restrict me to your hearts content, I don't care. But on my personal device, stay the hell out of my way. If I mess things up, TFB for me, I will have to deal with the consequences of my actions (and BTW, in all probability learn something in the process). See this link to see how people can actually die because of hand-holding software, an extreme case yes, but in principle, an appropriate comparison. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877

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"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
Re:Is No One Excited? by metalgamer84 · 2012-01-04 10:20 · Score: 2

I have OS/2 Warp 4 running in a VM right now...why? So I can make this statement as needed.
Re:Is No One Excited? by dissy · 2012-01-04 16:38 · Score: 2

Now those were the days!
You spend hours typing in a multi-page program, with hundreds upon hundreds of DATA commands and mind numbing random looking values, to finally run it and get a 3-foot banner of an Alfred E Neuman face on your dot matrix printer.
Or spending days typing in a program, getting errors, double and eventually triple checking every line on the page with the LIST, continue getting errors, seriously considering retyping it from scratch to find the bug, only to discover in the next months issue that they swapped around some line numbers in a bunch of IF statements and it wasn't your poor typing after all!
Or spending an evening completely zoned out typing in a listing from a magazine, and only 5 lines from the end, the power goes out for a split second and wipes most of your RAM.
The screen comes back up with garbled text, flashing squares, characters from all up and down ascii, with a few lines of your program showing just to taunt you.
Anyone remember SoftStrip scanners, and what looked like 1"x10" long QR codes?
I still have my full collection of Nibble Magazine somewhere in the attic too.

Screenshot of 1.1 by sootman · 2012-01-04 06:05 · Score: 5, Funny

C:\>_

(Hmm, never noticed how much that looks like a clown smiley.)

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A new OS?! This changes everything! by brillow · 2012-01-04 06:09 · Score: 5, Funny

Does it have an app store?

Re:A new OS?! This changes everything! by RDW · 2012-01-04 06:44 · Score: 2

Yes: http://www.techdigest.tv/ironic-3.5-inch-disc-posters.jpg

Re:Kid's first OS by brillow · 2012-01-04 06:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why not just start them with linux? Is to too pornographic?

Invaluable for our lab equipment by blind+biker · 2012-01-04 06:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

In our labs, we have a shit-ton of expensive analytical and other scientific equipment which is controlled by some DOS-based software. We have been installing FreeDOS on replacement computers, and are all deeply grateful for its existence.

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

Re:Windows ME did not have DOS. by Dwedit · 2012-01-04 06:22 · Score: 4, Informative

Windows ME had DOS just like Windows 98 did, Microsoft just disabled it. You can hack several bytes, and you get DOS back again.

You must be thinking of Windows XP or Windows 2000, which did not have DOS.

Re:Windows ME did not have DOS. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-04 06:26 · Score: 2, Informative

You *got* to be trolling!

Windows ME = Windows 4.90.3000 (Notice how they wanted to say: This is probably the last version of 4.)
Windows 98 SE = 4.10.2222
It was still the same line. And it still was DOS inside with Windows 4 / Chicago on top.
They just gradually hid the DOS away more and more with each version. But it was still there. Since it had to be.
Only with 2000 did they start with the "emulator". Because it was a completely different OS. (NT / OS/2 line).

FAIL.

(Free)DOS can still be relevant ... by DigitalDreg · 2012-01-04 06:29 · Score: 5, Informative

DOS and FreeDOS are still relevant in some niche areas:

- Turn-key and embedded hardware often use DOS
- Retro-computing: Some of us like dragging out our old hardware to play with it
- Learning to code closer to the metal; DOS gives you enough services to get you going, while giving you a feel for embedded programming

FreeDOS runs on almost everything from an original IBM PC (1981) to a virtual machine under VMWare and VirtualBox. People (hobbyists) are continuing to work on the utilities to keep it refreshed. For example, in the last year there was a new set of TCP/IP programs added, a utility for sharing folders with a VMWare host, and a new web browser based on Dillo.

It's not for everyone, but if you are curious check it out - it's pretty painless to run in a VM. (Or you can drag out your XT or Pentium 90 for the full effect.)

Re:(Free)DOS can still be relevant ... by TechyImmigrant · 2012-01-04 07:11 · Score: 2

>All of these are better served by using a hand rolled linux. You can roll a linux kernel, FS and busybox that is smaller and far more capable.
No. Hand rolling linux is hard. Installing Freedos takes 2 minutes, mostly that 2 minutes is spent rummaging in the draw to find the usb stick with the install image on it.

--
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Re:(Free)DOS can still be relevant ... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-04 07:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

All of these are better served by using a hand rolled linux.
Not necessarily. I spent most of the last decade working on the Point-of-Sale system for a very large QSR (Quick Service Restaurant, i.e. "Fast Food"), and we had over 100,000 computers in the field, running MS-DOS. I *think* they were all at least 80386-based, but I do know that many of them had as little as 2 MB of RAM.
I'm not aware of any version of Linux that would allow us to operate in that small a memory footprint.
BTW, there are still hundreds (probably thousands) of stores still happily running the old, DOS-based system.
Re:(Free)DOS can still be relevant ... by dissy · 2012-01-04 14:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

"- Turn-key and embedded hardware often use DOS
All of these are better served by using a hand rolled linux. You can roll a linux kernel, FS and busybox that is smaller and far more capable.
So wait, you mean my CNC machine, which uses a DOS program to talk to an ISA controller card to run the machine, would be better served on Linux somehow?
How would you manage that exactly?
Seriously, I would love to know. I spent a good 4 days researching this very subject. My very first thoughts were "How can I get this to run under Linux?"
First, Linux won't even run DOS executable. Fail.
Second, userspace apps such as DosBox can not modify system memory to communicate to ISA cards. Fail.
Yes, this is a specific DOS program. Of course it shouldn't be expected to work anywhere else.
But you did say ALL cases would be served better by Linux, so that includes the cases where you need to run a DOS exe that flips bits in memory to talk to hardware, and access to the exe source is not an option.
When searching for a replacement computer for the failing Pentium 90 that controls the CNC, I spent quite some time attempting to find a way to run this on something more modern, IE something that could be easily and cheaply purchased.
The best solution I was able to come up with for a modern computer (~2-3 years old now, but a year old at the time), was to run Linux with an ISA-to-USB converter chassis, connected to a virtual box session running FreeDOS.
No matter how you want to twist that mess around, DOS is still the required component to which everything else there exists to support.
There would be much less overhead to just put MSDOS directly on the newer machine, but of course that isn't really doable since none of the newer hardware is supported, and legally speaking one can't get a new license for MSDOS, which could cause problems if I was to prepare the same setup for similar machines at work.
Especially so for work, I have to think about what might happen after I am gone (Be it move to greener pastures, or get hit by the proverbial bus)
I can't stick them with a pirated MSDOS copy, and would prefer an easy source for replacement pieces.
FreeDOS is the answer. It does support new hardware, and still runs the old executables.
It's also worth noting that even for the second item on GPs list:

Retro-computing: Some of us like dragging out our old hardware to play with it
Not all games work under DosBox. Sure, a whole lot do, and no doubt they would want to add support for those non-working games. But for the games it does not support, you need DOS in some form.
This also assumes that games are the only "retro" computer use you can think up, as dosbox is not good for much outside of that scope.
I'll grant that learning to program closer to the metal would be better served elsewhere.
Linux if using modern* hardware with more than "I just wanna" as a goal, or to teach fundamentals I would go with an 8 bit CPU that one human mind can fully understand all of.
Personally I would choose the 6502 for that task, but there's nothing wrong with any of the older simple micros.
* Modern meaning 15 years old or newer

Re:Kid's first OS by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-04 06:38 · Score: 5, Funny

"I told you, tou're not getting your kitten back until you configure HIMEM.SYS and solve that IRQ conflict with the Gravis UltraSound!"

Re:No LiveCD? soon by FudRucker · 2012-01-04 06:50 · Score: 2

give them a few days, i am sure there will be a live CD soon, what i want to see is a file server full of abandoned DOS games

--
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing

DOSbox versus/vs. FreeDOS for old DOS games... by antdude · 2012-01-04 06:52 · Score: 2

Does FreeDOS work well with old computer games like in DOSbox?

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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).

Re:Windows ME did not have DOS. by cbope · 2012-01-04 06:55 · Score: 2

Almost got it right. Yes, they did more or less neuter DOS in ME, but the well-known stability issues of ME were also due to MS trying to remove much of the underlying 16-bit code from the OS and make it "more" 32-bit than 9x. DOS was of course a part of this underlying 16-bit code, although hacks could bring part of it back.

Re:Windows ME did not have DOS. by vux984 · 2012-01-04 07:04 · Score: 2

Windows ME *REALLY WAS* the most stable of the win9x's.

No, it was worse than 98 SE.

It added a lot of new stuff that didn't work great.

Windows 2000 was supposed to be released in "Professional" and "Home" editions. But the home market just wasn't ready for NT as too much stuff the home market used didn't work.

Printers, scanners, mp3 players, and so on lacked NT drivers. Too many games and utilities didn't work.

So only windows 2000 pro ever got released, and then Windows ME was created released to update Windows 98.

When XP came out the market was a lot more ready for NT at home, and we got XP Pro and XP Home.

Windows 2000 Pro had been really successful as both a business OS and had made a lot of inroads in the home market as well, so the NT driver situation was much improved, and most of the new games and utilities and hardware supported both 2000 and 98.

helps boot stubborn thin clients by rubycodez · 2012-01-04 07:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

I love to make servers and appliances out of thin clients. But some of those thin clients refuse to boot GNU/Linux or BSD from native file system in external device, or in some cases from large (>2GB) partition. But they will boot GRUB in a FREEDOS partition.

FreeDOS + Raspberry Pi by CFBMoo1 · 2012-01-04 07:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

Would make an interesting combination for people who used to have old computers hooked up to TV sets for monitors like I did back in the day. Even though Raspberry Pi is using a few flavors of Linux, having a DOS option like that would be awesome in a retro kind of way.

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Here's why I'll look at it. by dennis612b · 2012-01-04 08:30 · Score: 2

I have some legacy products that started their lives on PC-104 boards running DOS. getting TCP/IP support onto these was arcane and generally miserable back when we started. New boards can run Linux and have great features but one great thing about DOS is it loads your app and gets out of your way. We're able to do real-time control in the 100 uS realm because of that. The only thing I need is access to more of the onboard RAM, everything else is just fine under DOS. I'm donning my asbestos suit now....

Re:Writing Viruses for AV by scharkalvin · 2012-01-04 10:15 · Score: 2

Ha. I remember a co-workers computer running DOS getting a virus and it was throwing out random error messages. Mostly "Drive C: out of paper". (I'm NOT making that up!)

To the contrary by Arker · 2012-01-04 13:38 · Score: 2

If you come up with something useful on freedos you can distribute it not only across freedos systems, which will run useful programs with more modest system specs, but you can also distribute it across any more 'modern' platform that has v86 emulator support. So that's pretty much everywhere.

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Re:Windows ME did not have DOS. by Targon · 2012-01-04 14:18 · Score: 2

The real problem with ME wasn't about DOS, or a lack of DOS, or anything like that, it was the whole "plug and play" layer being so broken that you could make the system unstable by adding a new card to the system, and even removing it wouldn't get you back. The way ME tried to interface with motherboard resources failed miserably.

Re:Windows ME did not have DOS. by drsmithy · 2012-01-04 15:44 · Score: 3, Informative

One of the reasons Windows ME had such stability issues was because they removed DOS from it and replaced it with an emulator. While Windows 95 and 98 were essentially the Windows GUI on top of glorified DOS internals, Windows ME was an attempt to move away from DOS entirely while keeping the GUI. The intention was to ultimately elimiate the legacy DOS internals outright.

As of Windows 3.0, much of the DOS functionality was replaced by Windows (once it loaded). This increased more in 3.1[1], and by the time of Windows 9x/Me, DOS was basically a bootloader and 16-bit compatibility shim, with essentially all "real" OS functionality in Windows. There's bugger all architectural difference between Windows 95 and Windows Me.

But this failed miserably. This failure resulted in their subsequent low-cost home OS, XP Home, to be based on the NT line instead of the DOS/9x line. If ME had been successful, the Windows home line might still have been 9x-based possibly until SP2 or Vista/7, when security started becoming a visibly major issue.

No, it wouldn't. The idea that there was any desire in Microsoft to keep DOS-based Windows alive for longer than absolutely necessary is laughable. Everyone recognised the limitations imposed by the DOS legacy, and no-one wanted to be constrained by them. Most people were amazed Windows Me was released (though the rationale probably was: if you've spent money on an insurance policy, you may as well cash in on it).

After the IBM/Microsoft "divorce", brought on by the unexpected success of Windows 3.0, the plan was for Windows 95 (nee: 4.0) to be the end of the DOS-based Windows line, replaced by NT-based Windows (as a 0.1 update to NT 4.0, eventually realised as a .1 update to Windows 2000 - XP) in the mid-'90s (keeping in mind Windows 95 was a good 12-18 months late, itself requiring an interim release of Windows 3.11 (incorporating some of the Windows 95 development work) to bridge that gap). Windows 98 was filler product released because of delays in the Windows NT development process meant that consumer hardware capabilities (particularly USB and larger hard disks) were outpacing the capabilities of the retail-channel Windows 95. Hence the reason Windows 98 offers little over the last OEM releases (OSR2.5) of Windows 95 (+IE4) and Windows Me (really just a last squeeze of the teat) relatively even less.

_Before_ "divorce", the "original" original plan was for the OS/2 2.x line (developed mostly by IBM, later to become "Warp", then eComStation) to replace DOS-based Windows for consumer computers and the new-from-scratch OS/2 "NT" (developed solely by Microsoft, renamed after the split as Windows NT, for obvious reasons) to become the "professional" grade OS for business computers.

Re:helps boot stubborn thin clients by rubycodez · 2012-01-04 18:04 · Score: 2

no, we're talking about genuine full frontal nudity GRUB, with menu.lst, stage1, stage2 and fat_stage_1_5 in a c:/boot/grub file. FreeDOS gives a place to land and edit the menu.lst without invoking other operation systems, and do thin client bios updates and flashes.

Re:Kid's first OS by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-01-05 02:27 · Score: 2

There was no need for kittens back in the day - we did it so that we could play X-COM and TIE Fighter.

To this day I doubt that I could repeat the setup I had at 12, that was there to get ~620Kb base memory with the mouse driver loaded, needed just because some odd game would bark on anything less.

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