FreeDOS Is 20 Years Old

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Posted by Unknown on Monday June 30, 2014 @11:01AM from the commander-keen dept.

Jim Hall (2985) writes "In a June 29, 1994 post in comp.os.msdos.apps on USENET, a physics student announced an effort to create a completely free version of DOS that everyone could use. That project turned into FreeDOS, 20 years ago! Originally intended as a free replacement for MS-DOS, FreeDOS has since advanced what DOS could do, adding new functionality and making DOS easier to use. And today in 2014, people continue to use FreeDOS to support embedded systems, to run business software, and to play classic DOS games!"

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Best DOS game... by bswarm · 2014-06-30 11:06 · Score: 1

LHX Attack Chopper
1. Re:Best DOS game... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 11:15 · Score: 0
  
  I can't choose:
  Wing Commander
  Commander Keen
  Doom
  C&C
  Warcraft II
  So many greats.....
2. Re:Best DOS game... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 11:18 · Score: 1
  
  You forgot Quake, you insensitive clod.
3. Re:Best DOS game... by Sowelu · 2014-06-30 11:29 · Score: 1
  
  Just rediscovered Alien Legacy, a true Sierra golden age underdog from 1994. It's a space colonization game that's not a 4X, how novel!
  I really really wish I could find all those old DOS TSRs from the mid-late 80s. I had one that put a bunch of ascii smiley face characters on the dos prompt that careened around and bounced off of lines of text; hold ctrl or alt to make them go in circles. I would not be surprised if it was really, truly lost in time with no remaining copies.
4. Re:Best DOS game... by iced_773 · 2014-06-30 12:04 · Score: 1
  
  Utopia: The Creation of a Nation. I've considered remaking it without the limits indicative of fixed-length arrays ("you cannot build more buildings at this time", etc.).
5. Re:Best DOS game... by AaronLS · 2014-06-30 12:12 · Score: 1
  
  Surprised to see someone mention one of my favorites. One of the few games where even losing was fun. Took a hit to the oil line? Now you've gotta get back to friendly borders before you crash.
  I found the copter controls/weapons management to be a nice balance between complex and arcade. I also loved getting to pick my loadout for each mission. Was a fun game for a computer that had only 512Kb ram.
6. Re:Best DOS game... by 0xdeaddead · 2014-06-30 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  That would be QuakeWorld for MS-DOS. Too bad it was born out of a bored and rainy day, but yeah, no more B&W non-existant TCP/IP or trying to rely on Windows95, No this version includes it's own TCP/IP stack, and best of all it works.
  QuakeWorld for MS-DOS, the way it should have been.
7. Re:Best DOS game... by thebes · 2014-06-30 13:21 · Score: 1
  
  And Doom went to my little league games!
8. Re:Best DOS game... by sillybilly · 2014-06-30 13:27 · Score: 0, Offtopic
  
  I never really played doom back in the day, my cousin went to the last level, so two years ago I get freedoom, and finish that, (it takes a good few weeks of afterwork time and weekends,) in windows (the freedos I had had a rudimentary version of freedoom, and no sound on a dell C840 laptop, but the win32 version had sound and all that. I left 4 snakes alive through all the levels, 2 with their backs in early levels who never shoot unless you walk near them, and you have an alternate route around them, and 2 blind ones, each in a different level, that you could get really close and look at, in late levels, and they scratch you if you get too close, but they don't shoot to a distance, like they went blind. Even amidst blood and gore and hate and enemies there is time to stop and admire beauty of life, even if enemy life, & protect noncombatants as either civilians or POW's, You leave 4 of them alive. That's like Alexander marrying an enemy woman, which is like that Mad TV episode of OJ Simpson on a date, "dangerous fun," same with Atilla, marrying an enemy woman. As in I've accomplished my life's goals and I don't mind dying. Or even if I have the capacity to stay alive, I'm not gonna do everything and everything to survive, and sometimes let other people decide it for me. If you finish doom without leaving any snakes alive, you end up all alone in the end. With 2 blind ones, the world is not so empty. I don't know about the ones with their backs turned, but otherwise fully able, if you ever meet them they prolly just kill you. Hmm. Hopefully they've had time to meditate over why they weren't killed, and might become friends with you. Kinda like Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson, in the end, after all the blood and gore, the native american waves to him from a distance. Blood and gore because someone walked through a sacred burial ground. Among other things. A native american has a lot of excuses to be angry at a white guy like Robert Redford. So, anyway, they say one of Solomon's faults was not exterminating his enemies fully, but, like letting the king go, or stuff like that. As in like that's a fault. As if that's agains't bible principles. True, stuff like that can later bite you in the ass bad. Not always though. There is a story about Thracians capturing an enemy king, and making him eat with his golden spoon when everyone else at the table ate with wooden spoons. To make a short story short, he ended up marrying his daughter to his enemies that didn't kill him, instead, told him, let's be friends. How nice and naive that is. Stuff like that is very much up in the air. Like, there is a nature video, I don't think I could find it, where a lion pride goes under when the males are exhausted from a fight with an invading pride, and an outsider lioness that joined the pride takes the 2 pups of the pride on a walk, and they turn up dead, and there goes the future, the hope of the pride, because they were not xenophobe enough. The story ends with the enemy pride moving in taking over the territory. Leaving noncombatant blind snakes alive in freedoom? Leaving combat able but with their backs turned snakes alive? How about leaving any POW alive in any war? Shouldn't you just kill any POW and exterminate the enemy, else they may bite you in the ass later? Like Richard the Lionheart executing the whole civilian population of Tyre. Making sure he don't get bitten in the ass later. Unlike Alexander or Attila, who are out of their freaking minds marrying and trusting enemy women. Well, it's like survival is important, but it's still an arbitrary rule. The Thracians could have killed the enemy king. Instead they lucked out by making a friend and a marriage of the princess into the tribe. But somehow it's not too hard to understand the natural tendency of racism and xenophobia that surrounds you every day. There is some good justifications behind it. Just don't trust your kids to an enemy babysitter, after all, your kids are your everything. Jesus said love your enemies. And that's what the Brits did at Trafalgar pulling any S
9. Re:Best DOS game... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 13:35 · Score: 0
  
  There's a bunch of old DOS stuff on CD collections at: https://archive.org/details/software and/or http://cd.textfiles.com/directory.html
  Google: site:cd.textfiles.com dos tsr utilities
  Good luck. Have a nice day!
10. Re:Best DOS game... by UnknownSoldier · 2014-06-30 13:50 · Score: 1
  
  Disagree ...
  * Castle Adventure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
  * Doom
  * Master of Magic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
  * Master of Orion
  * Shamus https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
  * Sopwith (went open souce!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
  * Sorched Earth
  * Zork
11. Re:Best DOS game... by jshackney · 2014-06-30 14:13 · Score: 1
  
  Doom, that's awesome. That's pretty much when I started getting bored with games and the race for frame rates.
  That was a fun game, though. Flight sims were more my thing. I enjoyed the heck out of F-19 Stealth Fighter (yeah, C64) and FPS:Football. Wish I could find a working copy of the latter. Also, been looking for a flight sim I had purchased, but never got to install (would like to see what I missed) as hardware evolved too rapidly and backward compatibility was super sketchy at that time. Wish I could remember the name of that sim.
12. Re:Best DOS game... by armanox · 2014-06-30 14:23 · Score: 1
  
  What, no Kings Quest? I remember playing them in DOS (up to KQ VI)
  Also, The Elder Scrolls: Arena and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall....lost lots of time there.
  
  --
  I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
13. Re:Best DOS game... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 15:45 · Score: 0
  
  Somebody please get this boy back on his meds, stat!
14. Re:Best DOS game... by gl4ss · 2014-06-30 15:53 · Score: 1
  
  gunship 2000 is a way better chopper game.
  besides, Star Control II. and frontier first encounters.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
15. Re:Best DOS game... by Narcocide · 2014-06-30 16:21 · Score: 1
  
  Falcon 4.0
16. Re:Best DOS game... by sconeu · 2014-06-30 16:45 · Score: 1
  
  I seem to recall that someone did a FOSS port of KQ IV for Windows.
  
  --
  General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
17. Re:Best DOS game... by drinkypoo · 2014-06-30 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  I'm gonna go with Comanche: Maximum Overkill. Flying the Comanche through voxelized canyons on ground effect with the Thrustmaster HOTAS was one of the great joys of the DOS gaming era.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
18. Re:Best DOS game... by StankeyoSmith · 2014-06-30 17:08 · Score: 0
  
  Syndicate Wars.
19. Re:Best DOS game... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 18:41 · Score: 0
  
  Your talents are wasted here.
20. Re:Best DOS game... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 19:40 · Score: 0
  
  Don't worry about the couple of other angry comments that you apparently got. The only problem here is the "wall of text" -- your message is kind of laborous to read.
21. Re:Best DOS game... by jones_supa · 2014-06-30 19:45 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure about that...but KQ III did recently get a remake.
22. Re:Best DOS game... by TheRaven64 · 2014-06-30 20:34 · Score: 1
  
  As a game? I vaguely recall enjoying Doom on release more than Quake on release. I enjoyed Duke Nukem 3D a lot more than either. The thing that made Quake special wasn't the game, it was that it was an off-the-shelf game engine with a free SDK. All of the game-specific behaviour (including things like the flight paths of projectiles) was contained in a bytecode file that had the source and compiler provided. For a while, I had about 500MB of mods for Quake installed (the game itself was around 50MB). Doom had all of the game behaviour hard coded, so all that mods could do was change the visual appearance. People wrote rally games and flight simulators in the Quake engine as mods. There was nothing like QTank, AirQuake, Quake Horrorshow, or Quake Rally for Doom. There definitely wasn't anything like Team Fortress, which accounted for the majority of the time I spent playing Quake.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
23. Re:Best DOS game... by mt2mb4me · 2014-07-01 02:08 · Score: 1
  
  I like that one myself. Whenver I fire up dos box, I can help but spend 10 minutes playing alley cat.
24. Re:Best DOS game... by mt2mb4me · 2014-07-01 02:12 · Score: 1
  
  Scorched Earth was epic in high school. That Links 386 and Street Rod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
25. Re:Best DOS game... by SQLGuru · 2014-07-01 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  Not the same as FPS, but try Professional Football Simulator. http://www.barcodegames.com/
26. Re:Best DOS game... by Reziac · 2014-07-01 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe you can find it here?
  https://archive.org/details/DO...
  Or perhaps up a step at the main archive?
  https://archive.org/search.php...
  (Argh, more old shit to download!! Must... resist...)
  AHA! Someone discovered the NS3 source!! Resistance is futile.
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
27. Re:Best DOS game... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 06:14 · Score: 0
  
  If you don't stop reading my thoughts and posting them on slashdot, I swear I'll remove the implant. Then where will you be when the satellite is obscured?
28. Re:Best DOS game... by tarius8105 · 2014-07-02 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  Carrier Command
29. Re:Best DOS game... by sillybilly · 2014-07-02 12:33 · Score: 1
  
  Telepathy and all that.. it's a great way for nonverbal communication..
30. Re:Best DOS game... by sillybilly · 2014-07-04 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  By the way life is based on both a sort of ROM chip technology, called DNA, that mutates very slowly, and volatile RAM based technology, called the flu shot trainable immune system, and the volatile memory acquiring and forgetting brain. In the ROM area, the X chromosome, (the female being XX, the male being XY, and females almost never being colorblind because at least one of the X variation copies functions well) is critical, and contains all the basic functions of life, such as energy production, mitochondrial DNA and mutates extremely slowly, and successful variability in it has been carefully preserved in things like counting women as property and not killing them in a war but instead "looting them" and taking them with you (btw. a woman soldier with an Uzi or Kalashnikov or M16 is equalized to a male, and is not a noncombatant valuable property, or a "women and children first" above all property and male crew in importance "being," so her X chromosome variability will get X'd out pretty quickly.) The male is XY, and the wastable Y chromosome contains the brainpower and education, because mammalian human females get bogged down 9 months per offspring, and those that start at age 12 and 13 outcompete those that start at age 42 a few years before menopause in voting power (meaning all kinds of other power, mass presence power,) so a 12 year old female does not have the time to get a full college education in timewasting math and philosophy (she's still very good at psychology and english as mind control tools), instead she has to rely on the discardable 52 year old male Y chromosome who had another 40 years to get fully educated, to defend her, come up with new technology for her and think for her. A male reaches peak in sexlife at age 21, a female at age 30, but a female fully stops near age 45 (as she has to stick around with the baby, but a father is not necessary, or could be anywhere at the end of 9 months, let alone end of 20 years), while a male stays reproductive able til the end of his life (though there is a story of King David in the Bible, where in his old age they brought to him an absolutely gorgeous naked teenage girl, and he could no longer get it up anymore, even though he was very active in his youth (see this image http://th02.deviantart.net/fs7... )). Often the male is not available to help out raising the family, especially in a society where the divorce rate is over 50%. (So that leaves the female and the grandma on the mother's side of the family. Nobody cares about a child like his own mother and his grandma, and such separation was by far the greatest cruelty of the slavery in the US, and after the civil war the first thing people did was try to find old family members. Serfdom in medieval Europe did not separate families, even if the nobility landlords were free to enter the household and take 10% of everything they found as a military defense fee, and that included raping some of the female family members sometimes.) So the male is often not available. That is why the Pope sticks up for abstinence (yeah right, it's more like pretend-abstinence, as in don't openly discuss your masturbations with people you work with or your friends, and repress open social acceptance of sexual exuberance like gay/lesbian sex and marriage, even if it happens in the background, don't talk about it, especially not in a teletubby tinkie winkie is gay way, ma! what's gay mean?), monogamy (yeah, the father should stick around with one woman, unless he can keep his women from catfighting and living in the same larger households, like some men in Africa can pull it off, but monogamy is simpler, especially in an everyone is equal and equally broke way, polygamy is very expensive, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?...), and women should try to focus on being mothers from a young age, instead of higher education, and police and military service. That'
31. Re:Best DOS game... by sillybilly · 2014-07-04 07:40 · Score: 1
  
  1971-1976 top of the chart sitcom, All in The Family:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
  
  Archie bunker and union jobs and stay at home moms are not possible in today's economy of minimum wage, when it takes 2x minimum wage to sustain a household, but two people, a monogamous working mother and husband, might have been able to pull it off, if they got lucky and never got sick. Also with the divorce rate sky high, women are forced to become career women, but they don't have to take crappy treatment from their men by being dependent on them, but the kids suffer, and you end up with less and less quality workforce, because they are raised by the media and not by their parents, or at least their local priests.
32. Re:Best DOS game... by zwarte+piet · 2014-07-13 00:11 · Score: 1
  
  That sounds like an awsome game.
Can I play Descent on it? by thechemic · 2014-06-30 11:07 · Score: 1

I wonder if FreeDOS can run in virtual machine. Oh Google...

--
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
1. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Unknown+Lamer · 2014-06-30 11:10 · Score: 1
  
  dosbox of course
  
  --
  
  HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
2. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Jim+Hall · 2014-06-30 11:13 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I wonder if FreeDOS can run in virtual machine. Oh Google...
  Yes, you can run FreeDOS in a VM! I usually recommend installing FreeDOS in a VM, especially if you don't plan to commit that computer to FreeDOS full-time. For Windows, I think most people prefer QEMU or VMWare or VirtualPC. On my Linux laptop, I run DOSemu.
3. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by The+MAZZTer · 2014-06-30 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  Descent is currently on Steam, I would be shocked if they did not bundle it with some mechanism for modern systems (probably DOSbox, as others have mentioned).
4. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Noah+Haders · 2014-06-30 11:28 · Score: 1
  
  What does google have to do with this?
5. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 11:46 · Score: 0
  
  Yup. A lot of those Steam/GoG re-released titles are running a version of DOSBox
6. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by iggymanz · 2014-06-30 11:49 · Score: 2
  
  I use FreeDOS with grub in it to multi-boot thin clients that can only boot from a FAT formatted partition. funny some HP thin clients require that, others don't. I make "servers" out of thin clients, usually with OpenBSD
7. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by tepples · 2014-06-30 11:52 · Score: 1
  
  Probably thechemic's perception that Google finds more relevant resources on how to get old DOS games working on modern PCs than Bing or Yandex/DDG does.
8. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by arcctgx · 2014-06-30 12:29 · Score: 1
  
  Apart from nostalgia, what is the reason to play Descent in FreeDOS? Better options are available, like the GoG version or source ports such as DXX-Rebirth. And of course there's dosbox, which I bet is much easier to set up.
9. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by thechemic · 2014-06-30 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  No reason at all. I'm definitely open to suggestions, and I'll check out your suggestion for sure!
  
  --
  Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
10. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by fizzer06 · 2014-06-30 13:00 · Score: 1
  
  I have not been able to install FreeDOS in VMWare Player. Google has hits for instruction with regular VMWare. So far, I haven't found a ready made appliance.
11. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Noah+Haders · 2014-06-30 13:01 · Score: 1
  
  Probably thechemic's perception that Google finds more relevant resources on how to get old DOS games working on modern PCs than Bing or Yandex/DDG does.
  OIC. I thought he was asking Google Inc. to provide him a technical solution to his problem, like building in a Chrome extension or something.
12. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by CastrTroy · 2014-06-30 13:47 · Score: 1
  
  Last time I tried, I had to use DosBox and FreeDos (or maybe DOS 6.22) on a VM to run Descent and the Devil level editor. The game would only run on one, and the level editor on the other. I can't recall which was which. I used a floppy image on a file to share data between the two. Pretty nostalgic going back and playing that old game.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
13. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by thechemic · 2014-06-30 14:40 · Score: 1
  
  Nostalgic for sure. I miss that and Command & Conquer. I just may use your tips here and give it a go.
  
  --
  Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
14. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 16:04 · Score: 0
  
  dosbox of course
  Does dosbox work on FreeDOS? jk
15. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by catmistake · 2014-06-30 16:10 · Score: 1
  
  There is one. Bookmark this in Chrome, same thing.
  
  --
  The Admin and the Engineer
16. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by 0xdeaddead · 2014-06-30 16:31 · Score: 2
  
  I'm installing it right now... I chose the "Microsoft Windows" profile, and selected "Windows 3.1"... You need to make sure that the CD-ROM has the highest boot priority in the BIOS... (hammer F2 on reboots), eventually you'll catch it...
  the install is SLOW... no doubt about it.
  I also installed it on QEMU, and yeah terribly slow.
  With QEMU thought, I did get DOOM v1.1 with sound working, so that is nice!
17. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by 0xdeaddead · 2014-06-30 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  Well... it installs, it's DOS4G/W (I'd forgotten!) and it'll run with all drivers disabled (I didn't test otherwise) ... Setup the sound card as a sound blaster
  Complete the Sound Blaster 16 Configuration.
  IRQ 5
  8-bit DMA 1
  16-bit DMA 7
  MPU-401 I/O address
  Disable (MPU-401 MIDI device is not supported)
  Once the game loads up the ship bounces around like crazy, and you get destroyed within seconds.. So, I'm guessing Descent doesn't handle fast machines, so while it 'works' it's not proper.. It'd probably better off in something like PCem, or just old fashioned DOSBox...
18. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Noah+Haders · 2014-06-30 17:11 · Score: 1
  
  i don't use chrome. it's like saying the orwellian telescreen is handy because its reflective surface doubles as a mirror.
19. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 17:23 · Score: 0
  
  You're definitely better off in DOSBox with the cpu speed turned down to 386 levels.
20. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 17:30 · Score: 0
  
  that works in any browser with javascript. GP was tryihg to be cute
21. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by TheRaven64 · 2014-06-30 20:39 · Score: 2
  
  EA released Command and Conquer Gold as a free download a few years ago. That's the Windows 95 version using the Red Alert engine (so high-resolution 640x480 graphics!), but with the same game as the original. It ran quite nicely in WINE when I tried it (a long time go now, may need an old version as WINE doesn't monotonically improve, but according to the apps db it works fine and is rated 'gold', which seems appropriate...).
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
22. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by mlk · 2014-06-30 20:57 · Score: 1
  
  > virtual machine
  VM or emulator?
  How about an emulator running on the JavaScript Virtual Machine? You can do that. ;)
  
  --
  Wow, I should not post when knackered.
23. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by mt2mb4me · 2014-07-01 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  I would bet, that is how they did Wolfenstein 3D
24. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 05:29 · Score: 0
  
  virtualbox, the only usable thing oracle still has running...
25. Re:Can I play Descent on it? by zwarte+piet · 2014-07-13 00:14 · Score: 1
  
  MySql isn't half bad either.
A popular laptop OS? by systemDead · 2014-06-30 11:14 · Score: 5, Informative

To add to the summary, FreeDOS is probably the 3rd or 4th most popular preinstalled OS for laptops, behind Windows and Mac OSX and maybe Chrome OS, but certainly higher than Ubuntu or any other desktop Linux. My HP laptop came with some version of FreeDOS that I since wiped off the disk. Installing FreeDOS gives OEMs the chance to have a nominally functional unit that can be tested for obvious hardware defects while not restricting the eventual user to their choice of a non-Windows OS.
1. Re:A popular laptop OS? by Jim+Hall · 2014-06-30 11:22 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  FreeDOS gets used in several pre-built computers. HP is one example - HP EliteBook comes with a FreeDOS option. And Dell used to do this, don't know if they still do. There are a bunch of vendors (especially in Europe and Asia) that pre-install FreeDOS, too.
  Alas, these pre-built computers have FreeDOS on them mainly as a clever way to get around a licensing agreement with Microsoft. I understand that Microsoft put a term in their Windows OEM license that prohibits system builders from selling "naked" computers - systems without operating systems. If you want to get the huge discount on Windows OEM licenses, so you can sell pre-built computers with Windows already installed, you may not also sell these "naked" computers.
  But there are plenty of people out there who don't want an operating system pre-installed (I presume these people are like me who prefer free software, and who would install a Linux distribution on their new computer) so system builders started shipping computers with FreeDOS pre-installed. I think the premise is that customers will reformat the drive and install Linux anyway, but the system builder didn't technically sell a "naked" computer.
  I actually think this is very clever and I like the idea. A few users do keep FreeDOS installed on their system; occasionally I get emails from people who decided to keep FreeDOS installed (and probably dual-boot into Linux) so they could use FreeDOS to play old DOS games.
2. Re:A popular laptop OS? by sremick · 2014-06-30 11:42 · Score: 2
  
  Dell most certainly does still offer FreeDOS. Perhaps just on some of their business line, but it's there.
  We've chosen it to save money when we were just going to put our own non-MS OS on there. Ubunutu is also an option on a number of models. RHEL too, but that'll cost you.
3. Re:A popular laptop OS? by thetagger · 2014-06-30 12:02 · Score: 2
  
  Isn't DOS a horrible operating system to run these days? It doesn't support any energy management, so your computer will run really, really hot. It's better to boot Linux and run dosbox.
4. Re:A popular laptop OS? by Beck_Neard · 2014-06-30 12:59 · Score: 2
  
  Yup, that's exactly it. Another thing about those computers is that they are often more 'geek-oriented' overall. I got a vostro 1320 laptop with freedos, for instance, and it has a backside panel for easy access to the fan and heatsink assembly. Cleaning the computer is literally a matter of just removing a pair of screws. Compare to some other laptops where you virtually have to disassemble down to the bare motherboard just to get the fan clean. It was also about $90 cheaper than the windows version, even though the specs were almost exactly the same. It's nice that companies still make computers like this. I wonder when it will end.
  
  --
  A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
5. Re:A popular laptop OS? by chipschap · 2014-06-30 13:27 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Good point. I've observed this too.
  I have a bootable USB stick which boots into FreeDOS. The only thing on the stick, besides the OS and some utilities, is a copy of an old, simple word processor called Better Working Word Processor. When I really want distraction-free writing, I boot this up and there is simply nothing else to do but write (somewhat a la Jonathan Franzen, though I'll never quite have the reputation to go with it).
  But I do notice that even with the hard drive spun down, battery life is little better than running my full Linux Mint installation.
6. Re:A popular laptop OS? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 14:21 · Score: 0
  
  There is another reason ( atleast here in India ) that people buy laptops with FreeDOS - to install a pirated copy of Windows. Windows XP was the choice of pirates and apparently they have cracked windows 7 here as well ( even the pirates didn't like Vista, and the pirates don't like Windows 8 )
  Having said that, there are systems pre-loaded with Ubuntu available here ( I personally own a Dell Latitude with Ubuntu pre-installed ) - so that is another good option, but customers prefer to stick to "No OS machines" ( as FreeDOS is called here ) and the dealer then offers "free softwares" ( note the plural, in fact there is an empahsis of the plural because you get not ONE but MANY "softwares" ) - which typically means pirated Windows, Office, Photoshop ( these 3 are a must) and others. Often the pirated software "loaded" on the machine will cost 5 times the cost of the machine.
7. Re:A popular laptop OS? by drinkypoo · 2014-06-30 14:51 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Isn't DOS a horrible operating system to run these days? It doesn't support any energy management,
  false
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
8. Re:A popular laptop OS? by catmistake · 2014-06-30 15:21 · Score: 1
  
  But if you ask the typical user of OS X that never questions anything and always insists on new shiney, any OS older than 2 years old is "obsolete." So this OS is obsolete 10x over!!
  disclaimer: I am a UNIX/Linux Windows & OS X systems admin, and prefer OS X for desktop, and even I can't stand the moronic whiney bullshit that the self-proclaimed "expert" mac users puke out... please see comments here to see what I mean, as if you didn't know already.
  
  --
  The Admin and the Engineer
9. Re:A popular laptop OS? by catmistake · 2014-06-30 15:28 · Score: 1
  
  so they could use FreeDOS to play old DOS games
  That's not dumb or anything, but superfluous, considering this exists.
  
  --
  The Admin and the Engineer
10. Re:A popular laptop OS? by catmistake · 2014-06-30 15:44 · Score: 2
  
  RHEL too, but that will cost you
  I have downloaded before a full version, non-evaluation, fully working copy of RHEL before.... I believe this option still exists for those seeking it, but it is one of those well kept secrets and the link is burried deep somewhere at Red Hat's site. i.e. RHEL can be used for free, without support. It is possible Red Hat may have discontinued this for the "30 day evaluation" variety of free download, and that download link is gone forever, but regardless, Red Hat does not sell operating systems, they sell support, and that is what you pay for that costs. However, CentOS is identical to RHEL and is free to download and use, i.e. costs nothing. Oracle Linux is also RHEL, and also free to download and use, I believe. So no, if you don't pay for the support, using RHEL will cost you nothing.
  
  --
  The Admin and the Engineer
11. Re:A popular laptop OS? by chipschap · 2014-06-30 17:00 · Score: 1
  
  True about games (dosbox as an easy alternative) but not business software. dosbox doesn't support printing (I think there is one mod that does, but the mainstream doesn't) so if you want to use your old Lotus Agenda or Ventura Publisher or Xywrite, etc., FreeDOS may be preferred.
12. Re:A popular laptop OS? by tlhIngan · 2014-06-30 18:45 · Score: 1
  
  FreeDOS was also a popular way to do firmware updates because it gets you to a well known state that's single tasking and nothing could interrupt the process. Especially nice was it was small and you could put it on a floppy with tons of space for your firmware and other things.
  Though nowadays, since most people don't boot from floppies, they now use Linux based update software - sure it's multitasking, but it's a nice controlled Linux environment to do stuff in. Especially since it doesn't have to all fit in a 1.44MB floppy - a thumbdrive or CD will let you easily a large amount of space so you can even have multiple updaters so the user only needs to download one huge "do it all" that figures out what needs updating over downloading and making a half dozen update disks hoping to have the right model and revision.
  And especially these days where DOS drivers are getting fewer and farther between, if you need drivers (e.g., SATA drivers), you're more likely to find it in Linux than in DOS. So for those things like SSD firmware updates, a Linux boot drive will likely be able to talk to most SATA controllers without the user needing to reconfigure their PC. For the leftovers, they can try using legacy mode, but the number of people who need it are far fewer.
  FreeDOS is almost never used for production - they have specialized boot images running Windows or whatever, then just wipe it with the final OS image
13. Re:A popular laptop OS? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 18:55 · Score: 0
  
  >Isn't DOS a horrible operating system to run these days? It doesn't support any energy management, so your computer will run really, really hot.
  Does it *actually* make your computer run really really hot? It sounds like dont know and you're assuming it does; because you're asking, not telling.
14. Re:A popular laptop OS? by yuhong · 2014-06-30 19:31 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think APM works on most modern machines though. There is the DOS idle utilities which execute the HLT instruction which is not much but is better than nothing.
15. Re:A popular laptop OS? by yuhong · 2014-06-30 19:35 · Score: 1
  
  I think UEFI is the best solution for things like this and many firmware update utilities already uses it for example.
16. Re:A popular laptop OS? by TheRaven64 · 2014-06-30 20:45 · Score: 1
  
  Only if you've got a really old printer. Remember, DOS predates abstraction layers and clean printer APIs. You print from DOS by opening the serial or parallel port and sending some data over it. If you've got a DOS program that can print to PostScript printers, then you're better off printing to a file from DOSBox and then printing the result from the host OS.
  That said, there's little reason to use most DOS business applications these days. There are typically open source alternatives that are far better as they aren't written with such tight resource constraints in mind and can reuse GUI toolkits and so on (again, remember that DOS programs had to come with their own embedded GUI system and for most of them 4MB of RAM was a lot - a modern program can use more than that for the window buffer). I still occasionally fire up the Psion Series 3A emulator in DOSBox (if you tweak it a bit, it will run at 640x480) and use the spreadsheet though, because I've not found another one that's as easy to use with just a keyboard and constantly moving my hand from keyboard to mouse becomes annoying.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
17. Re:A popular laptop OS? by Threni · 2014-06-30 23:56 · Score: 1
  
  If that's true they might as well put a Linux distro on it!
18. Re:A popular laptop OS? by drinkypoo · 2014-07-01 02:19 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think APM works on most modern machines though.
  It's too bad you didn't read the link I provided, in which it is revealed that FreeDOS will use ACPI if APM is not present.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
19. Re:A popular laptop OS? by yuhong · 2014-07-01 09:16 · Score: 1
  
  Didn't know this. Looks like it is pretty limited though, as ACPI is much more complex than APM.
20. Re:A popular laptop OS? by drinkypoo · 2014-07-01 13:04 · Score: 1
  
  It's nice that companies still make computers like this. I wonder when it will end.
  I've got a Vostro 1500 right here, you've gotta take the whole lid off the bottom before you can get to the fan. But yeah, that's better than most laptops. On the other hand, there's a Fujitsu T900 in the house and it has a little plastic panel you remove, then you can blow air through the system as well as out of the intake. That's better than any of this other jazz by far.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ah, the good old DOS days by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 11:18 · Score: 0

Anyone has links to Hercules-graphics porn, specifically animations? I remember a few of them, shouldn't be hard to view the whole list which someone surely has converted to animated GIFs by now.
1. Re:Ah, the good old DOS days by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 18:34 · Score: 0
  
  We sure do not miss that animations...
Surplus by RatBastard · 2014-06-30 11:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

Back when I processed computers to go to surplus I would DBAN the hard drives and install FreeDOS so that the guys at Surplus could show the customers that the computers would actually boot.

--
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
1. Re:Surplus by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 11:30 · Score: 1
  
  No wonder this crap has been surplussed! It's not a real computer because it doesn't run Windows!
Re:20 years old? That doesn't solve my problem... by iced_773 · 2014-06-30 12:02 · Score: 1

Have you tried a browser extension that changes the user agent string?
Re:20 years old? That doesn't solve my problem... by bogaboga · 2014-06-30 12:13 · Score: 1

One User-agent switcher worked on one site! Thanks a lot but on another one, the message I get is this:
To access this site your Internet Explorer parser must be MSXML 3.0 or greater. Please use Internet Explorer version 6.0 (and higher) or download the correct parser version in order to properly view the web pages located within. Current parser is not MSXML 3.0 or greater.
Thanks!
Thanks by nurb432 · 2014-06-30 12:35 · Score: 1

Now i feel old. I was there in the beginning.

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. Re: Thanks by bill_mcgonigle · 2014-06-30 13:20 · Score: 1
  
  you only need to feel old if you're still waiting for a working cdrom driver.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2. Re:Thanks by catmistake · 2014-06-30 15:50 · Score: 1
  
  Now i feel old. I was there in the beginning.
  Some how I doubt that.
  
  --
  The Admin and the Engineer
3. Re:Thanks by nurb432 · 2014-07-01 09:32 · Score: 1
  
  And i will be there in the end.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
  
  --
  ---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:20 years old? That doesn't solve my problem... by sumdumass · 2014-06-30 12:52 · Score: 1

Can't you just change your browser's user agent string to identify as a MS desktop IE version?
Or does it require some plug in or something?
praise freedos! by nimbius · 2014-06-30 13:08 · Score: 1

With Commander Keen in my right screen, FreeDOS has hit me right in the childhood :) heres to another 20 YEARS!

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:praise freedos! by pbjones · 2014-06-30 13:29 · Score: 1
  
  20 years, oh dear, commander Keen, oh gosh, I am feeling so old.
  
  --
  There was an unknown error in the submission.
Congratulations FreeDOS! by reshin · 2014-06-30 13:12 · Score: 1

Thanks for your contribution to the world, Jim! Makes me want to look for Scorched Earth now.
Don't forget about BIOS updates... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 13:39 · Score: 3, Informative

There have been several times that FreeDOS has saved the day for installing BIOS updates on older(-ish) Dell servers and whatnot.
1. Re:Don't forget about BIOS updates... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 19:28 · Score: 0
  
  Older, hell. Supermicro still ships BIOS updates for their servers as DOS executables. Thankfully, FreeDOS lives happily on a FAT32 USB stick, so all I have to do is copy the .EXE over from a modern system.
I'm waiting for ... by Tamran · 2014-06-30 14:19 · Score: 1

... FreeWinXP. I'm sure it'll be out any day now.
1. Re:I'm waiting for ... by Tepar · 2014-06-30 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.reactos.org/
2. Re:I'm waiting for ... by Nyder · 2014-06-30 15:16 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.reactos.org/
  
  Oh ya, that. Maybe when it's 20 years old, it might be out of alpha...
  
  --
  Be seeing you...
3. Re:I'm waiting for ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 15:54 · Score: 0
  
  Its not so much an operating system as it is a support group for masochistic linux developers.
4. Re:I'm waiting for ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 18:35 · Score: 0
  
  Why, do you want a turd shinier and with more holes than the original?
5. Re:I'm waiting for ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 00:44 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe because you don't want to be in the clutches of a nasty American corporation and their spying friends. Maybe because you have a serious investment in Win32 software.
6. Re:I'm waiting for ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 00:50 · Score: 0
  
  Even if it was a wiser strategy to use Wine with your homegrown OS, so that you don't get hit by the Linux kernel exploits which they apparently have along with even more of the same for Windows and MacOS.
7. Re:I'm waiting for ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 04:58 · Score: 0
  
  Heh, I wouldn't count on it. Just take a look at this: https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Salute by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 14:19 · Score: 0

I just want to salute FreeDOS in this great achievement.
At the 40th anniversary I will not be around in the flesh.
Perhaps a virtual me will be on the net in 30 years, I do
hope.
Best wishes and Happy Birthday. :-)
DOS Extenders by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 14:26 · Score: 0

Many DOS games used DOS extenders like DOS4GW.EXE and CWSDPMI.EXE.
An excellent (and free) replacement for DOS4GW.EXE is at http://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html. Just download it, rename it to DOS4GW.EXE and you're good to go.
An updated version of CWSDPMI.EXE is available at http://web.archive.org/web/20100317203118/http://clio.rice.edu/cwsdpmi. Perhaps Rive Univ. will put the archive back online?
Another DOS extender of interest is the HX DOS-Extender at http://www.japheth.de/HX.html. The advantage to it is that has built-in Win32 PE file format support, providing a win32 API so win32 console apps can run. More interestingly, it has a GUI extension that allows some simple Win32 GUI apps to be run as a "stand-alone" application without the need for Windows, for a Windows emulator or for WINE; there is 16-bit support as well. Opengl support is also provided, but is software only.
DOS Apps and Games by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 15:06 · Score: 0

Old Apps at http://www.oldapps.com/ provides old versions of popular software.
The 6.0 DOS version of Norton Commander can be downloaded at http://myoldsoftware.blogspot.com/2009/04/norton-commander-60.html
DOS shareware versions of Doom and Hexen are here: http://www.doomworld.com/classicdoom/info/shareware.php
Other classic PC games mat be available from here: https://archive.org/details/classicpcgames
SpinRite too by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 15:06 · Score: 1

SpinRite, ( https://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm ) Steve Gibson's longstanding hard drive maintenance and recovery utility also uses FreeDos to boot. This means that it can work on all parts of the drive.
Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 15:16 · Score: 0

1. With FreeDOS you can have 1280K!
2. When we say "FreeDOS" we mean Free as in "Freedom", not as in Price. Software Freedom is a set of concepts that merits an explanation....
As a retro gamer I can appreciate by Hamsterdan · 2014-06-30 16:58 · Score: 1

5 years ago I was given an old HP Vectra workstation (256k Ppro 180 upgraded to a 1MB Ppro 200 with water cooling), removed both Matrox Video cards, slapped in a Soundblaster PRO 2.0, an Ensoniq Soundscape Elite, a Voodoo Rush, and after upgrading the machine to 192MB RAM, installed Win 98SE. DooM sounds amazing, Tie Fighter never sounded better. OS/2 Warp 3.0, DOS 6.22, win 3.11 and 98SE.
For the really big games (Xwing Alliance/UT/Quake2), P3/800 , dual Voodoo2 in SLI, SB Live!. 513MB and 98SE with a Rage 128 Pro card. Those machines sit along my C64 and my PS/2 286 (and my 512k MAC)
I have an old VLB 486 with an overclocked amd 5x86 running at 160 (32MB RAM), that one I'v got to give FreeDOS a try :)

--
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
1. Re:As a retro gamer I can appreciate by Reziac · 2014-07-01 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  As a fellow antiquitor, I covet your evicted Matrox vidcards :)
  Is it wrong that I keep a P4-3GHz (with ISA slots!) solely to run DOOM? :D Tho for some reason newer ISA sound cards refuse to play nice in it, so it makes do with the rather horrible-sounding SB16 that came in my original 486.
  Hmm, you don't happen to have a list of the various SET BLASTER lines for different SB cards?
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
2. Re:As a retro gamer I can appreciate by Hamsterdan · 2014-07-01 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.rinkworks.com/apoge...
  vogons.org is a reference for retro gaming
  
  --
  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
3. Re:As a retro gamer I can appreciate by Reziac · 2014-07-01 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks!
  Somewhere out there is also a half-gig archive of SB drivers, tho my copy (which was hell to get downloaded in one piece) is stashed on a disk in storage which isn't very useful right now.
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I would like to see FreeWin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 17:30 · Score: 0

FreeWin, some form of reverse-engineered 32-bit Windows with the bare minimum essentials to run the older Windows games (mid-late 1990s to early 2000s).
As the world moves on to 64-bit OSes, and with Microsoft removing XP Mode from Windows 8, we need some contribution from the open source community. We want an elegant solution, not "Dude, just dual boot or install Win XP on another partition if you want to play old games!"
1. Re:I would like to see FreeWin by ruir · 2014-06-30 18:39 · Score: 1
  
  You have got Wine, and commercial ports of it like CrossOver. They are not production ready, however they do run some binaries to some extent. The compatibility list is huge. However one thing is to emulate the APIs and bugs of DOS (much smaller fingerprint), and other to do the same to XP. Even Microsoft cant do it right.
2. Re:I would like to see FreeWin by jones_supa · 2014-06-30 20:10 · Score: 1
  
  As the world moves on to 64-bit OSes, and with Microsoft removing XP Mode from Windows 8, we need some contribution from the open source community.
  Well, take the proper responsibility and contribute yourself. I think open source is cool, but not when it is perceived as the magical software fountain which generates free programs while I just fiddle my thumbs. What you asked is a reverse engineered Windows to play old games. That would require extreme amounts of work. Are you willing to help by contributing code or giving donations?
3. Re:I would like to see FreeWin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 06:13 · Score: 0
  
  http://reactos.org/
Jesus! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 20:05 · Score: 0

I remember this! I was on AOL and getting some AOHELL Kitty!
Update needed by doctorsdad · 2014-06-30 20:27 · Score: 0

Please somebody, start up FreeXP and rid me of this Win7 and Win8 madness!
Update needed by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 20:33 · Score: 0

www.reactos.org
Jeremy Holder by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-30 20:37 · Score: 0

Jeremy Holder is still trying to work out tic-tac-toe
Another World / Out Of This World by DJRikki · 2014-07-01 00:33 · Score: 1

Amazing game in all ways
Mirage OS by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 01:06 · Score: 0

No, not a fighter plane operating system and not french either. The Tea Folks have done something really interesting:
http://openmirage.org/
In short: A modern attempt at having a memory-safe operating system. Isolate bugs in small software pieces instead of granting them an entire process, like the Unix abomination does.
Think of e.g. the SSL library being compromised, but all the backend databases are still protected as long as users don't log. Comapre that to the Unix model where any exploit in any library gives the attacker control of all resources reachable by this process.
If you are interested for novel ideas from the past(TM), also have a look at
http://www.inr.ac.ru/~blackbox/Oberon.Day/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_MCP
http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/
How to use it for rehlashing BIOS? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 04:56 · Score: 0

I have a Dell with no disk and wanted to reflash its BIOS without installing FreeDos on a local drive. I can boot from the DVD but it just wants to install. When running from DVD it won't mount any other devices, which is required to load the bios exe file. I have not found any way to do this yet.
Re:20 years old? That doesn't solve my problem... by zwarte+piet · 2014-07-13 00:21 · Score: 1

The Opera browser has a setting to impersonate Internet Exploder for certain pages. Works fine.