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How (And Why) FreeDOS Keeps DOS Alive (computerworld.com.au)
FreeDOS was originally created in response to Microsoft's announcement that after Windows 95, DOS would no longer be developed as a standalone operating system, according to a new interview about how (and why) Jim Hall keeps FreeDOS alive. For its newest version, Hall originally imagined "what 'DOS' would be like in 2015 or 2016 if Microsoft hadn't stopped working on MS-DOS in favor of Windows" -- before he decided there's just no such thing as "modern DOS". An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
No major changes are planned in the next version. "The next version of FreeDOS won't be multitasking, it won't be 32-bit, it won't run on ARM," Hall said. "FreeDOS is still intended for Intel and Intel-compatible computers. You should still be able to run FreeDOS on your old 486 or old Pentium PC to play classic DOS games, run legacy business programs, and support embedded development."
By day, Hall is the CIO for a county in Minnesota, and he's also a member of the board of directors for GNOME (and contributes to other open source projects) -- but he still remembers using DOS's built-in BASIC system to write simple computer programs. "Many of us older computer nerds probably used DOS very early, on our first home computer..." he tells ComputerWorld. Even without John Romero's new Doom level, "The popularity of DOS games and DOS shareware applications probably contributes in a big way to FreeDOS's continued success." I'd be curious how many Slashdot readers have some fond memories about downloading DOS shareware applications.
By day, Hall is the CIO for a county in Minnesota, and he's also a member of the board of directors for GNOME (and contributes to other open source projects) -- but he still remembers using DOS's built-in BASIC system to write simple computer programs. "Many of us older computer nerds probably used DOS very early, on our first home computer..." he tells ComputerWorld. Even without John Romero's new Doom level, "The popularity of DOS games and DOS shareware applications probably contributes in a big way to FreeDOS's continued success." I'd be curious how many Slashdot readers have some fond memories about downloading DOS shareware applications.
Single user and no security what-so-ever. IBM should have used the 68000 combined with a proper OS.
... before he decided there's just no such thing as "modern DOS" ...
Well, there was a "modern MS DOS", it was MS OS/2 1.x.
The problem with projects like FreeDOS, is that just about all programs for DOS are closed-source and proprietary. Even though FreeDOS itself is free software, its development implicitly promotes old proprietary software.
Microsoft's old operating system doesn't deserve to be continued to be developed and supported like this. It deserves to die a horrible death, so that people can move on to a better platform, such as GNU/Linux, where there is a culture of free and open-source software.
Have an old legacy proprietary DOS program that you need for your business? Then throw it into /dev/null, and hire some talented programmers to write a modern free open-source replacement for GNU/Linux, that will get published on github.
These days, you can buy a BeagleBone Black or similar system-on-chip computer for very cheap, it comes with a full-blown GNU/Linux development environment that beats the pants off DOS.
I remember some of the really early DOS games that were written to basically run correctly and be playable on (IIRC) a 4.77MHz 8086/8088.
Then I remember trying to play those same games on a (again, IIRC) 12MHz 80286 system. That lunar lander would just immediately plummet into the ground or crash into the side of a mountain, and try as I might - there was nothing I could do about it.
#DeleteChrome
DOS had a basic interpreter? I don't remember that. In fact I'm pretty sure it didn't. Apples and Commodores provided BASIC. Not Microsoft DOS.
> Hall originally imagined "what 'DOS' would be like in 2015 or 2016 if Microsoft hadn't stopped working on MS-DOS in favor of Windows" -- before he decided there's just no such thing as "modern DOS".
Booooooo! Boooooo! But imagine if there were a modern DOS. So I am seizing Control of this article and asking Hey, Slashdot, if there were a modern DOS, what would it be like?
"Many of us older computer nerds probably used DOS very early, on our first home computer..."
And here I think of DOS as a 'newer' system
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Is it true FreeDOS is one of the more desirable live environments to boot from in order to update BIOS?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EComStation
A better "DOS"...
Memories? Well, remember Pournelle declaring that CP/M was better than DOS.
And tweaking config.sys and autoexec.bat etc. to get QEMM working.
Then discovered BSD which makes DOS look like a broken toy...
I still use FreeDOS regularly to run 20 year old research software. I use DOSEMU, which lets me edit files and move data around in Linux, and then read them into the DOS program without stopping and starting a virtual machine. So I have a DOSEMU terminal open, and my favorite text editor next to it, and maybe tail the log file in another terminal, all at the same time.
That old DOS software is still superior to any new point-and-click software. The config files leave a precise record of what parameters I set, and the logs leave a precise record of the result. It's fully auditable and reproducible, which is what science should be. And it will still run just as well as the day it was bought in another 20 years from now. The director tried to get us to buy some 'modern' software to do the same task. It 'only' cost $5000 and ran in MS Access. He was surprised when I refused the offer. Does it leave a written record of what I did? No. Are the results reproducible? No. Will it still run in 20 years time? Fuck no. Some things aren't broken yet, leave them alone.
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
By the time being online no longer cost serious money, we had already switched to Linux and NT4.
I remember downloading drivers for our SPEA graphics card and Canon printer from mailboxes in Win 3.1 times, but it took ages to download a megabyte on a 14.4k modem.
For shareware we relied on floppy disks and CDs. Most of them came attached to some magazine.
DOS needs to just fucking die. DOS was a piece of shit when if was first released, and has remained a piece of shit.
MS-DOG cost software development and entire decade of innovation because it was such a piece of shit. And if I see a company is still using a piece of shit software that uses it, fuck them; unless they're paying $1000/hour or paying me to rewrite it--fuck no I'm staying far away from those motherfuckers. Just NOPE!
Back in the day you didn't download DOS shareware, you traded floppy diskettes with friends or purchased them via mail order. Damn kids and your internet nonsense.
I am seizing Control of this article and asking Hey, Slashdot, if there were a modern DOS, what would it be like?
I know you're posting as an AC so probably won't get seen, but I'll reply anyway because it's an interesting question.
In short, you get Linux.
We discussed this in great depth in various places, and if you try to project a "modern" DOS to today, you end up with a 32-bit multitasking kernel that provides native networking and hardware abstraction. You lose binary compatibility; applications written for the newer "modern" DOS won't run on, say, MS-DOS 6. But that wouldn't be surprising; many programs written for MS-DOS 6 wouldn't run on MS-DOS 3, either. You need to provide some method of forward compatibility, of course. To run a "classic" DOS application on the "modern" DOS would require some kind of emulation environment.
And if you want that, run Linux. Because Linux is a 32-bit multitasking kernel that provides native networking and hardware abstraction. You don't have binary compatibility; applications written for Linux won't run on MS-DOS 6. To run "classic" DOS applications on Linux requires an emulation environment like DOSemu (which requires FreeDOS, by the way).
Once you break binary compatibility, a "modern" DOS isn't really DOS anymore. What's the point in a "modern" DOS if you can't run classic DOS programs on it? Because that's not DOS, it's something else.
The number of older CNC machines I have kept running because of Freedos is huge. I have made a shto-ton of cash on smaller machine shops where "professional" IT companies have told them that they cannot fix the control system for their CNC machines.
I come in at $95 an hour and make it work again, custom is elated and trash talks the "professional" company that said it was impossible, I get more calls to fix more from other companies they spread the world on... Rinse and Repeat.
This was 10 years ago when I was almost doing 2-3 CNC repair jobs a week. Now it's maybe one every 2 months, and I don't even do IT professionally anymore.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
After all, Microsoft and the DOS community messed up to many points badly. For example the "driver" concept was basically unused. Few people ran ansi.sys because it meant sacrificing a ridiculous amount of RAM. That's why most software had to access the hardware directly, even for primitive things like coloured text.
Also there was the problem of not having a compiler coming with the operating system which meant that there was no free software movement. People actually sent out binary files. So every software was restricted to a narrow band of hardware.
Essentially there is now the need for a "new DOS". It would run on hardware like STM32-class microcontrollers which have (much) less than a megabyte of RAM and no memory management.You'd start off with decent lightweight hardware abstraction, then add a file system as well as simple version of the usual UNIX tools. Once you have an editor and a shell you'll have a decently working system which can be used for all kinds of things.
He wrote a modem program on his dad's computer as a teenager and it was very successful as shareware. The shareware system worked for more than one certain crazy antivirus guy.
I have had the pleasure of corresponding with, and occasionally collaborating with, Jim Hall a few times over the years. He's not just active in the open source community, he's a really nice guy. Easy to work with, friendly and helpful. We've exchanged notes about package management, he's sent some patches to a project I was working on to make it more user-friendly (and DOS compatible). Jim manages to make a technically focused OS while being pleasant to work with. More open source project leaders could learn by his example.
Sure, the game angle is there, but what I was wondering about is how many people use FreeDOS to keep 20 year old DOS programs running for business and/or government.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
As a ham radio operator that often comes across legacy radios being decommissioned, I've used DOS many times in the past 5 years to reprogram commercial radios to amateur frequencies. I don't remember if it was FreeDOS or an ancient saved copy of Novell DOS, but without DOS those radios would likely have gone in the trash bin.
I still use several BASIC programs I wrote in 1978-84 on CP/M and DOS confusers, in my business everyday right this second. I figure those crusty old programs have earned me over $2m. /smile/
I got my engineering degree with DOS. Everyone was issued a Z100 (non msdos!) with an 8088, Fortran and Basic. Some other programs such as CAD, PC-TeX were available. Russ Nelson worked at my college and created Freemacs, the word processor and the spelling checker and many other utilties in use at Clarkson
Some classes gave you a VMS or Unix account. When it was in heavy use at the end of the semester , it was faster to edit in DOS and upload than to scroll down the file in VMS. The DOS FORTRAN didn't have the extensions or libraries. Sometimes its math wasn't as accurate.
After I got a 286 and had gotten a Unix account (w/ Usenet access), I started trying to learn Unix things. Turbo C, GNUish utilities, Freemacs, Elvis and shell clones helped me. Minix was almost as helpful.
A 486 w/ 8mb lead to Linux replacing DOS and work as a Unix sysadmin. The DOS intro to C, awk, vi, lex, yacc (via "The Unix Programming Environment" was extremely helpful. Linux at home helped me continue learning. It could single task better than my Sparcstation 1+ running SunOS.
The 8088, 80286 and 486 systems probably cost ~ $5k each back in the day where a Unix workstation was ~ $20k if you could get one.
Oh, man, I remember visiting a friend with an XT (the 4.77MHz 8088 you mention), who had a game called The Ancient Art Of War where you set up your army and an exciting (and amusing) battle would commence in all its green glory (mono monitor)! I took a copy home, put it on my 20MHz 386 IBM PS/2, started a game... and it was over before I could blink. Whether there was some keys that could slow the game down, I could not find out as there was no time to press anything...
"memories about downloading DOS shareware applications"
Downloading? You bought a disk from a rack at a computer store, drove home, inserted the disk into your floppy drive and ran it. Unless you were one of those early adopters with a modem to access a BBS (bulletin board system - look it up, kids)
"I'd be curious how many Slashdot readers have some fond memories about downloading DOS shareware applications."
Downloading? How about just passing around 5.25" floppies????
but last time I booted it up, it upgraded itself to Windows 10
> DOS was terrible. Single user and no security what-so-ever.
Before DOS, there were multi-user network operating systems. Which ran on $100,000 computers. Getting rid of the multi-user and network (and the therefore the need for security) to make a DISK Operating System rather than a network OS allowed to to run on PERSONAL computers. That was awesome. Then the internet happened.
I still use dos every month to run one set of hybrid scripts in foxpro2.6 for dos.
it loads FAST, doesn't puke, and makes me money
...just for historical reasons.
It is absolutely awesome to have when you simply need to run some old program, which is in my case usually bound to some piece of old, but still useful HW, like chip programmer, some old measurement or CNC equipment etc. Or perhaps for analysis of program behaviour in order to do modern reimplementation. Or to enjoy nostalgia trip with some old DOS game...
WRT to FreeDOs development, I don't think it's needed outside integration into modern OS & HW, like having modern drivers for mouse and optical unit, USB useage for printing, nice, antialiased fonts, good high, EMS etc memory manager etc. I/O virtualisation of some sort would be great, so I can, for example have virtual LPT port that would be seen on desired I/O port address and connected to some real LPT port somewhere entirely else or even to USB driver or some userland program through pipe etc.
I don't think susbtantial, grand scale reworks like 32-bit and 64-bit implementation, multicore and multitasking are neccessary. We have plenty other solutions for that.
but it is quite limited in its capabilities, it would be cool if someone ported some basic linux apps to it like iceWM and some basic browser like dillo and a text editor, maybe something for audio/video and grphics editing like mtpaint or xpaint, make it simple and basic like Windows95 was, not too complicated and just enough to make it usable as a bare bones desktop, if i was forced to use commandline only i would just use Linux without Xorg which is more robust and feature right and even has some ncurses apps that are decent
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I have a ton of memories from my old DOS days. I miss those days probably more than I should.
for some older computer bios updates
I just used FreeDOS to update this old Optiplex a month ago. Much thanks to the developers for keeping a still valuable tool available.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
I'd think the more "DOS-like" way to multitask would be to launch DESQView from FreeDOS and spawn processes from that. While DESQView can be freely downloaded and passed around, I don't believe Symantec has ever released the source to this bit of Quarterdesk flotsam. Bummer.
Why more "DOS-like"? DESQView sucks up 150KB, plus 30KB per task. IIRC, about the minimum Linux memory overhead from among the low footprint Linux distros is about 7MB, although perhaps one can do better with Linux From Scratch. But then who's got less than 7MB nowadays? ;-)
Luke, help me take this mask off
You can manipulate any DOS storage with any Linux or BSD.
DOS and everything Windows/Microsoft can go in the shitter. DOS wasn't spyware, that is it's only plus.
Lord knows no one but me cares, but FreeDOS is not always a good substitute for DOS. I had to work around a BIOS upgrader that insisted on a good battery in a laptop, even when the laptop was plugged in. The workaround involved running the installer from a DOS boot drive, and FreeDOS didn't work. I had to scrape up a Win98/DOS boot drive, but at least I could boot from USB, so I didn't have to go back all the to cave drawings (or floppies).
A few years ago, I had gig that involved helping a company sell approx 600 hundred still-useful PCs. The catch was that they all had to be shown to in good working order to the buyers. Of course the drives were all wiped and licensing issues preventing them using Windows, so the easy solution was to install FreeDOS. Super fast install and they could all be shown to be bootable and in good working condition.