FreeDOS 1.2 Is Finally Released (freedos.org)

Very long-time Slashdot reader Jim Hall -- part of GNOME's board of directors -- has a Christmas gift. Since 1994 he's been overseeing an open source project that maintains a replacement for the MS-DOS operating system, and has just announced the release of the "updated, more modern" FreeDOS 1.2! [Y]ou'll find a few nice surprises. FreeDOS 1.2 now makes it easier to connect to a network. And you can find more tools and games, and a few graphical desktop options including OpenGEM. But the first thing you'll probably notice is the all-new new installer that makes it much easier to install FreeDOS. And after you install FreeDOS, try the FDIMPLES program to install new programs or to remove any you don't want. Official announcement also available at the FreeDOS Project blog.
FreeDOS also lets you play classic DOS games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem, and Jill of the Jungle -- and today marks a very special occasion, since it's been almost five years since the release of FreeDos 1.1. "If you've followed FreeDOS, you know that we don't have a very fast release cycle," Jim writes on his blog. "We just don't need to; DOS isn't exactly a moving target anymore..."

Comments

Question

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Serious question: besides playing DOS games, is FreeDOS used for anything like industrial controls or embedded OS' or other stuff?

Re:Question

[JamesTRexx]

I've used it once to run old accounting software for archival reference purposes at a client. Trying to run it in Windows XP failed.

Luckily other old software at various clients could be run in Dosbox.

Re:Question

[93 Escort Wagon]

I've seen it used as a platform for firmware updates.

Re:Question

[brickhouse98]

Yep- helpful instead of setting up Windows on an old desktop or something.

Re:Question

[0100010001010011]

industrial controls

Yes.

There are still a lot of CNC machines from the 80s out there running every day. I worked at a shop in 2000 that had machines from the 80s. Short of them completely failing I can't see any reason they'd replace them with anything newer.

The XPCs made by Mathworks/SpeedGoat also have a bare bones DOS and a parallel port you can use to bit bang IO before launching the Simulink-RTOS

Re:Question

[iampiti]

Also a question: I guess it's only really necessary if you're going to use it to drive some special hardware or something like that. For everything else I'd think it'd easier to use something like DOSBox

Re:Question

[FrankHaynes]

And ancient Motorola Radio Service Software.

Re: Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Gibson's hard drive maintenance software, SpinRite, boots from FreeDOS.

Re:Question

[_merlin]

Yeah, that's the one thing it's kinda useful for in my world. Often you have a choice of DOS or UEFI environment to install firmware updates on things like expensive NICs and storage controllers. And to be frank, UEFI implementations suck, ranging from incomplete to unusably buggy, so you're often better off just using FreeDOS.

Re: Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, don't be a moron.

Re:Question

[g01d4]

Until a few years ago we used MS DOS 7.1 to host (alas no longer supported) software for pointing and tracking at our observatory. While we migrated to Windows based software, and from stepper to brushless DC servo motors, I've held onto the DOS system to upgrade an even older non-computer controlled telescope mount. The software's actually pretty good for for it does, with a decent UI and nice functionality (e.g. RS232 hooks to outside control, non-sidereal tracking capability). The software relies on an ISA digital I/O board to talk to the stepper motors. While I've not tried FreeDOS it's nice to know there's potentially another option.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I used it also for similar purpose on my Linux-only home theather PC. The Asrock's BIOS update is available only on Windows and DOS. This was my first and last Asrock motherboard. Too much hassle for little savings in motherboard price.

Re: Question

[tigersha]

Until 3 years ago we ran an industrial solar lamp field that had the controller running on DOS.total PITA because the network stack is not very good

Re:Question

[nnull]

Why don't they just upgrade them with Fanuc's CNC upgrade, where you get a nice screen and more precise controls for your old CNC machine? I don't understand why people still keep those old CNC's running DOS around when the upgrades aren't cost prohibitive anymore. More than likely you're going to have to gut and retrofit that CNC machine anyways, why not upgrade it?

Re:Question

[Osgeld]

yes I use it on industrial equipment that still runs in a dos environment, it does take a bit more cpu and ram overhead but there's a lot of nice features packed in it, that you could do with regular dos but you would have to hunt it all down and blah blah blah

its not prefect but it does the job just fine

Re:Question

[Woldscum]

It would cost more than the machine is worth. Then you will have a new control on a worn out 30+ year old CNC machine. What happens is the machine is parted out to keep others working. Or a small shop or big home shop guy will retrofit a basically free worthless old machine with new servos and Mach or LinuxCNC. Where the payback verse investment (Free Labor) would not make business sense in a large production shop. Where time is money.

Re:Question

[0100010001010011]

If this was a CNC machine I bought at auction and tossed in my garage, no problem.

But you don't just wander down to the production line and go "Oh, lets replace this with some upgrade that may or may not work". These machines were bought, paid for and have been working for decades. All of the training material is how to use them. All of the production line workers know how they work and more importantly how to fix them when they're broke. It also goes beyond "CNC" milling machines. We actually ran die stamping machines (that were Computer Numeric Controlled).

Plus, why upgrade? What do these devices that sit off line have to gain from upgrading? There was a comment on the Windows 10 fiasco where one of their production machines was taken off line for a forced upgrade.

More than likely you're going to have to gut and retrofit that CNC machine anyways

They are? Why?

Re:Question

[Nethead]

I'll have to give FreeDOS a try for the network stuff. I've got an old laptop with MSDOS 6.0 on one partition and and old FreeBSD on the other just to archive codeplugs to the fileserver where I then use a VM to run RSS for editing. If I didn't have to reboot each time it sure would be nice.

Re:Question

[Jim Hall]

Serious question: besides playing DOS games, is FreeDOS used for anything like industrial controls or embedded OS' or other stuff?

We ran a survey a few years ago, and most people use FreeDOS for three things:

1. Playing DOS games

2. Running legacy software

3. Developing embedded systems

That survey is about five years old now. These days, I'd guess 90% of people using FreeDOS are using it for playing DOS games. And of course, those of us who just like to tinker on DOS as a hobby.

I guess we could add a fourth one to that list too. As others have said, a lot of people use FreeDOS to install firmware updates on computers. That's a good use for FreeDOS too!

Re:Question

[guruevi]

Still used on brand new computers in fact for eye tracker software, includes a TCP/IP stack for communications with other computers. Also frequently seen in embedded x86-based devices.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as much as when the project was first started ( it saved my ass back in the late 90s ) but im sure some still are out there relying on dos in the plant.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at a place that had CNC machines that were made in the late 80's. Those things are rock solid and can easily last for decades more. They were made to last a long, long time with minimal maintenance.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I use FreeDOS to run old demoscene productions, since many of those use undocumented methods to produce visuals and DOSBox can't handle them very well, if at all.

Re: Question

[mprindle]

I had a legacy program that was DOS only. The only copy of the program the customer had running on the legacy equipment was in that program. I got it running well enough to dump the code to an output text file that I was able to then migrate forward to the modern version.

Re:Question

[nnull]

"They are? Why?"

Drives fail, it happens often in old CNC machines, and a good servo drive is going to cost you a huge chunk of change to replace (Since there is no support for them or warranty anymore). You might get lucky with some old guys that still fix them, but that line is thinning. It's 2017, I don't think you'll get much life out of that CNC machine you bought for 20k unless you retrofit it (You're really just driving until it breaks at this point). I used to play that game and found that it's not worth it, because it's going to break at the worst time possible. Getting parts for these ancient machines ends up being more of a chore and costing you more than a brand new machine or rebuilding it. Break that wonderful CRT touchscreen? There's a company on the east coast still making them for $10k each. Much cheaper to retrofit with new stuff instead.

Then you have permit issues of course, you have the requirement of having the panel listed. Most of these old CNC's are more likely from Japan (Kuraki, MoriSieki, most popular old brands at these auctions), are not listed. And OSHA's requirements (And most likely your insurance company too). Usually these retrofit companies will handle that.

You'd be surprised how much stuff can be gutted with the new controllers. You can take out that ancient computer running DOS that weighs a ton, with those ancient IO's (That nobody even knows what it does anymore) and replace it with something the size of a Raspberry Pi.

"There was a comment on the Windows 10 fiasco where one of their production machines was taken off line for a forced upgrade."

Yes, that happened in front of me at a shop making me parts. That was a brand new Makino.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeDOS, meh. Fritos, hell yeah.

Re:Question

[Trax3001BBS]

Serious question: besides playing DOS games, is FreeDOS used for anything like industrial controls or embedded OS' or other stuff?

I have a tv card installed in my system that the old freedos had drivers for. I'm hoping version 2 has the same drivers.

i've yet to install version 1 - I haven't the time yet to of instalL1, but grabbed 2 just the same

Re: Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a lot of small to medium sized shops that either specialize in some niche or are part of some small company or department. Big or complicated jobs get sent out or to a larger central shop. These shops are there for quick and dirty work with a lot of one offs, and wouldn't make much money back from a new machine with improved productivity. The majority of their work is still on the manual machine, and there is an ancient CNC in the corner that gets occasional use. They will use it until it breaks, which judging by the large numbers I see around, can easily be a decade or two more. And when it does break, the job just gets bounced to the usual larger shop that handles harder jobs, and nothing happens that would have justified refitting or replacing the machine sooner.

Re:Question

[orient]

Since the local law does not allow the sale of a computer without an OS, in Eastern Europe many stores sell laptops with FreeDOS pre-installed.

Re:Question

[thegarbz]

For controls DOS is normally limited to embedded applications in single pieces of industrial controls. Think CNC machines other embedded equipment.

In terms of more general control pretty much every major vendor that has to present an interface to the user has moved to some Windows based HMI in PLCs. Not sure what PLCs run internally anymore but it wouldn't surprise me if it was either DOS or direct embedded code with no OS to speak of.

Re: Question

[Anonymous Coward]

And what law is it? Link please.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2008 I built an embedded piece of MFG equipment (chip/firmware programmer), and it is still running to this day.

Re:Question

[Tough Love]

It would cost more than the machine is worth. Then you will have a new control on a worn out 30+ year old CNC machine.

It depends how much your CNC machine weighs. These things are basically sold by the pound. The structural requirements of the basic metal hasn't changed a lot over the years, and the cost of making it hasn't come down. So it may well be worth investing in some modern controls and/or motors for your 50 year old 20 ton machine. The cost of everything except the big iron has come way down.

Re:Question

[Jim Hall]

I've used it once to run old accounting software for archival reference purposes at a client. Trying to run it in Windows XP failed. Luckily other old software at various clients could be run in Dosbox.

People sometimes forget about legacy software, but this pops up in unexpected places. I used to be campus CIO of a small university, and we once had a faculty member bring in some floppy disks with old research data on them. The data wasn't stored in plain text files, but as DOS application data. None of our modern systems would read the old data files, so we booted a spare PC with FreeDOS, downloaded a shareware DOS program that could read the application data, and exported the data to plain text.

Re: Question

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't owe you anything, assbag.

DOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary should explain what this means..?

Re:DOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Denial of Service.

Re:DOS?

[93 Escort Wagon]

The summary should explain what this means..?

DOS was the base operating system for the computers your dad used before he met your mom.

Re:DOS?

[fisted]

Yep. The primary modus operandi of *DOS was in fact denial of service.

Re:DOS?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

DOS was the base operating system for the computers your dad used before he met your mom.

The computer my dad used before he met my mom was called a slide rule.

The operating system was himself.

Re:DOS?

[Billly Gates]

Where IE 6 was what your Mom used when she met your dad

Re:DOS?

[Jim Hall]

For those who don't know, DOS stands for Disk Operating System. DOS was the first PC operating system that really became popular. (CP/M didn't really take off.) Microsoft's MS-DOS was the popular operating system in the 1980s and the early 1990s, until Windows95 in 1995.

I used DOS all the time when I was growing up, and into my college years. In 1994, Microsoft talked about how they were working on the next version of Windows, and that version of Windows would do away with MS-DOS. But if you remember Windows 3.11, Windows wasn't great. So I decided that if Microsoft was going to "kill" DOS, we should create our own to replace it. So we created FreeDOS.

You can read more about it on our website, or on Wikipedia.

Re:DOS?

[fisted]

if you remember Windows 3.11, Windows wasn't great

Sure wasn't, but compared to what came after...?

Re: DOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Disk Ooerating System

Re:DOS?

[arth1]

The computer my dad used before he met my mom was called a slide rule.

My dad had a real computer. She shared a room with the secretary.

Re: DOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, and (Quick and) Dirty Operating System

Re:DOS?

[TheRaven64]

DOS was the first PC operating system that really became popular. (CP/M didn't really take off.)

That depends on what you mean by PC. If you mean x86, IBM PC compatible, then you're correct. If you mean personal computer: one of the big selling points for DOS early on was that it was easy to port CP/M software and a lot of companies had legacy CP/M programs that they needed.

Re:DOS?

[Opportunist]

Please drop your geek membership card into the shredder provided on your way out. Thank you.

Re: DOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your dad was a she?

Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

To Christians, merry Christmas!!
To Jews, happy belated Hanukkah!!
To Muslims, have a nice day!!
To atheist know-nothing idiots, fuck you eat shit!!

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[ZorinLynx]

What about us educated atheists? I'll just assume you were going to say "Happy Holidays.". You're awesome man! :)

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's religion for you. Nice job nutjob.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And a happy Festivus for the rest of us.

Gotta love how religion brings out the hate and violence in stupid people.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

But, but what about Christians who don't celebrate Christmas until later like the Orthodox? Never mind, I'll take my satanic goatee, go licking some lovely posteriors and gently integrate my gentleman appendix to them, if they are willing.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Educated atheists? Wow, now there is a contradictory pair of words.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And a Happy Festivus for the rest of us.

I would decry unprovoked and pointless insult, but passing judgment and not loving thy neighbor would be far too non-atheistic of me. Besides, it's Christmas and I am not an asshole...

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad that you had nothing better to do that type that stupid trolling comment.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's hard to understand the truth of your stupid religion when you're on your knees in pig shit all the time.

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year you filthy animal.

Re: Merry Christmas!!

[jgfenix]

Happy Newton datos?

Re: Merry Christmas!!

[jgfenix]

Happy Newton day. Stupid Android keyboard ...

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy 4chan AC Die From Skull Sodomy Day

Re: Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What do sand nlggers and goat fuckers have to do with this?

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost all anger is mis-directed anger. See, you're mad at something/someone in your life, and for whatever reason cannot express it in an adult manner, so you lash out angrily. Google "Why am I so angry" and read up on the subject for a half hour or so. It might help you understand yourself better. Have a nice day.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know right, they are too stupid to know the point of religion is to enforce moral complacency among the stupid fucks of the world, and somehow they cant even get THAT part right

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Truly. I simply can't take anyone seriously unless they believe in a magical man who lives in the sky who created everything with the snap of his fingers. Science and reason is for morons.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.

Re: Merry Christmas!!

[ReedlyDeedly]

Happy Newton datos?

Sounds like some weird offshoot of date flavored Newtons.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[ConceptJunkie]

Gotta love how religion brings out the hate and violence in stupid people.

So does atheism. I think the real problem is stupid people.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Opportunist]

Ah yes, Christmas. The holiday where people from all creeds and religions come together to worship the birth of Jesus Christ.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Nunya666]

Educated atheists? Wow, now there is a contradictory pair of words.

Quite the opposite, actually. Educated people have the intelligence to think for themselves, and to realize that religion is made-up bullshit.

Educated people also have the intelligence to recognize that religion is popular because much of humanity needs it, not because there is any truth to religion itself.

Here are some reasons why people believe in, or need, religion:

* To please their parents.
* Because society has taught them that it is "the right thing to do."
* Because it answers the question "where did I come from?"
* Because it answers the question "where did the world come from?"
* Because it answers the question "where did the universe come from?"
* Because it answers the question "what happens to me after I die?"
* Because it answers the question "why is life unfair?"
* Because it gives them a sense of purpose.
* Because it gives them a sense of belonging.
* Because it satisfies an emotional need.
* Centuries ago, when science was in its infancy, religion could answer every "why" question that science could not answer.

Jodie Foster's character in the movie Contact is a good example of how science (education) and religion do not mix. Religious characters tried to explain the unknown with their "faith", while Jodie's character tried to explain it with science.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

New Year's Day. The holiday where people from all creeds and religions come together to celebrate the circumcision of Jesus.

Re:Merry Christmas!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also the sense of community
The mandatory time away from work and family commitments to just exist, often chanting and listening instead of thinking and worrying.
The moral code that seems to control even psychopaths up to the point they find a way to use it to justify their behavior or find some legalistic loophole that lets them be a dick and go to heaven

I know there's plenty to hate about religion but it's important to not alienate reasonable religious people or else only the nutballs will have the gall to speak their version of the "truth"

Lol if you want to see religion in action in it's purest form, go anywhere online where muslims congregate and share advice. It gets quite funny as every problem is discussed rationally and then some dipshit ultimately ends discussion with "look in the koran... it has all answers, it is the truth, it will never do you wrong". Of course deep down inside they're all just virtue signaling to each other and showboating for allah.

I think it's funny that they think god is such a chump that he's going to populate heaven because you shower him with shallow-praise every opportunity you get.

Oh, sweet!

[__aaclcg7560]

The last I booted up FreeDOS, I ran Quake on an Radeon 3870 video card and got 500FPS. I wonder what the Nvidia 740 would get in FPS.

Re:Oh, sweet!

[TheRealMindChild]

DOS version of Quake didn't use OpenGL, so it wasn't accelerated. A different GPU will hardly matter. It is using the CPU to do all of the work

Re:Oh, sweet!

[__aaclcg7560]

DOS version of Quake didn't use OpenGL, so it wasn't accelerated.

That's where MiniGL came into play back in the day. When I got a 3Dfx Voodoo Rush video card and played Quake in OpenGL, my roommates ran out and got 3DFX Voodoo 2 video cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniGL

My best setup back then was an AMD K3-400 processor, a Nvidia TNT 2 video card (desktop/OpenGL) and a pair of Voodoo 2 boards in SLI mode (OpenGL).

Re: Oh, sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Quake lacks special effects, flashing annoying visuals, and nlggers to be qualified as a game.

Re:Oh, sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad DOS doesn't support or have drivers for PCIe cards like the Radeon 3870 so it would have been impossible to have hardware 3D acceleration.

Re:Oh, sweet!

[TheRealMindChild]

MiniGL was only for WinQuake... which was a Windows executable

Re:Oh, sweet!

[__aaclcg7560]

which was a Windows executable

Windows was a DOS executable back then.

Re:Oh, sweet!

[Blaskowicz]

3D accelerated games existed under DOS. No drivers : they programmed the graphics card's registers directly.
So, for instance there were a couple demos, Descent 2 and Terminal Velocity, shipped on a CD-ROM with a particular S3 Virge. These were the only games to look good and run well on that S3 Virge, but too short as they were demos. They didn't run on S3 Virge DX, a minor update of the same chip. Oops!

Although, Glide under DOS is a thing, for a short list of games that run on Voodoo1, Voodoo Rush, Voodoo2.
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopi...

Re:Oh, sweet!

[TheRaven64]

Not really. WinQuake and GLQuake were win32 executables, and only worked on Windows NT and Windows 9x. I ran both on Windows NT 4, which wasn't in any sense a DOS program. Windows 95 used DOS as a bootloader, but then ran its own drivers, scheduler, and memory manager (DOS didn't support protected mode directly). It did thunk to DOS for a few things, but it's not really accurate to call it a DOS program.

Re:Oh, sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn to read. Nothing you said was under dispute. The statement was that *PCIe* cards like the *Radeon 3870* would not provide hardware acceleration under DOS.

It is usable for anything except running Win9x.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much every other DOS era operation you could want (including I believe running 8.3 filenames.

I personally have run it within the last year to have tcp/ip networking on an old Pentium system that I needed to transfer files to without the benefit of usb media (it had an optical drive and a hard disk drive but its floppy drive obviously aren't feasible for transfers anymore.)

Additionally I have use it to run an actual serial line hardmodem and bulletin board software, from the heydays of dialup computing. It handled everything I threw at it without serious complaint (You MAY find interactions between TSR drivers you load, but no more issues than came up on a REAL MS-DOS system back in the olden days. And certainly a lot more reliable DOS implementation without issues getting as much conventional memory as possible free, unlike that other DOS :)

To Jim Hall, congrats, Merry Christmas, and if you're reading this, send my thanks to all the other developers on the mailing list :)

Re:It is usable for anything except running Win9x.

[guruevi]

You should be able to get Windows 95/98/ME running on it. You may have to substitute some of the MS-DOS stacks for 98 and beyond, Microsoft started blocking other DOS systems on Win98+, I guess because they were too memory efficient.

Re:It is usable for anything except running Win9x.

[demonlapin]

Any reason you didn't just use NCSA Telnet?

Compatibility

[blogagog]

Does it work with older machines? I'm not yet ready to update my 286. Maybe next year.

Re:Compatibility

[Jim Hall]

Does it work with older machines? I'm not yet ready to update my 286. Maybe next year.

I know you're joking here, but yes you can run FreeDOS on an older PC. FreeDOS should run on an 8088, but I don't know anyone who actually has a working one these days. A few folks have emailed me as recently as this year to say that they run FreeDOS on a '286. So in fact, the '286 example you gave is possible!

But how you'd install FreeDOS 1.2 on an old computer like this will be interesting. The FreeDOS 1.2 release has a CDROM installer, or a boot floppy + CDROM installer, or a USB fob drive installer. You can't use any of those on a '286 computer. So the three people who have a '286 will probably transfer FreeDOS 1.2 packages to the '286 by copying them to a floppy and unzipping them.

In 2016, we know that most people use FreeDOS in a PC emulator like VMWare or VirtualPC or QEMU. I use it in QEMU. We recommend the CDROM installer for emulators.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an original IBM PC and AT. I've not tried FreeDOS on them. Loading would indeed be an issue.

Re:Compatibility

[Bearhouse]

Awesome job; I'll have to dig out my IBM PC-XT (still works perfectly) and see if it'll work on 8088

Re:Compatibility

[packrat0x]

No....
You temporarily install the HDD on a new(er) computer, install FreeDOS on that drive, then replace that drive back into the 286. It's a variation of "sneakernet".

Re:Compatibility

[RLiegh]

and also pcemu

Thanks for hanging in there so long!

Re:Compatibility

[demonlapin]

If you have a terminal program on one of them, it should be easy. Use Zmodem for correction of any line noise and do a simple null modem. Heck, if you have a null modem cable, you could probably use COPY /B COM1: TERMINAL.COM with conservative settings to get your initial terminal program on there.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

_If_ the newer computer is compatible with the old drive, which it likely isn't.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I still see some USB floppy drives at a local computer store. The problem now is trying to find an actual floppy disk.

Damn, I wish I saved those AOL disks from way back when...

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

My first computer came was an 8088-1 (10 MHz or 4.77 MHz) with a 20 MB Micropolis MFM HDD with a rotary voice coil on the front of it. 3.5" HH with 5.25" HH rails and faceplate. There was a data cable and a controller cable. IIRC, it had a 200 ms random access time, which was about 4x to 10x faster than floppy drives. I tried to transfer data off of it to one of those fancy new 486DX/4 (120 MHz) boards - the ones with the integrated IDE controller. 486 wouldn't boot with the card installed. I guess they were fighting for IRQ 2 or 15 or something, and not playing nicely about it. Even a 486 DX/2 (50 MHz) didn't like it. It was only when I tried it on a 386SX (16 MHz) - with no integrated IDE controller - that I could get it to work. Oh, I also had an ST-251 drive. That thing was blazing fast. 40 MB. Had to get newer than DOS 3.3 to see all 40 MB of the thing. I remember that one because it was one of the numbered HD entries, like 40 or 41 in most BIOS.

TL;DR
Good luck getting an MFM or RLL drive and controller to work with a modern computer. Or even an ATA-2 drive to work with a UDMA/66 or UDMA/100 HD controller.

Re:Compatibility

[Daniel Klugh]

You just download the CD image and mount that and install from that. There's even a special boot floppy disk image that will do it for you. At least that's how it was when I downloaded FreeDOS years ago.

Re:Compatibility

[Daniel Klugh]

Won't work; you'll just get a "Cannot do binary reads from a device" error. After all, if ^Z (the EOF character in CP/M) is disabled, how will it know when it reaches EOF?
You'll have to convert it to HEX format and transfer it that way and then use DEBUG to convert it back. How you actually create a HEX file is beyond me, though.

Or just install from a CD image.

LHX Attack Chopper...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have the version included on the Big Blue disk, and the hack to get the full version working.

Very disappointed

[Billly Gates]

I disagree it needs a lot of work and was outdated the last time I tried it in a VM last year. DosBox keeps moving ahead. What it needs are:
- modern drivers
- modern VM support and drivers for things like Hyper-v/KMS, VMware, and Bhyve as most of us would run it in a VM in 2016
- A better more modern file manager/shell
- Multimedia support or at least pseudo drivers for those who like to run it in a VM

I will download a copy this weekend to take a look to see if anything got better. So far it is DosBox

Re:Very disappointed

[im_thatoneguy]

Pretty sure they had an interview recently where the developer said he was tempted to do that sort of thing but concluded that it wasn't the right direction. He wanted to focus on being the best legacy os possible for maximum compatibility, not to be a dos box competitor with new features.

Re:Very disappointed

[Billly Gates]

Pretty sure they had an interview recently where the developer said he was tempted to do that sort of thing but concluded that it wasn't the right direction. He wanted to focus on being the best legacy os possible for maximum compatibility, not to be a dos box competitor with new features.

Alright I won't bother using it then. Some may have an old IBM 286 AT lying around like my Dad, but for the rest of us on modern hardware we want a VM so our host can run a more modern OS. A shame ..

And the point...

[tigersha]

...is what, exactly?

Re:And the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to ask the question then you are clearly not the target audience. Move along while those to whom the announcement does apply enjoy the good news.

Re:And the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had bothered to follow the link, you would find that they answer the question. It's so people can play classic games (Commander Keen rules!), so companies can make pinball machines, so McLaren can continue to maintain their cars and so George R.R. Martin can continue writing books.

Thunking

[justthinkit]

Can this be run from 64-bit Windows to provide 16-bit program support?

Re:Thunking

[Anonymous Coward]

It is tricky, but you can run FreeDOS in a VM to run such programs. But in many cases, it is easier to run DOSBox instead if all you are looking for is running particular 16-bit DOS programs on 64-bit Windows.

Re:Thunking

[justthinkit]

Two things I'm looking for:

(1) able to run a DOS program full screen. If DOSBox can do it, I don't know how...

(2) able to run some old 16-bit Windows programs on 64-bit Windows. Can DOSBox do this? (I just never thought to try it).

These two things are holding up my move to 64-bit...

Re:Thunking

[Opyros]

Alt+Enter switches DOSBox into full-screen mode.

Re:Thunking

[justthinkit]

I'm an idiot...can't believe I never tried that during testing.

Thanks.

Re:Thunking

[Blaskowicz]

I believe Wine on 64bit linux is able to run 16bit Windows apps, including those for Windows 1.0 and 2.0. I don't know how.

Re:Thunking

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an idiot

At least you're honest.

Re:Thunking

[Anonymous Coward]

For (2) you'll need to keep an XP VM around, DosBox can't run windows programs...

You might want to look at D-Fend Reloaded, it's a nice frontend for dosbox

Why?

[DaMattster]

The effort is laudable and it is even cool from an ultra-nerd standpoint but UNIX is/was always cooler. I still do most of my best work from a UNIX shell prompt. I don't see why it is even practical to keep DOS alive, other than purely for historical purposes and interest.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you are a self-important cunt, who can't understand that a thing might have uses and value to others even when it might not/does not to you.

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that you are a liberal.

 

Re:Why?

[demonlapin]

Historical purposes pretty much covers it. An OS that can run a lot of old software is great.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ancient games, historical software teaching, and recovery or review of ancient data from expensive, difficult to hardware components. I helped recover Pluto occultation years back from the last working 800 dpi tape drive that anyone could find at MIT or Harvard, because the data hadn't been brought to newer media. The same happens with obsolete software to read obsolete media all the time.

Re:Why?

[rubycodez]

one way I've used it: some thin clients will only boot an MS-DOS partition. So, to get OpenBSD or FreeBSD or Linux to run on one of those, you put grub files in C:\boot\grub in the FreeDOS partition along with installing the grub bootloader and then chain load the BSD or Linux.

64-bit

[unixisc]

Serious question: besides playing DOS games, is FreeDOS used for anything like industrial controls or embedded OS' or other stuff?

Aside from that, I have another question. Given that DOS was a 16 bit OS and that today's CPUs are mainly 64-bit and 32-bit as well, can FreeDOS be rigged to be a 64-bit OS? And while we're at it, can PowerShell capabilities be added to it?

Another question - can FreeDOS be ported to other CPUs, or is it still a pure x86 OS? I mean - things like R-Pi, Arduino, Beaglebones, et al could definitely use something like FreeDOS

Re: 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Abort, Retry, Fail.

Re:64-bit

[Blaskowicz]

Nope, it's not only x86 but requires an IBM PC/XT/AT compatible BIOS, so I don't think it could even run on non-PC compatible x86 systems such as the original Xbox or the current one.
You can likely make a 64bit DOS, or a flat-memory 32bit native one - at least one such one exists, it's just that no existing software will run.
On random ARM and non ARM systems? I believe you're going to recreate a "DOS" and applications from scratch every time, for every different combination of hardware i.e. for every single different SoC. It would be worse than with CP/M? where you had to port for every machine, but at least you targeted a single CPU, Intel 8080 (or Zilog Z80).

Powershell? That's a tall order. You have to port or recreate a goddamn .NET runtime. It might be impossible or by that point you're creating a whole OS on top of your DOS, like Windows 3.1 and 9x. Meanwhile, you can run Powershell on linux so the boring anwser to that is to use the smallest linux distro or build with enough components to run .NET and Powershell.

The closest thing to a universal DOS might be running code in a UEFI environment, which none of what you quoted supports but it does exist in ARM land, perhaps only on servers.
The best bet to run FreeDOS on a tiny system is to shop for a 486-compatible SoC, where you will get GPIO, PWM and some other features. If it's compatible with DOS but does not have video output you may be able to use a serial console in place of keyboard/monitor (which will likely work fine with the command prompt and e.g. text adventure games, but text mode stuff assuming you have CGA/VGA might fail. Although a TSR might be able to emulate text mode on vid cards?)

Re:64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from that, I have another question. Given that DOS was a 16 bit OS ...

Wait, what?

Re:64-bit

[unixisc]

It was an OS originally built on the 80286 CPU, which was 16-bit

Re:64-bit

[Jim Hall]

Nope, it's not only x86 but requires an IBM PC/XT/AT compatible BIOS, so I don't think it could even run on non-PC compatible x86 systems such as the original Xbox or the current one.

Interesting trivia: the FreeDOS Kernel used to run on m68k machines. Pat Villani wrote a DOS-like kernel for m68k that simplified his embedded development at the time. Later, the kernel became Intel-only.

These days, the FreeDOS Kernel can only run on an Intel PC with BIOS.

You can likely make a 64bit DOS, or a flat-memory 32bit native one - at least one such one exists, it's just that no existing software will run.

We had this same discussion in the FreeDOS mailing lists as we decided what the next version after "1.1" should be. Some wanted the new FreeDOS to be 32-bit. I didn't go that far, but for a while I thought we should imagine what "DOS" would look like today if Microsoft hadn't killed MS-DOS when they moved to Windows. And it's an interesting thought experiment.

A modern DOS would have to update its memory model. DOS uses a segmented memory model, which made sense when the PC was a simple computing device. With the Intel 80386 processor, you could have multitasking. That's why Linux was originally written for the '386. So a modern DOS would also support multitasking. At some point, though, this modern DOS will break backwards compatibility with legacy DOS applications. To preserve some method of compatibility, we reasoned, a modern DOS would likely include a sandbox (like DOSEmu) to run these legacy applications.

But when you look at it, we already have that modern DOS. That's Linux. Because Linux supports multitasking, it has a flat memory model, it does all these other things. And if you want to run legacy DOS applications, you boot FreeDOS in a PC emulator like DOSEmu. That's not DOS. FreeDOS is still DOS, and needs to remain DOS. So we agreed the next version after FreeDOS 1.1 would be an update to FreeDOS. That's why this version is FreeDOS 1.2.

Re: 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, son.
I ran DOS on a 8088.

Re:64-bit

[unixisc]

Shouldn't the 'modern DOS' have the same sort of commands as DOS, as opposed to Linux, which is an (uncertified) unix and uses various unix shells? That's why I asked the question about whether DOS could be enhanced w/ PowerShell

Re: 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

And I on an 8086. GP is probably a little kid.

Modern tinkerable PC

[iamacat]

What was great about DOS is simplicity of taking over every part of OS functionality and customizing it to your liking. Keyboard and timer interrupts can be intercepted with a half of page of assembly and made to do cool things. Writing a character on screen is as simple as writing one byte for character code and one byte for color at a known memory address. Floppy drive controller can be trivially reprogrammed to write 1.36MB to a 720K floppy.

I think a true successor of DOS would enable similar extent of tinkering in today's world. Raspberry Pi is cool for playing with GPIO pins. But writing a kernel module is a major undertaking and the next kernel upgrade will more likely than not break the interface that you are relying on. And, in user space, systemd is the step in the wrong direction from ease of tinkering with shell scripts.

Not a fan myself, but a lot of people seem to like Python. Imagine a linux distro where every userspace command is a well commented python script that you can start editing and debugging to learn and change how everything works, with some kind of snapspotting mechanism to recover from a bad edit. Then have a generic kernel interface that can delegate device control to userspace processes. A lot more people will then start contributing to technology rather than just being frustrated by it.

Re: Modern tinkerable PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Idea of being able to customize as needed without depending on original author is why all my projects are in Linux and designed to be modular

Not in board with python , though, language needs to be good not just temporarily popular. fortran was once popular too. Python is also ugly compared to other modern languages

I can finally build that Beowulf Cluster

[jfdavis668]

I can finally build that Beowulf Cluster I always wanted.

Now all we need...

[Opyros]

Now all we need is for someone to port Ruby 2.4.0 to FreeDOS 1.2!

So this means.....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Very long-time Slashdot reader Jim Hall -- part of GNOME's board of directors -- has a Christmas gift. Since 1994 he's been overseeing an open source project that maintains a replacement for the MS-DOS operating system, and has just announced the release of the "updated, more modern" FreeDOS 1.2!

so in plain English, it's ridiculously bloated, unstable, and cannot interpoerate with any other software, not even its own compoents?

I've been watching Gnome and its "feature driven" progress, and can no longer allow it on any system I want to stay running more than a day without having to forcefully kill the X session from a text window. It's gotten overwhelmingly bad.

I do!

[Anonymous Coward]

I do! At least, it used to work when I last turned it on the better part of 20 years ago. Even has the math co-processor, CGA monitor, etc.

But yeah, I'm afraid to turn it on at this point....

Firmware booter

[DrYak]

Virtually anything that isn't a .EFI executable that can be executed from UEFI's shell, comes as a bootable floppy disk powered by FreeDOS.
(and some company provide both : a UEFI-style floppy with a .EFI executable, and a Legacy BIOS-style floppy with a FreeDOS booter).

Some of us keep a small bootable FreeDOS partition around, just to have a handy environment to run firmware updates.

(Though this usage pattern is slowly getting replaced by UEFI Shell and the GPT EFI System Partition)

Firmware update

[DrYak]

These days, I'd guess 90% of people using FreeDOS are using it for playing DOS games

Do not underestimate all the various boot disks to upgrade firmware (BIOS, disk/network controller firmware, etc.)

Lots of them use FreeDOS to boot a floppy in Legacy-BIOS mode.

(Although this niche is progressively getting replaced/supplemented by flash tools running as .EFI executable within UEFI Shell).

Yeah... I can now run..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 3.1! and if Santa is good to me, I'll be able to upgrade to Windows 98Me.

Glide on DOS

[DrYak]

Although, Glide under DOS is a thing, for a short list of games that run on Voodoo1, Voodoo Rush, Voodoo2.
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopi...

The funniest part is that under Linux, the opensource Mesa3D driver used Glide as a back-end to accelerate OpenGL.
(this was ported to windows once 3DFx went belly up, in order to have an up-to-date OpenGL support with the latest features - you could get an (ugly) Doom 3 running on Voodoo5).

And so some people decided to port Mesa3D together with its Glide back-end to DOS (using CWSDPMI dos extended and DJGPP compiler suite)
So you can get OpenGL in MS-DOS (well, as long as you can get the sources and recompile them in DJGPP)

And of course somebody did port Quake 2 with 3Dfx acceleration on DOS.

flashing any firmware inside that UNIX machine

[DrYak]

The effort is laudable and it is even cool from an ultra-nerd standpoint but UNIX is/was always cooler. I still do most of my best work from a UNIX shell prompt. I don't see why it is even practical to keep DOS alive

It's all nice until the day you need to upgrade one of the firmware of your linux box.
And then realise that the manufacturer of your motherboard, disk/network controller, etc. only provides flash software that runs under windows.
(an there's no linux flash software compatible with the hardware you want to upgrade).

So you'll have to download a bootdisk to do the flash.
And gues what most of the manufacturer use to make their flash boot disk ?
Yup, it's FreeDOS.

(NOTE: recently some manufacturer, in addition of the boot disk for Legacy-BIOS mode, started to provide flash software that runs as an .EFI executable under the UEFI Shell.
But as long as Legacy-BIOS bootdisk are provided, you can bet most of them will be powered by FreeDOS)

Arduino are thinkerable

[DrYak]

I think a true successor of DOS would enable similar extent of tinkering in today's world. Raspberry Pi is cool for playing with GPIO pins. But writing a kernel module is a major undertaking

As you said, Raspberry PI are still full blown UNIX computer that also have GPIO pins. Meaning that you have to write complex drivers to get serious things done.
Arduino is the kind of things you're look for. No kernel. Just simple code running on a micro-controller and playing with digital/analog IO.

There it's the opposite, it's when you want complex tasks that are normally cared by a kernel (networking, filesystems) that you need extra code (or use available libraries).

Re:Arduino are thinkerable

[iamacat]

I guess the magic of DOS was that you had a computer that you used for study work and gaming AND you could customize it to, say, create keyboard macros in your spreadsheet or slow down a game by 50% with just a page or two of code. Even non-technical users could create more customization with batch files than what they are realistically able to do with today's mobile phone.

I guess with Internet of things and some high level IDE, people can potentially start doing similar things with their smart home. It would be nice if winning technology turned out to be equally customizable and more open/approachable options became available for traditional computing devices as well. Sadly laptops/phones/game consoles are going in the opposite direction.

Re:Arduino are thinkerable

[Anonymous Coward]

create keyboard macros in your spreadsheet

Believe it or not this capability is ACTUALLY STILL AVAILABLE on modern computers!

It would be nice if winning technology turned out to be equally customizable

Get your Fucking Head out of the sand and PAY ATTENTION, modern small devices are ALREADY THERE.

cd-rom and flash on old pc hardware

[DrYak]

possible way would be :
- use a legacy proprietary cd-rom controller (some extra function in 8bits/16bits audio cards, mostly SB clones) and hookup a proprietary cd-rom.
- use some isa/ata bus interface card (mostly 16bits cards, there are some 8bits cards) and hookup a standard pata optical drive

- on the legacy machine, use some isa/ata bus interface card with a boot rom (enhanced bios) and hookup a compact flash card - it will show up as a diskdrive.
on the internet connected machine simply use a usb adapter and the card will show up as a usb fob.

- use some isa network card, and directly copy without needing to play with floppies (or directly downlaod it using some dos browser like arachne).

(and of course there are things like usb isa cards, and flash-to-floppy weird readers, but i never tested those)

Remember FreeDows

[Captain Ramage]

Remember FreeDows? From the over-promising, overbearing, over-confident Reese Sellin? The one that caused so much tension within is group of FREE developers that they all quit? The one who used to respond to true and due criticism with, "Have you ever designed your own micro-kernal?" Designed a barely W3.1 clone in a WXP world.

more slashdot idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Meaning that you have to write complex drivers to get serious things done.

What total bullshit, there is a library called pigpio that provides GPIO access on raspberry pi.

But

[thisisauniqueid]

Does it run on GNU Hurd?

CP/M didn't really take off...

[laing]

CP/M was wildly popular. Take a look at the DOS Technical Reference Manual and you will see that the DOS system calls are basically identical to the CP/M ones. The only real difference is that DOS uses INT 5 instead of CP/M's CALL 5 to invoke system services. This article describes the striking similarities and why they might exist.

Bit banging is hard

[DrYak]

Library works okay for standard protocols that are supported by the hardware (say SPI).
Library works okay also for simply tuning on or of the pins to control relays.

Problem starts when you have a complex high speed digital protocol.
(bit banging).

That's a bit complex to get right on a RPi. 3 wire progammable/adressable LEDs stripes are a notorious example of something that can be messy and where signal might get droped. 4-wire work perfectly well (the 2 extra wires speak SPI, RPi supports it at the hardware level).
3-wrires have their own specific protole. This would require precise control of the timing on the flipping of the GPIO pins.
Which is a bit complex to achieve in a multi-tasking non hard RT environment like linux. (It's not impossible, but writing drivers that remains stable for a long time require a bit of skills. The same kind of skill as bit banging through the parallel port did require on PC hardware).

Meanwhile, "precisely controlling the timing of the flipping of the GPIO pins" is the raison-d'être of Arduino.
You're as close to the metal asyou can get. There's no "background task" that risks stealing cycle and messing timings.
You (or more likely, your compiler) controls everything that happens at the cycle level.
That's why interfacing weird unusual digital protocols with an Arduino is much simpler.