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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..."
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..."
Serious question: besides playing DOS games, is FreeDOS used for anything like industrial controls or embedded OS' or other stuff?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
What about us educated atheists? I'll just assume you were going to say "Happy Holidays.". You're awesome man! :)
The summary should explain what this means..?
DOS was the base operating system for the computers your dad used before he met your mom.
#DeleteChrome
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.
Yep. The primary modus operandi of *DOS was in fact denial of service.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Does it work with older machines? I'm not yet ready to update my 286. Maybe next year.
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.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Happy Newton datos?
Happy Newton day. Stupid Android keyboard ...
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
http://saveie6.com/
Where IE 6 was what your Mom used when she met your dad
http://saveie6.com/
Can this be run from 64-bit Windows to provide 16-bit program support?
I come here for the love
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.
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
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.
if you remember Windows 3.11, Windows wasn't great
Sure wasn't, but compared to what came after...?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
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.
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.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Any reason you didn't just use NCSA Telnet?
Now all we need is for someone to port Ruby 2.4.0 to FreeDOS 1.2!
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.
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.
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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. .EFI executable, and a Legacy BIOS-style floppy with a FreeDOS booter).
(and some company provide both : a UEFI-style floppy with a
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)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Gotta love how religion brings out the hate and violence in stupid people.
So does atheism. I think the real problem is stupid people.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Please drop your geek membership card into the shredder provided on your way out. Thank you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ah yes, Christmas. The holiday where people from all creeds and religions come together to worship the birth of Jesus Christ.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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.
Does it run on GNU Hurd?
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.
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]