|
|
|
|
| Welcome, Guest | Home | Search | Login | Register | |
| Author | FreeDOS - anybody? (Read 34971 times) | ||||||||||||||||||
|
Bolkonskij
Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023 
|
on: April 05, 2025, 16:47
I know, I know ... thin ice ... But seriously guys, I ran into the FreeDOS project. Started by Jim Hall in 1994, it has since added some neat features to DOS - like the ability to handle long filenames, FAT32 support, raising the memory ceiling to 4 GB and has network & USB support. I respect the guys & gals behind them for achieving so much, even though DOS always felt like CP/M with a Marketing Bachelor. So 1970's in style ... What makes it interesting though is the ability to run the myriads of software available. And thanks to Virtual PC I began to wonder if anybody had done the unthinkable ;-) and emulated FreeDOS on his Mac? |
||||||||||||||||||
Last Edit: April 06, 2025, 10:48 by Bolkonskij
|
Jatoba
|
256 MB  Posts: 270 System 9 Newcomer!
Reply #1 on: April 05, 2025, 18:53
|
Yeah, had FreeDOS in my mind for Virtual PC for years now, but never found much reason to actually do anything from it. However, I have used FreeDOS a lot with extremely cheap, near-free PC hardware, booting it via USB, to flash GPUs for use on PowerPC Macs. I have a HUGE list of flashing tools (all I could find, all versions, in fact, which REALLY helped), and flashed G5 cards plenty of times. Was also gonna flash THE DVI Voodoo card made for Macs that the previous owner stupidly flashed for PC, although I never got around to doing that (and now I wonder if my card is among my goods that got stolen from my basement in Germany...) FreeDOS made flashing GPUs for making them Mac-compatible as viable an activity as possible. I would use Rufus versions for older Windows to very easily prepare a USB thumb drive to format them with FreeDOS. Worth checking out if anyone here plans to use FreeDOS on USB (it loads and performs very quickly). Maybe Fusion on modern PCs with FreeDOS could make it sort of cool, too, but... The real deal is just much better.
Last Edit: April 05, 2025, 18:56 by Jatoba
|
68040
|
512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #2 on: April 05, 2025, 19:26
|
I found that current FreeDOS releases don't boot well under SoftPC/MacPC. I think they gave up on 80286 compatibility some time ago. So I'm using 4DOS extensively instead (in a sort of *nixfied mode), with some FreeDOS parts "patched" onto it, if and when they run well in AT mode.
|
wove
|
1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #3 on: April 06, 2025, 00:43
|
FreeDOS is used fairly extensively. A hardware store in town runs an accounting package specific to hardware stores. It began in later part of the 1980s, built on DOS. It is still maintained, still sells turn-key packages for hardware stores. It has moved from MS DOS over to FreeDOS and is still maintained and updated. Sherwin-Williams the paint company still supplies a paint matching machine (as of 2010 anyway) that runs on hardware that uses FreeDOS as the underlying OS. The Sherwin-William's machine uses a black and white sensor. Three passes are made using red, green and blue light to create an RGB profile, which is then compared to the RGB profiles in their paint database, picking out their closest color and printing out paint can label with the specific pigments and amounts printed on the label. Takes about a minute from scan to label print.
|
lauland
|
512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #4 on: April 06, 2025, 04:41
|
For what it is, a clone of a 16 bit operating system more than 30 years old, it is quite nice. It's awesome that it is completely open source, and, depending on which "distro" you use, can come with TONS of useful packages. Everything from (very painful to use, to me at least) internet apps, to a few different guis, graphical programs, and many different programming languages (including watcom and nice ports of gcc and freepascal). Of note is it comes with FreeGEM, which is a port of the same gui as the Atari ST...but much more limited in 16 bits and not using extended memory above 640k well (if at all). I worked a little on coding for it, but it wasn't really worth the pain. The thing to remember is that it is NOT MS-DOS, but a clone based on the api and programming interfaces, and so a LOT of DOS stuff will have problems (if they use un- or poorly-documented features, or rely on bugs etc). But...it is nice to be able to run DOS programs with ZERO Microsoft code...
Last Edit: April 06, 2025, 04:45 by lauland
|
|
Pages: [1]
|
| |||||
|
© 2021 System7Today.com. |
