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FreeDOS Turns 25 Years Old

posted by martyb on Tuesday July 02 2019, @02:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the information-(and-operating-environments)-want-to-be-free! dept.

canopic jug writes:

Last week, FreeDOS turned 25 years old. FreeDOS is a complete, Free Software Disk Operating System (DOS) and a drop-in replacement for MS-DOS which has disappeared long ago. It is still used in certain niche cases such as playing legacy games, running legacy software, or certain embedded systems. Back in the day, it was also quite useful for updating BIOS.

Of those that will be, are, or have been using it, what tasks has it been good for?

Also, at:
The Linux Journal : FreeDOS's Linux Roots
OpenSource.com : FreeDOS turns 25 years old: An origin story
OS News : FreeDOS’s Linux roots
Lilliputing : FreeDOS turns 25 (open source, DOS-compatible operating system)

Earlier on SN:
Jim Hall on FreeDOS and the Upcoming 1.2 Release (2016)
Retro-Malware: DOS TSRs, Interrupt Handlers, and Far Calls, Part 2 (2016)
Retro-Malware: Writing A Keylogger for DOS, Part 1 (2016)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday July 02 2019, @05:10PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 02 2019, @05:10PM (#862457) Journal

    You could use a micro controller. When, when not otherwise occupied with real time, could send updates via serial through to a USB port of a computer running a common non-realtime OS.

    But the price of micro controllers. Just consider the prices of microprocessors . . .

    Creative Computing [archive.org], July 1980 . . . pg 33 . . . remembering way back to what 1975 was like . . .

    'By now it was August and these strange ads had appeared from a company called MOS Technology. They were announcing a new line of microprocessors for $20 and up. $20.00! And, they said you could buy the things at the upcoming Wescon show in September. This was unheard of. Remember that at this time an 8080 was still $175.00.

    What a furor this created. Intel and Motorola seemed to be implying that the $20 price was a phony comeon,' like you could only get that price if you ordered a million units. Other people were convinced that it was an out-and-out fraud. One salesman I talked to was convinced of this, and I remember him distinctly telling me that the microprocessor chips had reached their bottom price-$175- and that we'd never see them go any lower. I countered by saying that soon we'd see the price of microprocessors drop to under $10 in the next year or so. He said "Never!"- told me I was crazy and everyone else standing around agreed with the salesman.

    The only thing to do was to wait and see what happened at Wescon. Well, along came the day of the show and, sure enough, there was MOS Technology but no chips in sight. I was informed that no selling was allowed on the floor; but that the chips were available in their hospitality suite. Away I went to the hospitality suite to find out the real story.

    There they were! A big glass bowl of chips and stacks of manuals. They also had a KIM and a TIM system running. A guy named Chuck Peddle was there, happy to explain the featuresof his newly born baby. They plied me with a drink and I sat down on one of the couches with a copy of the manual to have a look. The damn thing made sense. Take my money! I went home that evening with a 6502 chip and a hardware and software manual. My own computer and all for $25 dollars. Little did I know that I would invest another $300 before my homebrew 6502 system would work.

    It is interesting to note that this very day Intel and Motorola announced price reductions on their processors to $79.00. The microcomputing craze was really beginning. I would like to point out that no one has really credited Chuck Peddle for bringing the microprocessors within reach of allof us.

    So here we are today where you can get a system on a tiny circuit board that plugs into a breadboard. And is way more computer than most systems of that day.

    To be on topic: FreeDOS would have seemed like a dream compared to the CP/M. (MS-DOS did not yet exist)

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