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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: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:54PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:54PM (#862452) Journal

    FreeDOS might be good as a way to distribute BIOS updates?

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 02 2019, @10:42PM (1 child)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @10:42PM (#862559)

    That is pretty much all I have ever used it for.

    I have these [nicegear.nz] running pfSense as firewalls around the joint. FreeDOS seems to be the easiest way to update their bios.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 03 2019, @01:34PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 03 2019, @01:34PM (#862701) Journal

      FreeDOS was good as a choice that OEMs could offer when Microsoft's Windows agreements required all OEMs to only sell hardware with an OS pre-installed. Because a machine without an OS obviously must be intended for someone to install a pirated copy of Windows.

      The machine could come with FreeDOS, and then the end user could wipe it and install whatever they had intended to install on a machine that doesn't have an OS preinstalled.

      --
      When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.