FreeDOS ========= Perhaps now its the point where i finally left the sane part of the population, perhaps i am longing for a time long gone or perhaps i like to torture myself... i really don't know, but i have installed FreeDOS on my trusty old Thinkpad R60 and i really have grown to like it. Down below you will find a writeup of the first few days / weeks with this OS and my thoughts about it. You may ask WHY? Why waste time on an single tasking, non UNIX system that had its best time when memory was measured in KBs and disk space in MB? Well... its complicated. About two years ago (i think?) i helped an older coworker to set up his new (-ish) Thinkcentre to work with FreeDOS, and somehow this little OS stayed back in my mind since then. Perhaps my general disstasifaction with the computer world since then have lead me to longing for the primitive, for simpler times, who knows? As i am now over 40, perhaps its the midlife crisis... i really don't know, but somehting inside me urged me to try this out. About FreeDOS -------------- FreeDOS is a tad younger than Linux, started by Jim Hall in 1994 as he was not really happy with the (forseeable) end of (MS-) DOS. Well, it has matured much since then, this really isn't your (Grand-) fathers DOS anymore. It has the ability to handle long filenams, work with FAT32, memory up to 4 GB (i think) and has network and USB support. It really answers the question how DOS would have evolved if Windows didn't happen. It begins... -------------- Well, i downloaded the newest FreeDOS release, wrote it on an USB stick and started the installation. A couple of minutes later i had an bootable and usable system that had everything to get running. To get the network up and running i used the "nicscan.exe" program from Georg Potthast [1] that i had already used with the system of the coworker. It quickly identified the network adapter that the Thinkpad uses and i downloaded the respective packet driver from the same homepage. In about 10 minutes from the start i had the (wired) network online and could connect to the SDF. So far, so good! Now i had to dig around to find software for doing my daily work (so, a spreadsheet, a word processor and so on..), idealy, software that uses a file format that is at least somewhat compatible with more... ehm... "broadly used" products. On an abandonware site on the net i found the whole Corel Wordperfect Suite, which includes not only the venerable Wordperfect 6.2, but also a version of Quattro Pro. I personaly think of it not exactly as piracy as my dad HAD a version of this, and at least the packaging and the manual still exists...sooo... ehm well, lets just say i think its not completely illegal. I have tried it out and i think i will be comfortable with it in no time. Now i only need to set up an development environment and i think i am on my way to complete happyness. What i absolutely can say is: The system feels FAST! Three days later ----------------------- I have now used the FreeDOS system for three days and found a quiet comfortable workflow for my daily tasks. Most activities regarding the "modern" internet are done in my breaks at work. For every other activity i have now found the right tool working on my DOS system. Writing docs is rather pleasant with this system: Because of its single tasking nature i am way less tempted to "just for a moment" break out of doing the task at hand and losing myself in some form of procrastination. Perhaps my mind just needs a bit restrictive tools to be productive. I also found a way to get the Thinkpad to play sound! There is a Soundblaster emulation software [2] that works quiet well with the onboard soundcard of the laptop. Now i started to dig up a couple of game CD's and floppies i have stored on my attic... i would not have thought that the old "Shadow Warrior" shooter would have been that good after all the years... Four days later --------------- Am i wasting my time with this stuff? I mean, WHY on earth am i tinkering in 2025 with an single tasking OS that didn't see any major new software released for it in ages? Why am i trying to live in the past? Five days later ---------------- Hah, who would have guessed? The BBS scene seems to be very much alive and well! Yeah, i have logged on to some BBS as a sort of curiosity over the last couple of years, but i would not have guessed that there are really TONS of new and old BBS online and accessible via telnet... Six days later --------------- I have now written most of the documentation and reporting stuff i need for work in Word Perfect and it... just works. Yeah, its ancient software, but to be honest: How old is Emacs, how old is VI? And surprisingly, the files created by Word Perfect can be opened by Libreoffice, Google Docs and (with the wrong font) by Microsoft Office... THIS is really a surprising thing! I REALLY like this system. Two weeks later ---------------- The FreeDOS mailing lists are surprisingly active, i wouldn't have thought that there are THAT MUCH crazy people out there working on and with this system. Its... a positive surprise for sure! A thing that i haven't figured out is why USB sticks are a bit of a hit or miss thing... FreeDOS seems to recognize some after it boots but cannot detect others. So far i have a little collection of working ones to transfer data, but it would be nice to have this issue sorted out. I am now starting to dabble a bit into DOS programming, i have this idea for a game in the back of my head since the mid-90s, perhaps i now will find the time and acquire the necessary abilities to finally get it going... [1] http://www.georgpotthast.de/sioux/packet.htm [2] https://github.com/crazii/SBEMU