{"id":289592,"date":"2021-07-02T16:36:15","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T13:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-freedos-grew-up-and-became-a-modern-dos-cloudsavvy-it\/"},"modified":"2021-07-02T16:36:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T13:36:15","slug":"how-freedos-grew-up-and-became-a-modern-dos-cloudsavvy-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-freedos-grew-up-and-became-a-modern-dos-cloudsavvy-it\/","title":{"rendered":"#How FreeDOS Grew Up and Became a Modern DOS \u2013 CloudSavvy IT"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3be69390544\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3be69390544\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-freedos-grew-up-and-became-a-modern-dos-cloudsavvy-it\/#FreeDOS_as_a_Modern_DOS\" >FreeDOS as a Modern DOS<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><strong>&#8220;#How FreeDOS Grew Up and Became a Modern DOS \u2013 CloudSavvy IT&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-content-area\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"type:primaryImage alignnone size-full wp-image-12426\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/07\/fbdabd7c.png?width=1198&amp;trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"playing DOS games on freeDOS\" width=\"1456\" height=\"804\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><\/p>\n<p>I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, and that meant I grew up with computers. Our first home computer was an <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">App<\/a>le II, and my brother and I taught ourselves about BASIC programming on the Apple. I wrote a lot of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a>s and math puzzles, because that\u2019s really the limit of AppleSoft BASIC programming.<\/p>\n<p>Later, our family replaced the Apple with an IBM PC, and I was excited to try the new DOS command line. DOS provided its own BASIC, but also a host of tools. Well, in those days \u201chost\u201d meant about twenty utilities, mostly to work with floppy disks and files. it wasn\u2019t until MS-DOS 5 that I felt DOS had become truly \u201cmodern.\u201d This version, released in 1991, replaced the venerable Edlin \u201cline editor\u201d with a full-screen interactive editor. It also included a completely new QBASIC programming environment and an incredibly useful DOS Shell that supported task-switching, a precursor to true multitasking.<\/p>\n<p>And it was on this new system that I learned how to program in C and other languages. With this new knowledge, I wrote my own utilities to enhance the DOS command line, sometimes creating entirely new versions of existing DOS utilities with extra features and functionality. I felt like a true DOS \u201cpower user\u201d and I felt very comfortable at the command line. I did much of my work on the command line, with my own tools to manage my directories and process files, but relying on my favorite DOS applications to write papers for class, or play games when I wanted to relax.<\/p>\n<p>In 1993, I learned about Linux and considered this as my next \u201cstep up\u201d from DOS. I installed an early Linux distribution on my little PC at home, but I couldn\u2019t do away with DOS entirely. Linux didn\u2019t have many applications in those early days, so I would frequently reboot into DOS to use my word processor or spreadsheet. I loved DOS, and relied on it.<\/p>\n<p>So you might imagine I was a tad upset to learn in 1994 that Microsoft planned to \u201cdo away\u201d with MS-DOS the following year. According to interviews in tech magazines, Microsoft\u2019s next Windows version wouldn\u2019t need MS-DOS, and DOS would effectively become a \u201cdead\u201d operating system. Everyone had to upgrade to Windows.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d used Windows by this point, and I wasn\u2019t a fan. If you remember Windows 3 at the time, you know it wasn\u2019t a great experience. I thought Windows was slow and unreliable. When a Windows application ran into problems, that one application could take down all of Windows. And I thought, \u201cIf Windows 4 will be anything like Windows 3, I want nothing to do with that.\u201d So I decided to stick with Linux and DOS.<\/p>\n<p>But if Microsoft was getting out of the DOS game, how could I keep running DOS?<\/p>\n<p>I decided that if we were going to keep DOS around, we had to make our own. I asked around on Usenet, the forums or \u201cmessage boards\u201d of the day, and asked if anyone was working on their own DOS. The answer was \u201cno,\u201d but folks thought it was an interesting idea.<\/p>\n<p>A few months later, on June 29, 1994, I made this <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/groups.google.com\/g\/comp.os.msdos.apps\/c\/oQmT4ETcSzU\/m\/O1HR8PE2u-EJ\">announcement on comp.os.msdos.apps<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Announcing the first effort to produce a PD-DOS. I have written up a\u00a0\u201cmanifest\u201d describing the goals of such a project and an outline of\u00a0the work, as well as a \u201ctask list\u201d that shows exactly what needs to be\u00a0written. I\u2019ll post those here, and let discussion follow.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I called it \u201cPD-DOS\u201d because I wanted to create a DOS that was free for everyone to use, and I thought that meant \u201cpublic domain.\u201d But it didn\u2019t take long to realize the difference between public domain and \u201cFree software,\u201d so we changed the name to Free-DOS after a few weeks. We later dropped the hyphen to become <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.freedos.org\/\">FreeDOS<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll save you the details on the history of FreeDOS, except to say that we had a very frequent release cycle, and we added a ton of new utilities to DOS. We divided FreeDOS into \u201cgroups\u201d \u2013 the \u201cBase\u201d group replaced the core features from MS-DOS, and other groups provided editors, drivers, and development tools. And everything was open source. For example, the \u201cLang\u201d group included the MicroC Compiler and Val Linker so FreeDOS developers could compile C programs. You can\u2019t have an open-source DOS if developers don\u2019t have open-source tools to build more of FreeDOS.<\/p>\n<p>It took us a long time before we felt comfortable releasing a version of FreeDOS that was \u201ccomplete\u201d enough to earn the \u201c1.0\u201d label. FreeDOS 1.0 finally appeared in September 2006. Development slowed after that, mostly because DOS stopped being a moving target in 1995 when Microsoft released Windows 95 and stopped making new versions of MS-DOS. It took another six years before we released FreeDOS 1.1 in January 2012, and four years after that for FreeDOS 1.2 in December 2016.\u00a0Each release added new features, including new drivers for modern hardware, updated software, and new tools.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"FreeDOS_as_a_Modern_DOS\"><\/span>FreeDOS as a Modern DOS<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>We are working on the next version of FreeDOS, and we released <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.freedos.org\/download\/\">FreeDOS 1.3 Release Candidate 4<\/a> in April 2021. We\u2019re really proud of this new version, especially the \u201cLive CD\u201d mode that allows you to run FreeDOS from the CD, without having to install anything to a hard drive.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12269\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/06\/fc41bf54.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"Booting the FreeDOS LiveCD\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Booting the FreeDOS LiveCD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you don\u2019t want to run FreeDOS from the LiveCD, you can also install it to your hard drive. We updated the installer in FreeDOS so it detects all sorts of conditions and takes the appropriate action, like creating a new disk partition for FreeDOS if none exist already.<\/p>\n<p>Older FreeDOS distributions used to prompt you for everything, even selecting individual programs to install. The new installer is very streamlined. It asks you a few questions to get started, then does everything else on its own. Installing FreeDOS on an empty virtual machine takes only a few minutes.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12267\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/06\/94f0ac1a.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"Installing FreeDOS 1.3 RC4\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Installing FreeDOS 1.3 RC4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It\u2019s great that you can customize your FreeDOS installation. DOS was never a big operating system, but FreeDOS includes a lot of optional software in the distribution. To save space, start by installing a bare minimum system, then use the FDIMPLES package manager to install the extra packages you want to use. Don\u2019t forget that FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 also includes a \u201cBonus\u201d CD full of extra programs that you also might find interesting.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12264\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/06\/8ec59438.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"Installing FreeDOS programs with FDIMPLES\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Installing FreeDOS programs with FDIMPLES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 also includes a variety of Linux and Unix tools. If you\u2019re a Linux user, you should feel right at home with commands like cal, du, grep, sed, less, head, tr, tee, and even a version of Unix nroff called NRO. One of my favorite Unix utilities on FreeDOS is the Freemacs editor, an editor that\u2019s very similar to GNU Emacs from Linux.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12266\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/06\/c9940548.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"Freemacs programmer's editor on FreeDOS\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Freemacs programmer\u2019s editor on FreeDOS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you don\u2019t like Freemacs or the standard DOS Edit text editors, you can choose from over a dozen editors to suit your style. More recently, I\u2019ve switched to FED, a\u00a0<em>folding<\/em> editor that \u201cfolds\u201d blocks of code so you can see more of your program on one screen. FED also adds color to your code listings, so keywords, comments, numbers, and other program features stand out to help you spot bugs before you compile.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12274\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/06\/e9fcd2d9.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"FED folding editor on FreeDOS\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">FED folding editor on FreeDOS (showing folded functions)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you want to write your own programs, we also have several compilers and assemblers. A recent addition is an IA-16 version of GCC. This requires a 32-bit CPU to compile, but the programs it creates can run on any 16-bit system. We also provide the 32-bit DJGPP C compiler, which is probably more like the GCC that you\u2019re used to from Linux. For most of my programming, I prefer the OpenWatcom C Compiler.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12271\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/06\/dc5a6940.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"Compiling a program on FreeDOS\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Compiling a program on FreeDOS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But most people use FreeDOS to play games. And that\u2019s cool, we even include a few of our own. If you\u2019re into arcade-style shooters, fly missions in WING or Kraptor. For classic games to kill time, try Nibbles or Tetris. And FreeDOS has a bunch of other fun games from a variety of genres; find the one you like.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12272\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/06\/85073fa0.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"Playing Kraptor on FreeDOS\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Playing Kraptor on FreeDOS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>You can find the new FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 from the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.freedos.org\/\">FreeDOS website<\/a>, on our Downloads page. To install FreeDOS, you\u2019ll need at least 20MB of free disk space: 20MB to install a plain FreeDOS system, and 250MB to install everything, including applications and games. To install the source code too, you\u2019ll need up to 450MB of free space.\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/12250\/how-freedos-grew-up-and-became-a-modern-dos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#How FreeDOS Grew Up and Became a Modern DOS \u2013 CloudSavvy IT&#8221; I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, and that meant I grew up with computers. Our first home computer was an Apple II, and my brother and I taught ourselves about BASIC programming on the Apple. I wrote a lot of games&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":289593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/07\/fbdabd7c.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}