I wanted to highlight FreeDOS as part of "DOSCember" -- or #DOScember if you're on social media -- so I wrote a series of articles for All Things Open and Both.org. These are some fun ways for people to get started with FreeDOS.
* All Things Open: Why FreeDOS is a modern DOS -- An essay that recaps the history of FreDOS, and highlights a few features of FreeDOS 1.4. https://allthingsopen.org/articles/why-freedos-is-modern-dos Turn off acceleration for an authentic retrocomputing experience -- Mike Brutman gave me this idea during one of the virtual get-togethers, so I wrote the article. "Retrocomputing" is best experienced on a physical machine, but if you prefer a VM, turn off acceleration to get closer to a "retro" experience. This also uses an "ISA PC" machine type in QEMU, with just 4 MB memory and 100 MB hard drive. https://allthingsopen.org/articles/turn-off-acceleration-authentic-retrocomputing-experience 26 essential FreeDOS commands: An A-Z guide to get started -- Lists 26 things you can try in FreeDOS, from "A is for ATTRIB" to "Z is for ZIP." https://allthingsopen.org/articles/26-essential-freedos-commands-az-guide Edlin on FreeDOS: When a simple line editor is all you need -- Shows how you can use FreeDOS Edlin (thanks, Gregory Pietsch!) to edit files. I use Edlin all the time to edit batch files or short text files I might use for testing a program. https://allthingsopen.org/articles/edlin-freedos-simple-line-editor-tutorial Tiny programming with FreeDOS: Just a kernel, shell, editor, and compiler -- I've wanted to write this article for a while, to show that you don't need a big environment and a fancy compiler to write useful programs. I set up a tiny FreeDOS virtual machine (1 MB memory and 5 MB hard drive) where I install just the kernel, command shell, Edlin, and BCC (C compiler) .. and use it to write a few sample programs. https://allthingsopen.org/articles/tiny-programming-freedos-minimal-environment You can also find a list of all 5 articles here: (but I'm not sure if this is meant to be a permanent page) https://allthingsopen.org/doscember-2025 * Both.org: 4 cool facts about FreeDOS for #DOScember -- A starting point for the weeklong series of articles. https://www.both.org/?p=12944 The FreeDOS editor makes it easy -- How to use FreeDOS Edit to edit text files. https://www.both.org/?p=12955 How to add and remove packages on FreeDOS -- Using FDIMPLES (thanks, Jerome!) to install and remove packages. https://www.both.org/?p=12967 Old-school programming with BW BASIC -- Writing a few BASIC programs using Bywater BASIC. https://www.both.org/?p=12971 2 ways to listen to music on FreeDOS -- Using OpenCP and Mplayer to listen to music and audio files. https://www.both.org/?p=12976 Automate tasks with FreeDOS BAT files -- A brief introduction to writing batch files in DOS. https://www.both.org/?p=12978 Edit text with this Emacs-like editor -- Getting started with Freemacs to edit text. If your "finger memory" prefers GNU Emacs, you should like Freemacs. https://www.both.org/?p=12986 (I also plan to reuse some of these articles for the documentation site. These are all CC-by-sa so it's fair to reuse them.) _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
