I use FreeDOS because I have an old laptop which is somehow too slow to run
DSL. I installed FreeDOS on it and I'm currently using it for keeping a
journal on and writing an interactive fiction game in TADS.
Since I'm keeping a journal on it, it needed to be lockable... which DOS
traditionally has difficulty with. So I wrote up a screensaver program that
does that for me.
Skyler
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 7:10 PM, Michael Robinson
<plu...@robinson-west.com>wrote:
> I like dos when I have an old computer and some old games that
> work under dos. Running Windows on a 486 is a pain in general.
> Even a low end Pentium these days is slow.
>
> As far as web browsing and dos, isn't dos susceptible to almost
> every single virus on the planet? Another thing, some people
> want to run dos thinking that it can't browse the Internet.
> What I don't like about Arachne is that it doesn't have any
> kind of filtering apparatus built in. Internet Explorer does,
> but it's too paranoid. Not to mention, IE requires either
> Windows or Linux running Wine. I also don't like the fact
> the Arachne tries to integrate email access assuming a pop
> account. I use imap.
>
> There is a desire in some cases to network dos, but what for?
> Well, some dos games can be played over a network. Freedos
> can be upgraded over the Internet, though I'd rather build
> a local repository say on my Linux server and upgrade from
> that.
>
> The most valuable update to freedos that I can think of is
> one that makes it more compatible with MS-DOS. As far as
> breaking with MS-DOS, that needs to be carefully considered.
> In some cases where Freedos is not MS-DOS compatible, it
> may not be reasonable to make it so. Ideally, as Freedos
> is seen as a stable dos implementation with compilers and
> assemblers that are free to use, people will develop
> software for it specifically.
>
> I want to go the Netware route because Netware without
> special IPX to IP gateway software isn't Internet
> compatible (at least versions before the switch away
> from IPX). This seems to be very unpopular though.
> I'd like to see the MARS netware emulator brought
> over to freedos and revived.
>
> What is the purpose of Freedos? This is something that
> should be carefully considered as efforts to get a new
> release out kick into high gear. I see the main purpose
> of Freedos being to revive old computers that aren't
> powerful enough to run Windows or Linux and I see it's
> purpose as being to provide a simple OS for the embedded
> computing market. Yes Freedos can be run in an emulator,
> but that isn't my favorite application of it.
>
> Something that would be nice would be a modified dhcp
> client for freedos that through some reasonable trick
> can accept a different configuration for a particular
> machine than it would normally get. I'm thinking, an
> isolated network for freedos with an update repository
> on that network would be nice. The alternative, given
> compatible packet drivers for every dos machine, is to
> manually configure each freedos box that you want to
> isolate. Yuck! Ideally, dhcp would ask what kind
> of OS is seeking an IP address and if the answer is
> a DOS OS, it would put it on a different network than
> say a Linux or Windows box.
>
> Freedos needs to be as clean as possible and as stable
> as possible. Small is good, there should be a very small
> footprint base install. Cross dependencies where freedos
> has so called super packages that are meant to do everything
> should be broken purposely. Small utilities with very
> specific purposes are better than monstrous ones that
> try to do everything in a very constraining manner.
>
> One request for freedos is a nice Gem based backup program
> that can back the system up in part or in entirety to
> anything from a network share to a local DVD burner or
> hard disk. I'm thinking a modern and free program
> with a MyBackup like environment.
>
> Freedos is free and useful insofar as it is compatible with
> MS-DOS when it needs to be to run old software.
>
> Freedos is useful if there are applications written specifically
> for it for those of us who don't have functional MS-DOS software
> lying around.
>
>
>
>
>
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--
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goodness there are very few such members and they are greatly outnumbered by
those who are irrational, rabid, intolerant, and disrespectful." - An
atheist
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