Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Rugxulo]

Hi, (yet another inane response from me)

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Jack  wrote:
>>
>> It's really too bad, though,  that MS won't make it official and release
>> the MS-DOS source as public domain, or at least one of the various
>> open-source licenses.

How would that be better than what we already have with FreeDOS? The
kernel and "BASE" are already GPL or similar open source, but we still
don't get jack squat help from any other free/libre groups. They don't
care at all, they're too busy chasing whatever other goals. A
free/libre license isn't enough to attract volunteers.

> "Surely you JEST!", my friend [are joking]!   "Gates & Co." are charter
> members of the U.S.A.'s "All we want is MONEY!" brotherhood!

If all they wanted was money, they'd still sell it. Maybe it's still
on MSDN, I have no idea.

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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Jack  wrote:
>
>> Wengier Wu's MS-DOS 7 variant has a licensing issue ...
>
> "So what??", as I noted in my prior post.   At least 18 years have
> gone by since Gates & Co. declared "DOS is dead!", and no lawyers
> I know of have EVER gone-after any V7.10 users and providers!

I'm only halfway joking, but how many lawyers do you know of,
exactly?? So your experience is limited, like most of us. Absence of
proof is not proof. Like I said, China probably has different laws, so
there's less of a risk to them than us.

Just because it isn't sold directly anymore isn't enough of a reason.
That's not how copyright works. I don't know who came up with the
current scheme. Certainly it will change a billion more times because
nobody is ever happy, but as is, it's certainly not giving us a lot of
leeway.

> I am not recommending that FreeDOS "advertise" or support ANY other
> DOS variants -- I am simply saying that V7.10 MS-DOS is in fact still
> available, as at-least the website I note above should prove to you.

Not a reliable source. The built-in DOS floppy image I mentioned
earlier, even in modern Windows, is a more official source. But that's
(AFAIK) only available to current Windows licensees, so you can't
redistribute it.

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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 8:46 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>> You mean LZ DOS is an improved rip of the MS DOS 7 kernel? Or
>> is it just another DOS kernel which provides DOS 7.x compat?
>
> Unfortunately it is not improved at all: Somebody just took a
> few components of MS DOS 7 and PC DOS 7 and REBRANDED and then
> recompressed them. Not worth mentioning IMHO because everybody
> who likes to ignore licenses can just as well download a grey
> copy of the real MS DOS 7 or PC DOS 7 somewhere anyway.

I'm not a PC-DOS expert, but IIRC, they both forked after v5 circa
1991. Hence development of PC-DOS was entirely handled by IBM in later
versions. IIRC, PC-DOS used "IBMBIOS.COM and IBMDOS.COM" for the
kernel files instead of IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS.

Presumably we're talking about the same thing here, the so-called
LZ-DOS that was really the "kernel" of MS-DOS 7 (and nothing to do
with PC-DOS, though I have no idea where any other utils come from).

> Forum http://reboot.pro/topic/14520-lz-dos/ says, excerpted:
>
> The file dates on LZ-DOS is 11/9/2003, which is identical to the build
> date on pc-dos 7.10.0129 ...

PC-DOS 7 was circa 1995, no? PC-DOS 2000 was just some minor fixes
later. The "Server Scripting Toolkit" that Lucho always talked about
supposedly had an updated kernel that also supported FAT32. But AFAIK,
that kernel was never in an official, commercial release. In fact, I
am very very skeptical whether the Server Scripting Toolkit is legal
at all, at least for home users. Maybe it is, maybe not, but just
because it's available online somewhere isn't proof. But the only way
to know for sure is contact the copyright owner, and most big
companies are notoriously bad about responding to inquiries of this
kind.

> we see a very close match between the two, to the point where the bulk
> of the file is a light string hack (gsar -s"PC DOS" -r"LZ-DOS" -o
> command.com), does most of the work.

The shell is an entirely separate issue. Actually, there were some
regulars here who preferred IBM PC-DOS over others, but perhaps
they're too busy to compare and contrast the various binaries for us.

> you will indeed discover that the bulk of the differences between 1.29
> command.com and lz-dos command.com lies entirely in PC DOS -> LZ-DOS,
> and a few copyright strings. There is a single change of byte elsewhere
> in the file (05 -> 06 or something).
>
> ... and only 4 CODE byte changes might offer any improvements ...
>
> LZ's io.sys was compressed with apack.com.

I don't know how you know that. Maybe true, but I doubt aPACK is
designed to work like that. I know EDR-DOS at one time also allowed
compression of the kernel (as does FreeDOS, natch) with UPX.

> See also: http://reboot.pro/topic/5497-ms-dos-71/ on how to
> mix various commercial DOS variants into something useful to
> those who are not looking at licenses.

Well, once again, if your country's laws allow it, then I doubt it's
unethical since (AFAIK) "nobody" is selling it nor depending on its
sales for livelihood. But still, in countries where copyright is so
rigid, we don't have a good choice: buy an old copy (eBay?) or use
something else ("just use Haiku", heh).

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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 2:50 PM, Jack  wrote:
>
> Note on the FreeDOS "main page" that there are comments about FreeDOS
> offering "LBA" large-disk capability (48-bit disk addressing, not 24-
> bit "CHS"), which MS-DOS did not have, and which the "main page" says
> was unavailable except with DOS Windows.
>
> NOT quite true!

"FreeDOS lets you access FAT32 file systems and use large disk support
(LBA) — a feature not available in MS-DOS, and only included in
Windows 95 and newer."

> From having written and tested UIDE, I know that "LZ-DOS" and Wengier
> Wu's V7.10 MS-DOS both use "LBA" disk addressing.
>
> Luchezar Georgiev offered his multi-DOS "boot" diskette, which has an
> "LZ-DOS" option.

Presumably Bulgaria and China (and others) have laxer laws than the
U.S. (which enforces copyright until 70 years after owner's death).

> "LZ-DOS" is really V7.10 MS-DOS as a "VER" command
> will show.   Also, Wengier Wu of the China DOS Union offered a "full"
> MS-DOS V7.10 system, with the complete set of MS-DOS utilities plus a
> good system-installation scheme.   There may also be others.

Yes, AFAIK, LZ-DOS is just a compressed MS-DOS kernel ("LZ" for
Lempel-Ziv, I suppose). But it's probably not legal to download by
U.S. residents.

But just for clarity, "ver" is part of the shell, and if the shell is
clueless, it might just assume one particular DOS. I've never tried,
but I'm pretty sure using the DR-DOS COMMAND.COM would always say
"DR-DOS 7.03" even atop MS-DOS or FreeDOS kernels or similar. IIRC,
"set VER=3" would make it even say "DR-DOS 3.03"!

So this is not entirely conclusive. Presumably you'd have to find
explicit bugs or features in a particular kernel in order to truly
identify it (esp. if it is compressed and hacked with internal strings
modified). For trivia's sake, this is why most of us never knew that
ArrowSoft Assembler 2.00 was really MASM 4.0 in disguise.

> I believe Lucho's or Wengier's V7.1 MS-DOS systems can still be down-
> loaded from Internet sources.   They are NOT "bundled" with Win/95 or
> any other DOS Windows system.   Lucho's and Wengier's systems provide
> an "independent" V7.1 MS-DOS, which is still very useful.

Of course we all know that Win9x came with MS-DOS bundled. That was by
design. It was also by design that Win95's GUI portion was not
separate, i.e. even though PC-DOS and DR-DOS could run Win 3.1 just
fine, they could not (easily, directly) run Win95. I'm pretty sure
it's well-established that MS wanted to "control the standard" and
focus more on their own proprietary Win32 APIs than on older,
compatible APIs (e.g. DOS, that was fully supported by various
competitors, e.g. IBM, DR/Novell/Caldera). So DOS was only there until
they could replace it, e.g. XP [NT]. Although even XP will die soon
(no more security fixes after April, MSVC doesn't target it anymore,
etc.), but I doubt they'll ever give it away!

BTW, you can still make a DOS floppy in modern Windows via Explorer
[embedded inside DISKCOPY.DLL]. I tested this a few weeks ago atop
Win7 64-bit with my USB floppy drive. It's basically "MS-DOS 8.00"
(from WinME), but it has no SYS.COM, so you can't install to hard
drive.

> "Pundits" can say, as they wish, that V6.22 MS-DOS is the last "true"
> DOS officially released by Microsoft, and that there may be licensing
> issues over using V7.0+ MS-DOS.   But, Microsoft has never gone-after
> V7.0+ MS-DOS providers, like I doubt they ever will.   "DOS is dead!"
> has been their position since at least 1995 (maybe even 1987, as that
> was when they began writing Windows/NT).   I and others who work with
> V7.0+ MS-DOS should have few worries about it, 18 or 26 years later.

I would not trust "never gone after" as a reliable source. We don't
know who they've gone after, and certainly the U.S. is a fiercely
litigious society. It's not worth the risk. And I seriously seriously
doubt that anybody would sympathize with us if we did. It's safer to
just search eBay or old shops than download illegally.

> I believe the FreeDOS "main page" should be made a bit more ACCURATE!

Just use the "free DOS", i.e. FreeDOS. Don't waste time with MS-DOS.
Yes, I realize that's a bit biased. I'm not saying all the other DOSes
aren't good. Some have different advantages, weaknesses, bugs, etc.
Honestly, just use whatever you want to use, "whatever works!" I know
plenty of people still prefer MS-DOS (or DR-DOS) over FreeDOS.

But outside of explicit permission, you can't "freely" download,
modify, or redistribute any DOS besides FreeDOS. This is its whole
reason for existing. (Though I don't advocate anyone write software
that only runs on FreeDOS, that is not universally helpful.)

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS FDNPKG 16 bit port and other package system improvements

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 11:43 AM, sparky4 insano
 wrote:
>
> I really wish there was a 16 bit port of fdnpkg!
> but it is quite difficult to port it over

These are just .ZIPs with a special layout, so it's not like you can't
manually install them. Besides, most DOS programs don't have lots of
dependencies, so it's much less critical.

> I also wish the developers of Free Open Source Software for DOS would at
> least make a FreeDOS package of their stuff and put it in the repository!!

Such as what exactly? If you have a specific request or two, feel free
to ask (but don't get your hopes up, most people are too busy or
indifferent, sadly).

I'm the worst at focusing on a specific task, but admittedly, you
can't do everything at once, you have to narrow your view for a bit,
just to keep things simpler and manageable. So it's unlikely that
"everything" (BASE, NET, UTIL) will all be updated at once. But little
by little 

> Speaking of which i want to update a bunch of the packages in the
> repository!

Talk to Mateusz. Or tell me specifically which ones are outdated and
need replacing, and I'll update them on iBiblio for you / us. Anybody
else wanting to directly help should probably email Jim Hall
privately.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/

(Just for example, /devel/djgpp-obj.zip is ObjC, but it's GCC 4.7.1,
after their transition to using G++, and honestly I don't think it
works at all. But I chickened out and didn't email Mateusz recently.
Maybe now's a good time to mention it, but I don't really know ObjC,
and the examples I tested were minimal. Andris of DJGPP didn't seem to
know either.)

> also DOSFSCK for DOS port is quite outdated...
>
> Just to let you know...

Dunno, in the few times I used it, it worked okay. What specifically
does it not do? What is latest / better?

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS FDNPKG 16 bit port and other package system improvements

[Matej Horvat]

Hi,

> I really wish there was a 16 bit port of fdnpkg!
> but it is quite difficult to port it over

I have tried porting an older version of FDNPKG to Open Watcom in the  
past. My changes became obsolete once a newer one (0.95, I think) was  
released, so I deleted them. (Modifying the makefile was quite simple, by  
the way.)

The biggest problem, I think, was that FDNPKG assumes 32-bit ints and  
"#define int long" obviously wouldn't work because some #included headers  
(for example Open Watcom's stdio.h) declare variables as "long int", which  
would then become "long long" and mess everything up.

Mateusz also wasn't very enthusiastic about it - he told me that FDNPKG  
relies quite heavily on having a large non-segmented address space  
(probably for ZIP decompression) and that porting it to real mode would  
make the code a mess.

So, to update FreeDOS installations on your pre-80386 machines, you can  
use my own FreeDOS offline updater -  
http://matejhorvat.si/en/freedos/fdoffupd/ - it's a bit of a kludge, but  
it's better than having to download all the updates manually.

Matej Horvat
http://matejhorvat.si/

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Re: [Freedos-user] ROM drive support and recinishion in FreeDOS is quite poor

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 1:22 PM, sparky4 insano
 wrote:
>
>>Oh, the old Zenith machine? http://oldcomputers.net/zenith-minisport.html
>
> yeah!
>
>>ROM or RAM?

> It is a theory but it Gets very confused with a ROM drive and a BIOS RAM
> drive

I'm just trying to be clear on your problem.  ROM boot gets you MS-DOS
3.3.  RAM boot gets you what is on the RAM drive.  Floppy boot gets
you what's on the floppy.  I assume there is a BIOS menu that lets you
select what you are trying to boot from.

>>The Minisport can reportedly boot from A:, the built-in ROM (which
> gets you MS-DOS 3.3) , or D:, the battery backed RAM drive.  (There
> was an optional 3.5" external floppy, but I don't know whether it
> could boot from it.)
>
> I think you can...

If you can boot from either floppy, you might be able to boot to FreeDOS.

>>How did you get the FreeDOS files to the Minisport?  FastLynx?
>
> Use the Serial file transfer program that came with the machine!

That's FastLynx.

> I think it boots from RAM drive or floppy fine  I am not sure

I would expect it to do both.  Your issue is FreeDOS being confused by
the RAM drive.  That's no surprise, so try to boot from floppy
instead.  (Do *not* expect FreeDOS to be fixed to work on the
Minisport RAM driuve.)

>>If you have a spare 2" floppy the Zenith used, see if you can create a
> FreeDOS boot disk on the 2" floppy in A:. then see if you can boot
> from it.
>
> The machine needs to be repaired
>
> I think there is an open circuit in the power suppy cables inside the
> machine
>
> If you think you can fix it then i can send it to you!

I might be able to.  I am *not* offering to try.
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Jack  wrote:
>> The ms-dos7.hit.bg site seems to have been offline since 2010 ...
>
> Oh, REALLY??   Sure worked well for me yesterday, 4-Dec-2013, when I got
> both V7.10 MS-DOS diskettes and checked them!   And it also caused me no
> problems when I accessed the site again, a moment ago!!

Really.  It won't resolve here, and the last time Internet.org crawled
the site was 2010.  If it were still online, I'd expect a more recent
crawl.  Attempts to do a whois here fail as the domain isn't found.
(I use OpenDNS for DNS resolution, instead of relying on my ISP's DNS
servers.)

I don't know what you are reaching, though an entry in cache seems likely.

In any case, the files are available from Internet.org.
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] ROM drive support and recinishion in FreeDOS is quite poor

[sparky4 insano]

>Oh, the old Zenith machine? http://oldcomputers.net/zenith-minisport.html

yeah!

>ROM or RAM?
It is a theory but it Gets very confused with a ROM drive and a BIOS RAM
drive


>The Minisport can reportedly boot from A:, the built-in ROM (which
gets you MS-DOS 3.3) , or D:, the battery backed RAM drive.  (There
was an optional 3.5" external floppy, but I don't know whether it
could boot from it.)

I think you can...

http://4ch.mooo.com/fdos/bug.zip

My pictures of the machine before it started to break again

>How did you get the FreeDOS files to the Minisport?  FastLynx?

Use the Serial file transfer program that came with the machine!

I think it boots from RAM drive or floppy fine  I am not sure


>If you have a spare 2" floppy the Zenith used, see if you can create a
FreeDOS boot disk on the 2" floppy in A:. then see if you can boot
from it.

The machine needs to be repaired

I think there is an open circuit in the power suppy cables inside the
machine

If you think you can fix it then i can send it to you!

Just make sure when you are done to send it back 
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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Jack]

> The ms-dos7.ht.bg site seems to have been offline since 2010 ...

Oh, REALLY??   Sure worked well for me yesterday, 4-Dec-2013, when I got
both V7.10 MS-DOS diskettes and checked them!   And it also caused me no
problems when I accessed the site again, a moment ago!!

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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Jack  wrote:
> If you go to  and download their 2-diskette
> V7.10 MS-DOS set, then write both diskettes and do an "install" of
> then (omitting actually writing IO.SYS, MS-DOS.SYS, etc.), you will
> note it "Sure LOOKS like!" a system which was once "available" from
> our much-admired "Gates & Co."!!

The ms-dos7.ht.bg site seems to have been offline since 2010.  You can
still get the distribution files mentioned from the last Internet.org
capture of the site:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100527170356/http://ms-dos7.hit.bg/
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] ROM drive support and recinishion in FreeDOS is quite poor

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 12:13 PM, sparky4 insano
 wrote:

> The kernal gests confused when it tries to boot off on the BIOS RAM DRIVE of
> my minisport ZL-1 machine

Oh, the old Zenith machine? http://oldcomputers.net/zenith-minisport.html

> if you have a PC with a ROM drive on it please run freedos on it and see how
> it behaves...

ROM or RAM?

No surprise, however.I'd expect FreeDOS to get confused in that situation.

The Minisport can reportedly boot from A:, the built-in ROM (which
gets you MS-DOS 3.3) , or D:, the battery backed RAM drive.  (There
was an optional 3.5" external floppy, but I don't know whether it
could boot from it.)

How did you get the FreeDOS files to the Minisport?  FastLynx?

If you have a spare 2" floppy the Zenith used, see if you can create a
FreeDOS boot disk on the 2" floppy in A:. then see if you can boot
from it.
__
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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS FDNPKG 16 bit port and other package system improvements

[sparky4 insano]

I really wish there was a 16 bit port of fdnpkg!
but it is quite difficult to port it over

I also wish the developers of Free Open Source Software for DOS would at
least make a FreeDOS package of their stuff and put it in the repository!!

Speaking of which i want to update a bunch of the packages in the
repository!

also DOSFSCK for DOS port is quite outdated...

Just to let you know...

with love,
sparky4
Administrator of 四葉の芽◇ちゃんねる
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[Freedos-user] ROM drive support and recinishion in FreeDOS is quite poor

[sparky4 insano]

The kernal gests confused when it tries to boot off on the BIOS RAM DRIVE
of my minisport ZL-1 machine


if you have a PC with a ROM drive on it please run freedos on it and see
how it behaves...
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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Jack]

> It's really too bad, though,  that MS won't make it official and release
> the MS-DOS source as public domain, or at least one of the various
> open-source licenses.

"Surely you JEST!", my friend [are joking]!   "Gates & Co." are charter
members of the U.S.A.'s "All we want is MONEY!" brotherhood!

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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Jack]

Eric,

> I think that FreeDOS should also be more "bit-exact" and mention
> "(only 32 bit useable due to MBR partitioning schema limitations)"
> along with the LBA48 comment.   Might also create feedback from
> people who want to help to implement or test GPT partitions :-)

"Zounds good" to me!

> There is indeed a dilemma about whether to call MS DOS 7 a DOS
> or not.   AFAIK it was never available separately ...

If you go to  and download their 2-diskette
V7.10 MS-DOS set, then write both diskettes and do an "install" of
then (omitting actually writing IO.SYS, MS-DOS.SYS, etc.), you will
note it "Sure LOOKS like!" a system which was once "available" from
our much-admired "Gates & Co."!!

> Wengier Wu's MS-DOS 7 variant has a licensing issue ...

"So what??", as I noted in my prior post.   At least 18 years have
gone by since Gates & Co. declared "DOS is dead!", and no lawyers
I know of have EVER gone-after any V7.10 users and providers!

> LZ-DOS according to my google translate of http://dos.nm.ru/ is
> only a kernel, freeware provided as-is by JSC. Can be used with
> the userspace tools and drivers of other DOS variants, and
> generally sounds interesting.

Which is why the above website I noted may in fact be more help!

>> Luchezar Georgiev offered his multi-DOS "boot" diskette, with an
>> "LZ-DOS" option.   "LZ-DOS" is really V7.10 MS-DOS as a "VER" ...
>
> You mean LZ DOS is an improved rip of the MS DOS 7 kernel? ...

No, it is more likely only a "renamed" copy of V7.10's kernel, as
it functions identically to the kernel in Wengier's files.

>> I believe Lucho's or Wengier's V7.1 MS-DOS systems can still be down-
>> loaded from Internet sources.   They are NOT "bundled" with Win/95 or
>> any other DOS Windows system.   Lucho's and Wengier's systems provide
>> an "independent" V7.1 MS-DOS, which is still very useful.
>
> That is not a very good proof of MS DOS being available stand-alone.
> Ignoring licenses, I could upload any arbitrary subset of files from
> any commercial operating system and then claim that this subset is
> available as individual operating system online... So while you are
> correct - even Windows 9x provides a button to make a DOS boot disk
> on floppy - that DOS 7.x CAN be installed separately, I would still
> not advertise it as a recommended DOS-with-LBA on the FreeDOS page.

I am not recommending that FreeDOS "advertise" or support ANY other
DOS variants -- I am simply saying that V7.10 MS-DOS is in fact still
available, as at-least the website I note above should prove to you.

> It would be fair to mention on our homepage that "the DOS subsystem
> of Win 9x, also called MS DOS 7" does have support for LBA, though.

"Zounds good", also!

>> I believe the FreeDOS "main page" should be made a bit more ACCURATE!
>
> I agree!

AMAZING, you and I finally DO agree on something!   "Saints be praised"!

Jack R. Ellis

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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Eric Auer]

Hi, I have to follow-up myself on LZ-DOS:

> google translate of http://dos.nm.ru/ is only a kernel, freeware
> provided as-is by JSC. Can be used with the userspace tools and
> drivers of other DOS variants and generally sounds interesting.

...

> You mean LZ DOS is an improved rip of the MS DOS 7 kernel? Or
> is it just another DOS kernel which provides DOS 7.x compat?
> I would like to hear from other users what their experiences
> with LZ DOS are...

Unfortunately it is not improved at all: Somebody just took a
few components of MS DOS 7 and PC DOS 7 and REBRANDED and then
recompressed them. Not worth mentioning IMHO because everybody
who likes to ignore licenses can just as well download a grey
copy of the real MS DOS 7 or PC DOS 7 somewhere anyway.



Forum http://reboot.pro/topic/14520-lz-dos/ says, excerpted:

The file dates on LZ-DOS is 11/9/2003, which is identical to the build
date on pc-dos 7.10.0129 ...

we see a very close match between the two, to the point where the bulk
of the file is a light string hack (gsar -s"PC DOS" -r"LZ-DOS" -o
command.com), does most of the work.

you will indeed discover that the bulk of the differences between 1.29
command.com and lz-dos command.com lies entirely in PC DOS -> LZ-DOS,
and a few copyright strings. There is a single change of byte elsewhere
in the file (05 -> 06 or something).

... and only 4 CODE byte changes might offer any improvements ...

LZ's io.sys was compressed with apack.com.

See also: http://reboot.pro/topic/5497-ms-dos-71/ on how to
mix various commercial DOS variants into something useful to
those who are not looking at licenses.



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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Eric Auer]

Hi Jack,

> Note on the FreeDOS "main page" that there are comments about FreeDOS
> offering "LBA" large-disk capability (48-bit disk addressing, not 24-
> bit "CHS"), which MS-DOS did not have, and which the "main page" says
> was unavailable except with DOS Windows.

I think that FreeDOS should also be more "bit-exact" and mention
"(only 32 bit useable due to MBR partitioning schema limitations)"
along with the LBA48 comment. Might also create feedback from
people who want to help to implement or test GPT partitions :-)

>  From having written and tested UIDE, I know that "LZ-DOS" and Wengier
> Wu's V7.10 MS-DOS both use "LBA" disk addressing...

There is indeed a dilemma about whether to call MS DOS 7 a DOS
or not. AFAIK it was never available separately, so people only
could get it by buying Windows 9x, not as DOS. Wengier Wu's MS
DOS 7 variant has a licensing issue and LZ-DOS according to my
google translate of http://dos.nm.ru/ is only a kernel, freeware
provided as-is by JSC. Can be used with the userspace tools and
drivers of other DOS variants and generally sounds interesting.

> Luchezar Georgiev offered his multi-DOS "boot" diskette, which has an
> "LZ-DOS" option.   "LZ-DOS" is really V7.10 MS-DOS as a "VER" ...

You mean LZ DOS is an improved rip of the MS DOS 7 kernel? Or
is it just another DOS kernel which provides DOS 7.x compat?
I would like to hear from other users what their experiences
with LZ DOS are...

> I believe Lucho's or Wengier's V7.1 MS-DOS systems can still be down-
> loaded from Internet sources.   They are NOT "bundled" with Win/95 or
> any other DOS Windows system.   Lucho's and Wengier's systems provide
> an "independent" V7.1 MS-DOS, which is still very useful.

That is not a very good proof of MS DOS being available stand-alone.
Ignoring licenses, I could upload any arbitrary subset of files from
any commercial operating system and then claim that this subset is
available as individual operating system online... So while you are
correct - even Windows 9x provides a button to make a DOS boot disk
on floppy - that DOS 7.x CAN be installed separately, I would still
not advertise it as a recommended DOS-with-LBA on the FreeDOS page.

It would be fair to mention on our homepage that "the DOS subsystem
of Win 9x, also called MS DOS 7" does have support for LBA, though.

> I believe the FreeDOS "main page" should be made a bit more ACCURATE!

I agree!

Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.

[Dave Kerber]

It's really too bad, though,  that MS won't make it official and release
the MS-DOS source as public domain, or at least one of the various
open-source licenses.



> -Original Message-
> From: Jack [mailto:gykazequ...@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2013 3:51 PM
> To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: [Freedos-user] "LBA" And FreeDOS.
>
> Note on the FreeDOS "main page" that there are comments about FreeDOS
> offering "LBA" large-disk capability (48-bit disk addressing, not 24-
> bit "CHS"), which MS-DOS did not have, and which the "main page" says
> was unavailable except with DOS Windows.
>
> NOT quite true!
>

...

>
> "Pundits" can say, as they wish, that V6.22 MS-DOS is the last "true"
> DOS officially released by Microsoft, and that there may be licensing
> issues over using V7.0+ MS-DOS.   But, Microsoft has never gone-after
> V7.0+ MS-DOS providers, like I doubt they ever will.   "DOS is dead!"
> has been their position since at least 1995 (maybe even 1987, as that
> was when they began writing Windows/NT).   I and others who work with
> V7.0+ MS-DOS should have few worries about it, 18 or 26 years later.
>
> I believe the FreeDOS "main page" should be made a bit more ACCURATE!

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