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
