Factoid: When MS-DOS 6.22 came out, there was no more "DOS-SHELL". When I saw this, I approached my instructor and said, "Hey Paul, y'know what? It looks to me like their trying to force everyone into using Windows....". His response? A bigass grin!
Fun fact: to this day FreeDOS still maintains some surprising compatibility with its distant roots in CP/M. E.g. in the 70's you could write an "hello world" COM program for CP/M running on a Z80 CPU by loading the offset of the string to print in register DE, then loading 9 in register C, calling the OS with "call 5" and finally exit the program with "ret". 50 years later in FreeDOS you can write a similar COM program by loading the offset of the string in register DX (as opposed to DE, because the CPU is different), loading 9 in CL, calling DOS with "call 5" and exit the program with "ret", just like in CP/M. In both OSes the string must be terminated with a "$" character. It's not the _recommended_ way to do it in FreeDOS but it's still supported. 😁
Also FCB's are part of CP/M legacy. You can still use them for file I/O although they pre-date directories so you can only select the device. (I've tested this using assembler)
I really miss DOS. The more Windows turns in to a SaaS system the more I seem to miss DOS and it's simplicity. Linux is nice and all but I just miss DOS and the old Turbo C/Pascal stuff along with other things.
I like DOS, but i do not miss it. Modern operating systems tend to be complex, but on the other side, they deliver so much more. Some Examples: - standardized Device Driver API layer. You do not need to write a device driver for your app just to be able to use a hardware, you use the API of the OS and if there is a driver for your device, your device will just work. - hardware can be shared between different apps. You want to play sound from 3 different apps at the same time? That's not a problem thanks to the software mixer of the OS. - Memory protection. An app that went amok can be terminated by the OS. - user access control and multi-user support. You want to let your kid play with your computer? Not a problem, you don't have to fear, that it deletes accidentally your office files. - extensive logging features. You want check and filter for an error? Not a problem with the logging capabilities of a modern OS. These are only a few examples DOS couldn't deliver in a serious way.
@@OpenGL4ever Since I am not into listening to different sound outputs simultaneously or having kids, your list has a hard time trying to sell me a modern os. ;-)
No need to miss it, just use it. As a hobbyist programmer, I find retro platforms very rewarding because a) they don't keep you from the basic understanding of computers by hiding everything behind a zillion abstraction layers, and b) they seem to become trendy again with the growing retro scenes and the availability of emulators for all modern platforms.
I still have an unopened copy of MS DOS 6.6 - waited long enough to not actually own anything that will read a disk. It’s gathering dust on my office shelf with a few other (relative) antiques. Sure miss the simplicity and raw speed of the DOS family. Still have a copy of Paradox somewhere too. A very under-appreciated database with its own language (PAL, later ObjectPAL). Thanks for the look back. Enjoy your videos.
Thanks for sharing that! Been a while since I used Paradox. And yes, I love the simplicity of running DOS. You can't get much closer to "running on metal" than DOS.
To me DOS 4.00 was the (beta) multitasking DOS that I was working on while sent to Bellevue by my employer, a French PC clone manufacturer. It was similar to Concurrent CP/M 86, with virtual consoles and real multitasking. It's never been released AFAIK. Its main drawback was that it was leaving less than 400K of RAM available to user programs. At that time, my company wanted to use it as the platform for a non-dedicated MS Networks file server. Only IBM had that, Microsoft's version available to OEMs was dedicated. The project was abandoned due to the memory issues and we developed our own TSR, INT24-based task dispatcher that allowed the file server to run in background under DOS 3.3 (much like the print spooler)
Glad you agree! Yes, there's a lot of power there. For a single-tasking command line operating system, DOS has a lot of flexibility. It's one reason I still like to use it.
who else remembers debugging msdos using edlin? I thought it was version 3.1 (around 1985?) that had a bunch of bugs we had to manually repair. One that (I think) I remember was that "echo on/off" behaved opposite than intended. Microsoft didn't send out a new set of floppies when a bug was discovered back then, they just published a few pages in a magazine with the steps required to correct them. Ahh yes. the good old days... I would really like to find more information about this particular situation.
I didn't use Edlin much at the time, but since Gregory Pietsch wrote FreeDOS Edlin, I really like using it. I've even compiled FreeDOS Edlin to run on my Linux box at home.
PIP in CP/M stood for “Peripheral Interchange Program“. I still have a working Heath H89 model microcomputer that runs CP/M using floppy discs. I have written quite a few software applications under CP/M in the 1980s, and we had the ability in those days even to patch the OS. The entire Heath H89 operates on only 64K ram. The CPU is a 2MHz Z80. But I can load and run, on that machine, a Fortran compiler, an MBasic compiler, a very good word processor. These utilities ran fast, because the code had to be concise. There was room for large documents, because they could be read and swapped in on the fly, from floppies.
My computer career started 30 years ago, in 93, when I took a vocational course in "Electronics and CPU Repair." (that's what it was called). I had "zero" computer knowledge when I started. All Pomona school district computers, came to our class for the instructor to repair. I would go up and ask him, 'whacha doin' Paul?'... he'd explain about whatever the current thing he was working on... at some point, I said "is that something I could do?"... and he said 'sure, here's what you do..." . And whoosh! I was on my way! after 3 months, a friend I met who was a former student that visited Paul, gave me a 286AT Kaypro 12mHz motherboard with no math co-processor. I took the motherboard to class next day, and said to Paul: "Hey Paul, look what I got!"... uhm,, what do I do next with it?" Paul pulled out a pen and a notepad, and we noted each item, I would need to complete the computer. He sent me to a mom and pop PC shop... where I got all the parts, I paid $5 for a brand new horizontal case with a power supply. So, after day three, and a dozen MFM drives later, I had a working computer! I was happy, and then several students approached me, from like, outta nowhere... and they were all like, 'man, you built that in 3 days...'. And I was like, 'hey, yeah, guess I did'. I was a single father with 4yo twins boy and girl. By the time they were 5 (in 1994) They had a 286AT, with a CGI (16 color) monitor. I created simple batch files, and the kid's would type "1" and "Mickey Mouse 123" would load. From there it was one great adventure after another, as PC boards got better, CPU's got faster. I had a few computer jobs, then went into business for myself for about 5 years, when I was forced to move and lost all my clientel. AT 50yo, a highschool and jr college dropout, I started attending college. Lasted 5 1/2 years before my health forced me to drop from college. I was 3 classes from graduation. But I took every single electronics class they offered just about, some twice because after 3 years, things changed, so there was new stuff to be learned. It was networking, electronics where you create projects and test them, then there were the Computer electronics classes, same location, just PC related. I'm grateful I was able to do go all those years, liked the Windows 10 Power Users class a lot. Nowadays, I just hangout with my big service dog and try to do this and that to keep busy.
Agree totally. DOS was just a tool to start your application (program.) Not sure if youtube scores it highly, but I would enjoy as much technical details as possible. A trip down memory lane of settings in the autoexec.bat file would be great... I remember having to manage memory and devices for each different application... that might require managing different autoexecs depending on which application needed what driver and in what configuration / location. Good Memories. =D of course, none of that is needed now.... what might be interesting, would be the origins of the various BIOS 'es I remember there being a war of sorts around it.
Thanks! One of my early channel videos was a walkthrough of FDCONFIG.SYS that you might like: ruclips.net/video/KQvJGoc-KfU/видео.html I also wrote a more detailed article about FDCONFIG.SYS for Opensource,com at: opensource.com/article/21/6/freedos-fdconfigsys
I would say : MS-DOS : Operating System minus Mouse MS-DOS : Prehistoric Operating System MS-DOS : when user commanded a computer MS-DOS : The gateway to Windows MS-DOS : A monochrome Operating System MS-DOS : when mouse was useless
Like the PC, the Atari 800 needed to load DOS before it could offer proper disk support. Atari DOS was quite competent considering it came out around 1980 with many third party DOSes appearing shortly afterward.
@@freedosproject thankyou n ill say this,from the on/off button to the keyboard buttons Everything looked n felt chunky strong,durable yet modern n with that great sound from the keystrokes just adding to the whole newness of computing.. I wish I had kept one now..
Nice but there are many more things I would note: for example you saw MWAV.exe, which the Windows version of Microsoft AntiVirus. It was actually the first time MS-DOS shipped WINDOWS programs (of course you would need Windows for that, so alone they were useless). DEFRAG was very interesting, as it was not licensed from CP like UNDELETE or MSAV, but rather from Symantec - it was Norton SpeedDisk 6 in a stripped down version. Also MS-DOS 6+ had hard disk compression, which was huge back in the days with small hard drives. MS-DOS 6 also had the option to define start up menus to load different CONFIG.SYS configurations, so you didn't need to swap it out and reboot or build DOS diskettes with special own CONFIG.SYS definitions just to load some specific game or application. Great way back in history :)
MS-DOS is written almost entirely in ASM. FreeDOS is written largely in C with a fair amount of ASM. The FreeDOS kernel is a lot of C plus some ASM, the "Base" utilities are a mix of C and ASM, but a lot of them written in in C.
I just found this. I also started with DOS 3.3. Threats to security and privacy made me long for those days when new technology was so exciting. Is it still possible to build a DOS pc? I do not want emulators and certainly no "calling home". No Internet necessary. Do you have some pointers?
Definitely still possible to build a DOS PC, but not on 2022 hardware. The most recent hardware doesn't provide a BIOS - and FreeDOS (and any DOS) requires a BIOS to run. So you'd have to get a PC that was a few years old and run that.
C/PM was influenced by TOPS-10. That’s the history of early operating systems, improving on something older. There was a time when Unix was thought to be the future….
FreeDOS and Windows 98 are the only OSs I have found so far that boot from my Compact Flash Card IDE adapter. I am also looking for an IDE adapter that will also run MS-DOS 6.22.
I have two bootable 2 gb USB sticks FAT16, one with MS DOS 6.22 and one with MS DOS 7.1(from Windows 98 SE) and i have two bootable CD-ROM El Torito with MS DOS 6.22, one with floppy emulation and one with hardrive emulation.
Ah, memories of EDLIN.. lovely editor; not fully WYSIWYG yet, but close 😜😜 But seriously: I actually liked MS-DOS, at least since version 3-ish 👍👍🦆🦆👍😜🏳️🌈👍
mkdir (md) didn’t exist until DOS 2 (being that v2 is when hard disk drives were finally supported in software and the 5160 XT supported them with beefier power supplies) After all, a bare bones 5150 came with 16KB and no floppy drive (no room for DOS). What did you do with such a system? Run “cassette BASIC” from ROM and save to. Cassette. The 5150 had a cassette port in back next to the keyboard port. Hook up a tv to a CGA cord (the 5153 CGA monitor won’t come out until 1983 .. I think when the 5160 XT comes out.. yeah there is a composite output for just this reason) and enjoy 40 columns of BASIC like an Atari 400/800 or an Apple ][Plus for example. Okay okay you spring for the whopper .. a SSDD floppy drive PC. SS (single sided?!?). Yes the DSDD would come later. Oh and you only got *8* sectors (512byte) per track so 160KB on the SSDD (and later 320KB on DSDD). Who need’s subdirectories? DOS 2 gave us 9 sectors floppy disks (180KB or 360KB) and mkdir (abbreviated “md”). But that was for the XT’s hard disk drive (okay the floppy supports directories too).
You can see BASIC and BASICA in the directory listing at 12:22 (third line, on the right). BASIC has always been part of DOS, in some form. Microsoft moved to QBASIC in MS-DOS 5, for example.
MS-DOS Shell lead to products from companies DeskMate from Tandy and GEM among others which lead to Windows/286 first real version of Windows As for the subdirectory: there was an artificial limit in early DOS of 255 files root (the only directory) MS DOS would crash if you got close to 255 files..even later versions had a limit for root of 255 (files + directories) unlimited in subdirectories.. useless information: inside MS in the early 1990's if you called the Disk Operating System DOS you had to pay a fine..you had to call it MS-DOS
DOS 1 and DOS 2 were fine for what they were, they were the earliest versions. You're right that DOS 4 was very unstable, fixed in 4.01. But MS-DOS 5 was great, I loved that version. It basically felt like a "rewrite" with the updated command line experience and new tools. I considered MS-DOS 6.x (at the time) to be incremental improvements on MS-DOS 5, although 6.x definitely had feature improvements over 5.
My new screen saver: in 2 batch files. @echo off REM *ScreS.bat* REM Save text screen to file. echo n SCREEN.SAV>tmp.deb echo rcx>>tmp.deb echo FA0>>tmp.deb echo rds>>tmp.deb echo B800>>tmp.deb echo wds:0>>tmp.deb echo q>>tmp.deb debugnul del tmp.deb @echo off REM *ScreL.bat* REM Load text screen from file. echo n SCREEN.SAV>tmp.deb echo rcx>>tmp.deb echo FA0>>tmp.deb echo rds>>tmp.deb echo B800>>tmp.deb echo lds:0>>tmp.deb echo q>>tmp.deb debugnul del tmp.deb
Factoid: When MS-DOS 6.22 came out, there was no more "DOS-SHELL". When I saw this, I approached my instructor and said, "Hey Paul, y'know what? It looks to me like their trying to force everyone into using Windows....". His response? A bigass grin!
Fun fact: to this day FreeDOS still maintains some surprising compatibility with its distant roots in CP/M.
E.g. in the 70's you could write an "hello world" COM program for CP/M running on a Z80 CPU by loading the offset of the string to print in register DE, then loading 9 in register C, calling the OS with "call 5" and finally exit the program with "ret".
50 years later in FreeDOS you can write a similar COM program by loading the offset of the string in register DX (as opposed to DE, because the CPU is different), loading 9 in CL, calling DOS with "call 5" and exit the program with "ret", just like in CP/M.
In both OSes the string must be terminated with a "$" character.
It's not the _recommended_ way to do it in FreeDOS but it's still supported. 😁
Also FCB's are part of CP/M legacy. You can still use them for file I/O although they pre-date directories so you can only select the device. (I've tested this using assembler)
@@firebladex8586 yep, FCBs can use any drive but in each drive they only see the current directory.
MS-DOS 5.0 was a game changer in 91! I love command line operating systems.
Really liked MS-DOS 5. For me, that was a *huge* step forward.
I really miss DOS. The more Windows turns in to a SaaS system the more I seem to miss DOS and it's simplicity. Linux is nice and all but I just miss DOS and the old Turbo C/Pascal stuff along with other things.
I like DOS, but i do not miss it. Modern operating systems tend to be complex, but on the other side, they deliver so much more.
Some Examples:
- standardized Device Driver API layer. You do not need to write a device driver for your app just to be able to use a hardware, you use the API of the OS and if there is a driver for your device, your device will just work.
- hardware can be shared between different apps. You want to play sound from 3 different apps at the same time? That's not a problem thanks to the software mixer of the OS.
- Memory protection. An app that went amok can be terminated by the OS.
- user access control and multi-user support. You want to let your kid play with your computer? Not a problem, you don't have to fear, that it deletes accidentally your office files.
- extensive logging features. You want check and filter for an error? Not a problem with the logging capabilities of a modern OS.
These are only a few examples DOS couldn't deliver in a serious way.
@@OpenGL4ever Since I am not into listening to different sound outputs simultaneously or having kids, your list has a hard time trying to sell me a modern os. ;-)
No need to miss it, just use it. As a hobbyist programmer, I find retro platforms very rewarding because a) they don't keep you from the basic understanding of computers by hiding everything behind a zillion abstraction layers, and b) they seem to become trendy again with the growing retro scenes and the availability of emulators for all modern platforms.
@@NuntiusLegis On a modern OS, i can hear podcasts while playing games and both use the soundcard.
@@OpenGL4ever I see. But with that approach, I see the danger of not taking games seriously enough and ending up wasting too much time in reality.
I still have an unopened copy of MS DOS 6.6 - waited long enough to not actually own anything that will read a disk. It’s gathering dust on my office shelf with a few other (relative) antiques. Sure miss the simplicity and raw speed of the DOS family.
Still have a copy of Paradox somewhere too. A very under-appreciated database with its own language (PAL, later ObjectPAL).
Thanks for the look back. Enjoy your videos.
Thanks for sharing that! Been a while since I used Paradox. And yes, I love the simplicity of running DOS. You can't get much closer to "running on metal" than DOS.
Thank you. Brought back many memories of my DOS days from the 80's and 90's. Fantastic. The good old days.
Glad you enjoyed it!
To me DOS 4.00 was the (beta) multitasking DOS that I was working on while sent to Bellevue by my employer, a French PC clone manufacturer. It was similar to Concurrent CP/M 86, with virtual consoles and real multitasking. It's never been released AFAIK. Its main drawback was that it was leaving less than 400K of RAM available to user programs. At that time, my company wanted to use it as the platform for a non-dedicated MS Networks file server. Only IBM had that, Microsoft's version available to OEMs was dedicated. The project was abandoned due to the memory issues and we developed our own TSR, INT24-based task dispatcher that allowed the file server to run in background under DOS 3.3 (much like the print spooler)
How did you connect the file server through DOS? Dial-up modem?
*DOS is much more powerful than people give credit for. There is a proper API underneath the very small layer of code
Glad you agree! Yes, there's a lot of power there. For a single-tasking command line operating system, DOS has a lot of flexibility. It's one reason I still like to use it.
who else remembers debugging msdos using edlin? I thought it was version 3.1 (around 1985?) that had a bunch of bugs we had to manually repair. One that (I think) I remember was that "echo on/off" behaved opposite than intended. Microsoft didn't send out a new set of floppies when a bug was discovered back then, they just published a few pages in a magazine with the steps required to correct them. Ahh yes. the good old days... I would really like to find more information about this particular situation.
I didn't use Edlin much at the time, but since Gregory Pietsch wrote FreeDOS Edlin, I really like using it. I've even compiled FreeDOS Edlin to run on my Linux box at home.
i feel old already, i enjoyed working and studying DOS in 1997,, was awesome time
That's awesome!
didnt ask
PIP in CP/M stood for “Peripheral Interchange Program“. I still have a working Heath H89 model microcomputer that runs CP/M using floppy discs. I have written quite a few software applications under CP/M in the 1980s, and we had the ability in those days even to patch the OS. The entire Heath H89 operates on only 64K ram. The CPU is a 2MHz Z80. But I can load and run, on that machine, a Fortran compiler, an MBasic compiler, a very good word processor. These utilities ran fast, because the code had to be concise. There was room for large documents, because they could be read and swapped in on the fly, from floppies.
My computer career started 30 years ago, in 93, when I took a vocational course in "Electronics and CPU Repair." (that's what it was called). I had "zero" computer knowledge when I started. All Pomona school district computers, came to our class for the instructor to repair. I would go up and ask him, 'whacha doin' Paul?'... he'd explain about whatever the current thing he was working on... at some point, I said "is that something I could do?"... and he said 'sure, here's what you do..." . And whoosh! I was on my way! after 3 months, a friend I met who was a former student that visited Paul, gave me a 286AT Kaypro 12mHz motherboard with no math co-processor. I took the motherboard to class next day, and said to Paul: "Hey Paul, look what I got!"... uhm,, what do I do next with it?" Paul pulled out a pen and a notepad, and we noted each item, I would need to complete the computer. He sent me to a mom and pop PC shop... where I got all the parts, I paid $5 for a brand new horizontal case with a power supply. So, after day three, and a dozen MFM drives later, I had a working computer! I was happy, and then several students approached me, from like, outta nowhere... and they were all like, 'man, you built that in 3 days...'. And I was like, 'hey, yeah, guess I did'. I was a single father with 4yo twins boy and girl. By the time they were 5 (in 1994) They had a 286AT, with a CGI (16 color) monitor. I created simple batch files, and the kid's would type "1" and "Mickey Mouse 123" would load. From there it was one great adventure after another, as PC boards got better, CPU's got faster. I had a few computer jobs, then went into business for myself for about 5 years, when I was forced to move and lost all my clientel. AT 50yo, a highschool and jr college dropout, I started attending college. Lasted 5 1/2 years before my health forced me to drop from college. I was 3 classes from graduation.
But I took every single electronics class they offered just about, some twice because after 3 years, things changed, so there was new stuff to be learned. It was networking, electronics where you create projects and test them, then there were the Computer electronics classes, same location, just PC related. I'm grateful I was able to do go all those years, liked the Windows 10 Power Users class a lot. Nowadays, I just hangout with my big service dog and try to do this and that to keep busy.
Absolutely fantastic video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
wow, just wow! Thank you for this.
Glad you liked it!
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
What a great video. These were exciting times.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Here's to 40yrs 🍻🥂
Watching, Yet Again LOL
Excellent Video Sir
Agree totally. DOS was just a tool to start your application (program.) Not sure if youtube scores it highly, but I would enjoy as much technical details as possible. A trip down memory lane of settings in the autoexec.bat file would be great... I remember having to manage memory and devices for each different application... that might require managing different autoexecs depending on which application needed what driver and in what configuration / location. Good Memories. =D of course, none of that is needed now.... what might be interesting, would be the origins of the various BIOS 'es I remember there being a war of sorts around it.
Thanks! One of my early channel videos was a walkthrough of FDCONFIG.SYS that you might like: ruclips.net/video/KQvJGoc-KfU/видео.html
I also wrote a more detailed article about FDCONFIG.SYS for Opensource,com at: opensource.com/article/21/6/freedos-fdconfigsys
With a more clickbaity title and descriptoin, this vid would get tens of thousands of views. People love this kind of stuff.
I'm up for that. What title & description would you suggest?
I would say : MS-DOS : Operating System minus Mouse
MS-DOS : Prehistoric Operating System
MS-DOS : when user commanded a computer
MS-DOS : The gateway to Windows
MS-DOS : A monochrome Operating System
MS-DOS : when mouse was useless
@@freedosproject I guess it's not even clickbait, maybe just something like "Evolution of MS-DOS 1981 to 2020"
@@freedosproject judging from clickbait I’ve seen, maybe something like “This is the line of code that KILLED MS-DOS FOREVER!!!”
I love DOS. I love tweaking it. I love BASIC. I love BBS's. Okay, I'm a geek.
I love DOS too. And that's why we're here! :-)
There were other computers running a disk operating system. TRSDOS comes to mind as does other flavors used with Radio shack computers.
Like the PC, the Atari 800 needed to load DOS before it could offer proper disk support. Atari DOS was quite competent considering it came out around 1980 with many third party DOSes appearing shortly afterward.
I worked at Kalamazoo UK n we sold IBM PS2 model 30 with 1up software on DOS.. in 1988...
Very cool!
@@freedosproject thankyou n ill say this,from the on/off button to the keyboard buttons Everything looked n felt chunky strong,durable yet modern n with that great sound from the keystrokes just adding to the whole newness of computing.. I wish I had kept one now..
Really enjoyed this (trip down memory lane)
Glad you enjoyed it! 😎
I actually got to see, a computer with MS-DOS 3.0 installed.
There were 17 files.
Nice but there are many more things I would note: for example you saw MWAV.exe, which the Windows version of Microsoft AntiVirus. It was actually the first time MS-DOS shipped WINDOWS programs (of course you would need Windows for that, so alone they were useless). DEFRAG was very interesting, as it was not licensed from CP like UNDELETE or MSAV, but rather from Symantec - it was Norton SpeedDisk 6 in a stripped down version. Also MS-DOS 6+ had hard disk compression, which was huge back in the days with small hard drives. MS-DOS 6 also had the option to define start up menus to load different CONFIG.SYS configurations, so you didn't need to swap it out and reboot or build DOS diskettes with special own CONFIG.SYS definitions just to load some specific game or application.
Great way back in history :)
Dos is amazing
Flex, 68/DOS, and several others were out there too for 8080 and Z80 based systems.
Well, it's a 35 minute video already. I needed to focus it down somewhere. ☺
Very informative , whole lotta thanks for the post tbh
Glad you enjoyed!
19:30 I think back then you needed to press either the Break key or Ctrl + Break to stop the program and the infinite loop.
Yes, you would have needed to do ctrl+break to exit out of that. But I planned the demo so it was my last thing on that before I switched anyway. 😀
absolute best explaining thanks question please what languages isDOS and CPM written in .. ? assembler or c ...??
MS-DOS is written almost entirely in ASM. FreeDOS is written largely in C with a fair amount of ASM. The FreeDOS kernel is a lot of C plus some ASM, the "Base" utilities are a mix of C and ASM, but a lot of them written in in C.
DR-DOS 3.?? was my first OS i used, it shipped with my first PC. Later i switched to MS-DOS 6.20 when it was available.
I used one version of DR-DOS, but I don't recall the version. I know it had GEM ("Viewmax") in it. Wikipedia says this was DR-DOS 5.
@@freedosproject It must be 5 or later. I didn't have GEM in DR-DOS 3.x
First. Dos was (is) great.
Yes it was!
First thing I studied in late 80's. You could do nothing without a good working knowledge of DOS.
I just found this. I also started with DOS 3.3. Threats to security and privacy made me long for those days when new technology was so exciting. Is it still possible to build a DOS pc? I do not want emulators and certainly no "calling home". No Internet necessary. Do you have some pointers?
Definitely still possible to build a DOS PC, but not on 2022 hardware. The most recent hardware doesn't provide a BIOS - and FreeDOS (and any DOS) requires a BIOS to run. So you'd have to get a PC that was a few years old and run that.
So if I understand it correctly, hard disk drive wasn't available in DOS until version 5? Up to version 4, it was only bootable from floppy disk?
No, PC-DOS 2 supported a hard drive. But you've always been able to boot DOS from a floppy.
i want it back
That's why we have FreeDOS! 😀
C/PM was influenced by TOPS-10. That’s the history of early operating systems, improving on something older.
There was a time when Unix was thought to be the future….
Very interesting video! Could you make a video demonstrating dos computer viruses?
Hmm... not my specialty, but maybe I can do something on this.
@@freedosproject Thanks! Would be nice!
IBM PC 40th anniversary tommorow!
MS DOS 5 starts with many good software interrupts.
MS-DOS 5 was a great update to DOS!
FreeDOS and Windows 98 are the only OSs I have found so far that boot from my Compact Flash Card IDE adapter. I am also looking for an IDE adapter that will also run MS-DOS 6.22.
I have two bootable 2 gb USB sticks FAT16, one with MS DOS 6.22 and one with MS DOS 7.1(from Windows 98 SE) and i have two bootable CD-ROM El Torito with MS DOS 6.22, one with floppy emulation and one with hardrive emulation.
@@maxmuster7003 Cool. Sadly the board I am using doesn't support booting from USB. Only IDE drives.
PIP stands for Peripheral Interchange Program.
How win zip affect floating point calculations
If i make empty shell of zip matrix can it self works
5:30 wouldn't it have been dir -w back then if it existed?
PIP = Peripheral Interchange Protocol?
I had to look it up: PIP = Peripheral Interchange Program.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_Interchange_Program
@@freedosproject I was close.
how your mic is really cutting out here, you might want to increase your gain next video, just some constructive criticism.
That video is two years old. I hope my sound has improved since then. Check out some of our more recent videos.
PIP Peripheral Interchange Program
Ah, memories of EDLIN.. lovely editor; not fully WYSIWYG yet, but close 😜😜
But seriously: I actually liked MS-DOS, at least since version 3-ish
👍👍🦆🦆👍😜🏳️🌈👍
I actually use the FreeDOS Edlin to edit files sometimes .. it's great for a quick edit. I also use it on Linux (yes, it compiles fine on Linux).
mkdir (md) didn’t exist until DOS 2 (being that v2 is when hard disk drives were finally supported in software and the 5160 XT supported them with beefier power supplies)
After all, a bare bones 5150 came with 16KB and no floppy drive (no room for DOS). What did you do with such a system? Run “cassette BASIC” from ROM and save to. Cassette. The 5150 had a cassette port in back next to the keyboard port. Hook up a tv to a CGA cord (the 5153 CGA monitor won’t come out until 1983 .. I think when the 5160 XT comes out.. yeah there is a composite output for just this reason) and enjoy 40 columns of BASIC like an Atari 400/800 or an Apple ][Plus for example.
Okay okay you spring for the whopper .. a SSDD floppy drive PC. SS (single sided?!?). Yes the DSDD would come later. Oh and you only got *8* sectors (512byte) per track so 160KB on the SSDD (and later 320KB on DSDD).
Who need’s subdirectories?
DOS 2 gave us 9 sectors floppy disks (180KB or 360KB) and mkdir (abbreviated “md”). But that was for the XT’s hard disk drive (okay the floppy supports directories too).
PIP=Peripheral Interchange Program
Did MS-DOS 3.0 lack BACIS?
You can see BASIC and BASICA in the directory listing at 12:22 (third line, on the right). BASIC has always been part of DOS, in some form. Microsoft moved to QBASIC in MS-DOS 5, for example.
How do you like Silicon Graphics?
I never used IRIX, sorry.
@@freedosproject No problem. Any consoles?
Wikipedia references motorola dos. Any relation?
I never used Motorola DOS, so I don't know.
MS-DOS Shell lead to products from companies DeskMate from Tandy and GEM among others which lead to Windows/286 first real version of Windows
As for the subdirectory: there was an artificial limit in early DOS of 255 files root (the only directory) MS DOS would crash if you got close to 255 files..even later versions had a limit for root of 255 (files + directories) unlimited in subdirectories..
useless information: inside MS in the early 1990's if you called the Disk Operating System DOS you had to pay a fine..you had to call it MS-DOS
The worst thing about DOS: "Bad command or filename".
AFAIR the only versions I remember 3.3 and 6.22 /*and then 7.10 with Windows95 :D */ everything else was not stable/popular...
DOS 1 and DOS 2 were fine for what they were, they were the earliest versions. You're right that DOS 4 was very unstable, fixed in 4.01.
But MS-DOS 5 was great, I loved that version. It basically felt like a "rewrite" with the updated command line experience and new tools. I considered MS-DOS 6.x (at the time) to be incremental improvements on MS-DOS 5, although 6.x definitely had feature improvements over 5.
If just zip as node can router hard coded as zip
😅pip = peripheral interchange program
Hii
File system is can ftp pip network
My new screen saver: in 2 batch files.
@echo off
REM *ScreS.bat*
REM Save text screen to file.
echo n SCREEN.SAV>tmp.deb
echo rcx>>tmp.deb
echo FA0>>tmp.deb
echo rds>>tmp.deb
echo B800>>tmp.deb
echo wds:0>>tmp.deb
echo q>>tmp.deb
debugnul
del tmp.deb
@echo off
REM *ScreL.bat*
REM Load text screen from file.
echo n SCREEN.SAV>tmp.deb
echo rcx>>tmp.deb
echo FA0>>tmp.deb
echo rds>>tmp.deb
echo B800>>tmp.deb
echo lds:0>>tmp.deb
echo q>>tmp.deb
debugnul
del tmp.deb
Well i always thinked internet explorer was a great idea. no matter what you think about it.
Very informative , whole lotta thanks for the post tbh
Glad it was helpful!