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Using DOS Only - Anyone here do that?

natcha

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Messages
195
Today, ARS Technical posted a couple articles about using DOS only. Of course he did it only for one day.

Has anyone here attempted to use DOS only? And how did it workout for you and how long did you do it?

Following are links to the two articles:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/dos-boot-ars-spends-a-day-working-in-freedos/

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/back-to-the-future-a-visual-tour-of-my-day-in-freedos/

Edit: Sorry for title - I meant "Using DOS only....". I can't find anyway to edit the title.


Bill
Smithville, NJ
 
Yeah, I do a lot of work in DOS, particularly DOS with a DPMI server. You're nice and close to the hardware and things happen in realtime. Good command-line utilities are hard to beat.

Internet stuff, of course, is *nix. I have the occasional Windows-only application and I run that in a Virtualbox session with XP.

Some things, such as handling images and manipulation of text (e.g. PDF) is, of course, better done in *nix or (gasp) Windows.

You pick the tools that work best. I've been known to haul out an old CP/M program to do something.
 
The author's selection of programs is era-appropriate, except for the Internet programs. While his choice of internet programs is kind of limited by necessity to modern programs, his choice of operating system is less defensible. An era-appropriate DOS would tend to culminate in DOS 6.22.
 
I use DOS daily and that machine is on the network so I can easily move files around and connect with SSH from there as well. I do much of my writing, miscellaneous information (ideas mostly) management, store personal and banking information, appointments, phone book, and more. I'm still thinking of moving my e-mail management back to the DOS system. Nothing in Linux and FreeBSD can really compete for these purposes. The only competition is for those who prefer fancy pictures, slow response, and lack of personal control. Apparently there are many in that category - though I do understand why a younger person wouldn't want to go through the learning curve. Yes, I'm passionate about DOS. :)

Incidentally, to find other DOS-only people, chat with some folks on Fidonet.

A little while ago I used DOS almost exclusively for several months because my main machine (and its standby mate) broke. I guess it's because I started on DOS, but I have yet to encounter an environment that I find equally comfortable. There is an earlier thread where I mentioned my recent DOS-only adventure. The reality is that DOS is still a viable OS. It is far from deprecated.

Most of us are very tied into contemporary internet functions, particularly a graphical browser. I don't find Arachne to be very functional any more and don't like to have a mouse on my DOS box either. However, for information gathering Lynx is very good and I found that I could Google to my heart's content with that just fine.

Yeah, I do a lot of work in DOS, particularly DOS with a DPMI server. You're nice and close to the hardware and things happen in realtime. Good command-line utilities are hard to beat.

I'm with you there. Those utilites are hard to beat. In fact I haven't found *.nix to be up to the same polished level of convenience - despite it being much more powerful.
 
DOS only? No. I need the KERNAL routines to access the DOS. And as much as I despise BASIC, I seem to use that a lot as an interface to the KERNAL...

Did you mean MS-DOS? Or one of the other DOSses?
 
The author's selection of programs is era-appropriate, except for the Internet programs. While his choice of internet programs is kind of limited by necessity to modern programs, his choice of operating system is less defensible. An era-appropriate DOS would tend to culminate in DOS 6.22.

That would have defeated the point of the article, which was to celebrate 20 years of FreeDOS: James Hall started the project on June 28, 1994 with a post on comp.os.msdos.apps.
 
I dought the author used an older box at all looking at some of the "screen shots" And
I bet he wouldn't be able to use the default freedos kernal on a PCJr.
Cudos to the developers/community sticking with it though.
 
Last edited:
Why, DOS/360 of course!

What else did you think? :)

Perhaps DOS/365, the new cloud version. No?

Caluser2000 said:
Cudos to the developers/community sticking with it though.

Indeed, we shouln't belittle what is obviously a gallant effort. Still, there are old boneheads out there who stick with it and don't run away - probably because from their point of view, there's nowhere to run. I think the author should have mentioned that DOS is not obsolete in some (small) corners of the world. Without that, the article gives the wrong impression.
 
The FreeDOS kernel does not run on a PCjr yet but it is not a difficult project. Most people not familiar with them assume that they can run everything an IBM PC does; it is not an unforgivable mistake given how much does work.

The Ars article was nicely timed ... The PCjr web server was taken down for a few minutes of maintenance after 240 hours of runtime and it is currently at 154 hours of runtime. I knew somebody linked to it when the traffic yesterday tripled.

Current stats can be found here: http://67.185.176.54:8088/proc/Status
 
Did you mean MS-DOS? Or one of the other DOSses?

I guess I should have said MS-DOS and their variations.

I still play a lot with MS-DOS since I use a HP Omnibook 430 for transferring files to my Sharp PC-1600.
I use DOSBox a lot on my PC for running some emulators and some old programs that only work in MS-DOS.

I have FreeDos running in a VirtualBox machine.

And I have DosBox running on my Android Phone and Tablet.

Bill
Smithville, NJ
 
I would gladly use DOS only if there was fresh new useful DOS softwares that could replace the ones we use today. Like Mail, Internet, some sort of chat softwares, and some new made ISA network cards compatible with the speed of your connection. And a cheaper solution for storage files when the disks we use todays is up to 32 years old (thats what i call quality!)
 
I still use the late Vernon Buerg's LIST on a daily basis... although these days, from within Windows.

I use several other command line utilities as well, although they are Win32 programs, so even though they don't use the Windows GUI, they can't run on plain 16-bit DOS.
 
Well, if your hardware (386+) can handle it, have you tried HXRT? It works pretty well for command-line Win32 utilities. I compile and run 32-bit Win32 programs using 32-bit MSC++ with no hiccups. There's a lot of stuff it won't run, but it's not bad for quick low-overhead solution. If you're not running with long filename support, DOSLFN can improve that also.

Although I run WINE on Linux, I find that DOSEMU with HXRT works better for mixed 16/32 bit applications. In a pinch, I can also boot WinXP, etc. using VirtualBox. That gives me capability for Linux/Windows and DOS all with the same machine.
 
Kudos to vwestlife and Stone for still using list!


I would gladly use DOS only if there was fresh new useful DOS softwares that could replace the ones we use today. Like Mail, Internet, some sort of chat softwares, and some new made ISA network cards compatible with the speed of your connection. And a cheaper solution for storage files when the disks we use todays is up to 32 years old (thats what i call quality!)

I don't know why you'd need "new". Mail and internet are functional on the "old" DOS. I've presented links to several very small DOS mail transport agents here in the past and there are two stacks available to use. Older cards are still functional (ISA or PCI). The speed is not an issue for text based communication. As for chat, since ICQ is a gonner, I guess you're stuck with IRC but there are a number of excellent programs available. That said, for practical functionality you do need "new" in as much as a 386 is needed for some things. :)
 
Kudos to vwestlife and Stone for still using list!




I don't know why you'd need "new". Mail and internet are functional on the "old" DOS. I've presented links to several very small DOS mail transport agents here in the past and there are two stacks available to use. Older cards are still functional (ISA or PCI). The speed is not an issue for text based communication. As for chat, since ICQ is a gonner, I guess you're stuck with IRC but there are a number of excellent programs available. That said, for practical functionality you do need "new" in as much as a 386 is needed for some things. :)

When i say "new" i mean updated softwares with some more/better/simpler functions. And wouldnt it be great to have a ISA network card that can handle 100/100? And IRC aint to bad to use, but i meant a chat like yahoo or the old msn/skype so you can add friends to a list or what ever with a simple but nice GUI :)
 
When i say "new" i mean updated softwares with some more/better/simpler functions. And wouldnt it be great to have a ISA network card that can handle 100/100? And IRC aint to bad to use, but i meant a chat like yahoo or the old msn/skype so you can add friends to a list or what ever with a simple but nice GUI :)
All this talking about getting new DOS software that has a simple but nice GUI , etc., ... Have you heard about or tried this newfangled thing called... Windows? :) :) :)
 
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