Joakim wrote on 2022-08-16, 14:47:
What build do you have and what gap does it fill for you except curiousity? I would like to try at some point but o need some motivation. 😀
It's a Pentium MMX build:
-V72MA Motherboard (Ali M1542 chipset)
-Pentium MMX 200Mhz
-RAM 64MB PC 100
- VGA (offboard) Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 2Mb PCI
-VGA (onboard) ATI Rage PRO Turbo 8mb AGP
-Aztech 6800w ISA (This is a sound card + modem combo), uses the AZT 2320 chip for audio.
-20GB HDD
For this machine in particular, I wanted it to be pure DOS, yet It was kind of weird for me to install DOS 6 as it does not support FAT32 (I could either waste most of the 20GB hard drive, or have many 2GB partitions), but it was also weird to install DOS7 as it kind of forces me to install Windows as well (yes, one can create a stripped version of it, but for me this is even weirder than just installing Windows). So to build the true "windows free" PC I wanted to play DOS games, Freedos 1.3 was the best choice even considering it's compatibility issues.
For me, Freedos is ideal for those who have a very old system but don't want to resort to using pirated versions of MS-DOS/Win9x, buying second hand copies to stay legit, or simply don't like the fact that Microsoft refuses to let go of their long abandoned products. Aside from moral questions, Freedos is free and open source, meaning anyone can see what it does and fix potential issues, so in the long run compatibility will improve as it did between 1.2 and 1.3.
The installation CD also comes with very useful utilities like MTCP which allows you to create an FTP server using your old PC. With this I can easily download and upload files to it, from my modern PC or even my smartphone. I know all those utilities can be copied and run from regular DOS as well, but Freedos comes with all that included on its installation CD and you can easily install/uninstall them via its package manager (a bit Linuxsy, I know, but I like it).
Another gap I think is of retro developers, it's much better to develop any new DOS app or game using Freedos as its source code is available and you can see exactly how it works internally.
LO-RES, HI-FUN
My DOS/ Win98 PC specs
EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD