The FreeDOS Project / is on Nostr

FreeDOS is an open source DOS-compatible operating system that you can use to play classic DOS games, run legacy business software, or develop embedded systems. Any program that works on MS-DOS should also run on FreeDOS.

Website: https://www.freedos.org/

Last Notes

2024-11-03 13:38:04

What are your plans for #DOScember in December?
I'm planning to write some articles about the cool stuff you can find in FreeDOS, to run on different websites like ATO and Both.org
I'd love to make a DOS game but (1) game dev isn't really my strength area, and (2) I don't know what genre of game I'd write that doesn't already exist on DOS. DOS has a lot of games. 😃

2024-10-09 08:13:12

Are you working on an open source DOS application?
Are you porting open source tools to DOS?
Join our FreeDOS developer email list and share your announcements! We have lots of FreeDOS folks who'd like to know what you're up to, and might want to contribute.
https://www.freedos.org/forums/

2024-09-25 11:45:22

If you missed my talk at #Nerdearla yesterday, here's a link to the video:
https://youtu.be/czMxt-wW_Y0
In English with a brief intro in (my very rusty) Spanish, plus Spanish subtitles.

2024-09-19 10:30:50

- reply

The interview will be in English and recorded via Zoom.
Like last year, I'll write an article that summarizes main points from the roundtable, but I'll also show the video so people can hear directly from the open source folks.
Topics to include: how to contribute (writing, editing, ..), what kinds of contributions (man pages, how-tos, readme, ..), what skills you should have (markdown, latex, groff, GitHub, ..) and how to connect/get started.

2024-09-19 09:47:46

LOOKING FOR OPEN SOURCE PROJECT MAINTAINERS for a roundtable discussion about how to help with documentation in open source projects. I'd run the roundtable as part of an article around Oct 20, like this one from last year:
https://technicallywewrite.com/2023/10/20/roundtable
This roundtable will be maybe 20-30 mins. Open to large and small open source projects, well-known or obscure, even single-developer projects
Email me at jhall @ freedos . org if you are interested.
PLEASE SHARE!

2024-09-07 08:51:08

Every time I’ve learned about a new programming language, I practice by writing a simple game, like a number guessing game:
https://www.both.org/?p=7446
*You should be able to use any of the C compilers that we include in the FreeDOS distribution.

2024-09-06 18:34:10

It's hard to imagine how slow the old modems were, like 150 baud or 300 or 1200 (I used them all!)
In this week's video, here's a way to simulate those slower speeds on Linux:
https://youtu.be/gmP3nN3iOSo
*And yes, the videos are back! 😃

2024-09-05 11:53:35

Edlin is a classic editor from the early DOS days, but it’s still a fun and useful editor. Here's a hands-on intro to editing with Edlin:
https://www.both.org/?p=7385
I use Edlin when I want to write something quickly, like a test program or a brief note.
Edlin is also very useful if you want to capture some commands into a FreeDOS batch file— you can write the new batch file while any commands you ran are still visible on the screen.

2024-09-03 21:26:47

FYI: I'm doing a presentation about FreeDOS at Nerdearla in a few weeks. My presentation is entirely remote; I'm not actually there. 😃
Tuesday, Sept 24. 16:50 - 17:25 Argentina Time.
https://nerdear.la/en/agenda/

2024-08-10 10:58:36

FreeDOS includes the Openwatcom FORTRAN 77 compiler, as part of the developer tools.
If you've ever wanted to explore FORTRAN programming, here's a primer I wrote:
https://www.both.org/?p=6923
It's an intro to the language—and while it doesn't cover everything, you can use this to write useful programs right away.
And it's a good jumping off point to learn more about FORTRAN on your own.

2024-08-09 09:22:55

If you're interested in converting old WordStar tiles, here's an article that shows how to convert the direct formative and content to HTML:
https://www.both.org/?p=6898
This doesn't do anything with the dot commands, but at least this gives a starting point if you want to do that too.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/112/931/331/615/601/144/original/388b5d85d7ac207b.png

2024-07-31 10:27:16

ICYMI
LWN required registration to read this article about FreeDOS at 30 years. Thanks to LWN for opening up this article to everyone:
https://lwn.net/Articles/979780/

2024-06-26 09:31:46

If you ever used the WordStar word processor on DOS, this article does a deep dive into how the file format works. Includes a program that examines several WordStar files.
https://technicallywewrite.com/2024/06/26/wordstarfiles