is freedos compatible with all hardware regular DOS is supported by?

[Ashleyyyy]

i have a 90's pc with the following specs:

Pentium MMX

16mb ram

1mb gpu (dunno which one)

40GB hdd. 

 

i want to put DOS on it, but old install disks for that are really rare. 

can i use freedos on it? will that work? 

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

can i use freedos on it? will that work? 

Almost certainly, yes.

[Ashleyyyy]

2 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Almost certainly, yes.

nice. how can i install it? just burn something to a cd?

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

nice. how can i install it? just burn something to a cd?

You can install it from a CD, USB or floppy, so there are several options. Just visit http://www.freedos.org/download/ and read the "How to install" - page, if you're unsure; it's all explained well enough there.

[Ashleyyyy]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

You can install it from a CD, USB or floppy, so there are several options. Just visit http://www.freedos.org/download/ and read the "How to install" - page, if you're unsure; it's all explained well enough there.

nice, thanks a lot  

[Bananasplit_00]

i can see MS programs throwing those random erros they implemented to make people buy MSDos but everything should work

[zombienerd]

You can get the original MS-DOS install disks from winworldpc.  They're considered abandonware now.

 

You can use a USB Floppy drive on your modern PC to write the disk images to the floppies.

 

If you have any questions about your vintage stuff, PM me any time, I love to talk 90's PC stuff (see my signature for my "Good" classic gear)

 

https://winworldpc.com/product/ms-dos/622

[WereCatf]

@zombienerd Do my eyes deceive me, or is that a PS/2 in your avatar? Certainly looks a lot like what I had as a kid.

[Ashleyyyy]

@zombienerd isn't using those abandonware site's still technically piracy? 

[zombienerd]

Just now, firelighter487 said:

@zombienerd isn't using those abandonware site's still technically piracy? 

I wouldn't think so, they operate in a legal gray area, but I know that Winworld PC has worked with Microsoft before and operates with (if not permission) agnosticism about it.

 

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

@zombienerd Do my eyes deceive me, or is that a PS/2 in your avatar? Certainly looks a lot like what I had as a kid.

Yes.  PS/2 Model 25 - MGCA color.

[Ashleyyyy]

@zombienerd well i dunno... i don't want to do piracy at all so i won't risk it. 

[zombienerd]

2 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

@zombienerd well i dunno... i don't want to do piracy at all so i won't risk it. 

Quote

Library content (downloads)

Under most interpretations of international copyright law, the distribution of abandonware sits squarely in a legal grey-area. Copyright is retained by the original publisher or a licensed distributor unless explicitly stated. WinWorld provides no warranties or guarantees of any kind using software obtained from our library.

For acceptance into our software library, a software title must meet our strict criteria for abandonware or pre-release software. For us to consider a software title 'abandonware', it must have an initial release date no later than January 1, 2001 and no longer being sold or supported by the original publisher or a licensed distributor. Pre-release software (alpha and beta releases) are subject to a more flexible criteria and ultimately the discretion of the WinWorld team.

If you are the legal copyright holder of a title hosted in our library and wish to have it removed, please see the DMCA section of our Contact page.

 

[Ashleyyyy]

@zombienerd i don't want to do something if it's in a legal grey area. please understand that. 

[zombienerd]

9 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

@zombienerd Do my eyes deceive me, or is that a PS/2 in your avatar? Certainly looks a lot like what I had as a kid.

 

[zombienerd]

2 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

@zombienerd i don't want to do something if it's in a legal grey area. please understand that. 

Well, when people are discussing abandonware sites on Microsoft's technet forums and MS employees are pointing people to them, it seems the gray area is pretty much in the "You're good to go" category lol...

 

However, if you want legit MS-DOS, and you want to be 100% legal under any question - you can find original disk sets on eBay, and that is 100% legal.

[WereCatf]

@zombienerd Aye, looks to be in pretty good shape, too! At least in the picture there doesn't appear to be much yellowing of the plastic or anything. Nice one. I had the PS/2 model 30, myself, with a VGA-display and all, back when. Lost it in a housefire, tho..

[Guest]

https://github.com/Microsoft/MS-DOS

They got the source code in here, so abandonware or not, you could compile it by yourself (I don't know how) 

(They have also the binaries in here)

Edited January 12, 2019 by Guest

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, Lukyp said:

https://github.com/Microsoft/MS-DOS

They got the source code in here, so abandonware or not, you could compile it by yourself

(They have also the binaries in here)

I totes forgot about that! It's all licensed under the MIT-license, which means it's not even abandonware, but actual open-source now. That means it's perfectly legal to grab the whole thing there, including the binaries, and do whatever one likes with it. I often use the MIT-license myself.

[zombienerd]

14 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

I totes forgot about that! It's all licensed under the MIT-license, which means it's not even abandonware, but actual open-source now. That means it's perfectly legal to grab the whole thing there, including the binaries, and do whatever one likes with it. I often use the MIT-license myself.

Remember that's only for MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0.  Meant for 8088 / 8086 class of CPU's.  It would be missing all the utilities and capabilities that DOS 5.0+ would have, which you would really need for your Pentium-era machine.

 

For a pentium class box, you'd really want DOS 6.22 or Windows 95 (Dos 7.0/7.1)

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

I totes forgot about that! It's all licensed under the MIT-license, which means it's not even abandonware, but actual open-source now. That means it's perfectly legal to grab the whole thing there, including the binaries, and do whatever one likes with it. I often use the MIT-license myself.

Yup even if thats the 2.0 version, you could download every 2.0 binaries you may find on the internet without issues theoretically, don't know about the 3.0

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, zombienerd said:

Remember that's only for MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0.  Meant for 8088 / 8086 class of CPU's.  It would be missing all the utilities and capabilities that DOS 5.0+ would have, which you would really need for your Pentium-era machine.

 

Oh I was slowpoke, just for a second