Hello. I used to be a caldera dr-dos user who merely disliked windows.
Then came the day when some class I was taking required something that only
ran in windows. I didn't know that the windows option to dual boot with the
pre-existing dos only applied to MS-dos, and would trash my DR-dos
install... That's when I began to regard MS as an enemy.
In the meantime I discovered Linux and currently multi-boot several Linux
distros along with WinXP on my Desktop.
I also have an old Toshiba Satalite Laptop on which I had only Bodhi Linux
until recently when I found an old catch of dos floppies with some games
and stuff I hadn't seen in years. That's when I realized that the old
Toshiba actually had a floppy drive in it... So I dug up my old Caldera
DR-dos installation CD. But it wouldn't boot... Then I dug really hard in
my old floppy stash until I found my MS-dos 6 installation set...
Wouldn't you know it, command.com was corrupt And all the bootable msdos
floppies I could find were ver 6.2... Which isn't compatible enough with
6.0 to run the install...
Then I googled dos for the first time in years and found FreeDOS 1.1
I used Gparted to shrink the Bodhi partition and add a a fat32 partition.
The FreeDos installation took a longish time to install command.com, but
the rest of the files processed somewhat faster. Unfortunately when I got
to the end I made the mistake of selecting to install and configure the
syslinux bootloader and the installer crashed... At that point I was
pleased to find that bodhi Linuxes grub was still set-up in the MBR.
But I wasn't able to chainload the FreeDOS partition.
I wound up having to reinstall FreeDos from scratch just to get a chance to
use choice the default boot loader choice { # 1 }. At this point I was
surprised to find that my existing grub was still setup in the MBR. But
this time I could chain load it. What I would have done if I hadn't had
grub to start it with I have no idea. But it worked...
And so I decided to make room for a fat32 partition on my AMD 64 )HP
pavilion) desktop. And was able to add FreeDOS to the desktop on the first
try. Again I had yo chainload it from my existing grub, But as it happens I
prefer it that way anyway so I'm happy.
My biggest problem with it, I think, will be that I've been using the Linux
command line and shells for so long now that I forget most of the dos stuff I
used to know. But given time, I think most of it will come back to me. I
haven't had the time to actually try those old games yet. But I expect to have
some fun. Most likely they will run too fast for me to actually play. Even on
the old Toshiba. {One of the old dos toys I found was called parascan which
used to spend about 3 minutes pretending to search for, find and destroy
several humorous virus before exiting with a promise to write more virus...
Well it took about 10 seconds to whip through it all so fast I couldn't read
the jokes...}
I don't suppose there is a way to tell FreeDOS to execute something more
slowly???
--
| ~^~ ~^~
| <?> <?> Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
| ^ J(tWdy)P
| \___/ <<jtw...@ttlc.net>>
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