Hi, On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 8:24 PM, <cordat...@aol.com> wrote: > > The talk about different versions of DOS reminds me that I've been doing > research recently about which DOS operating systems are available. > > Here is how I see it: > > FreeDOS > MS-DOS 6.22 > Win9x (MS-DOS 7.1) > DR-DOS 7.03 > Enhanced DR-DOS > Datalight ROM-DOS > PTS-DOS / PTS-DOS 32 > > I suppose there are a couple of other DOS OS available, > but I'm not sure those are worth investigating. > > Any comments?
If you need DOS for some specific application, whichever one is closest at hand (and works for you, of course) is "the best." Most people don't reinstall but instead prefer to keep existing stuff as-is. Anyways, I would add a few to the list: * Win2k / WinXP (NTVDM is fake but it still "mostly" works) ... and no, I don't count Vista or 7, too buggy! :-( * DOSBox ... sure, it's only for games and is really its own "fake" DOS, but it sorta works and is free/libre, popular, and easy to find binaries. * IBM PC-DOS 2000 ... harder to find but indeed a separate version with good compatibility (or so I've heard). I wouldn't specifically include DOSEMU because it needs a "real" DOS, so including FreeDOS already covers that. Same for VirtualBox or QEMU or similar. They can be useful in their own right, though. There are various others, but I have basically nil experience with them (e.g. RDOS, TSX-Lite, Real/32 or whatever, dunno). Long story short: FreeDOS is very very good (IMHO), free/libre, and has "potential" to be improved ad infinitum. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of developers nor volunteers, but overall, it's probably our last best hope for keeping DOS compatibility alive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
