DOS ain't dead

Who here boots their computer into actual DOS on a regular basis ?

If so... how often ?

Way back in March I added lines to autoexec.bat to write the date/time into C:\boot-up.txt

Just took a look at it and since then I have booted into DOS a grand-total of only 32 times.

The only DOS program that I now use on a daily basis is DOS Arachne for doing my email.

And I never use it anymore while booted into DOS but rather via Linux dosbox.

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http://glennmcc.org/

It depends. If I have a spare time I boot pure DOS few times in week. If I am busy it gets more rarely.

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DOS-u-akbar!

> Who here boots their computer into actual DOS on a regular basis ?
>
> If so... how often ?
Most days, I boot into real DOS on my "modern" laptop in order to fool around and feel that nostalgia. For example, I just compiled e-speak and S.A.M text-to-voice speech synthesizers for DOS for fun using good old DJGPP. I'm always doing little projects and optimizing code, and love to work in a DOS environment for that. Getting out the old BASIC, Turbo Pascal, and Turbo C compilers is always fun and it's so rewarding to be doing new work for DOS without all the bloat and the walled garden of MS, Google, Apple, etc.

Now, with SBEMU, playing old DOS games on "modern" systems is a whole lot more fun, with sound! Same story with emulators. So, I've been re-playing some of the old classics as well.

As I get older, DOS is like an old friend, inviting and welcoming as opposed to cold, hostile, and "bossy" like Windows and / or Mac OS.

> Who here boots their computer into actual DOS on a regular basis ?
>
> If so... how often ?

Do we have a choice? Sometimes devices don't let us do what we want.

Are you implying that DOSBox and virtual machines make native DOS unnecessary? That's half true, yes. And yes, modern OSes have software replacements for many old DOS games and tools.

I still boot up my old 2010 Dell laptop fairly frequently ... but only for FreeDOS (via USB jump drive). Mostly just tinkering and light programming. I've done a lot of Pascal lately. That jump drive is roughly from 2020, FAT32 with 128 GB.

The device I use the most is this (Dec. 2019) Dell Chromebook (unsupported). Mostly for email, Discord, Twitch. At one time it had "Linux terminal (beta)" which worked (only 300 MB!), but later they made it require a 10 GB (!) download, which didn't fit on my (total) 16 GB disk. So it could boot other OSes, but they didn't make it configurable (that I know of), so I can't use DOS.

I still have a 2018 Samsung Android tablet but rarely use it (though it still works well).

I also still have a 2011 Lenovo desktop running (dead) Windows 7. My brother replaced the hard drive a few years ago but was never interested in upgrading the OS. I rarely use it but sometimes still test some of my Pascal code on it. It does have a bunch of old DOS games from GOG (using DOSBox). I used to use VirtualBox there a lot, but rarely in recent years. In particular, I think their drivers don't work on Win7 anymore. To be honest, I never even had enough motive or need or energy to even install FreeDOS 1.3 under VBox there.

I got a StarLabs Linux (Ubuntu LTS) laptop in 2022 but haven't used it much. I never did get around to installing DOSEMU2 on it. I installed DOSBox, but I think it had trouble with recognizing keypresses. It only has 64-bit UEFI, no CSM, so it can't boot DOS natively.

Just to be philosophical: an OS is a tool that can work "out of the box" or be made to work (with the right skills). The fact that it is ignored or unused is not due to impossibility but rather indifference. We use whatever we want: what's best, what's fun, what's easy, unless forced. Yes, it's better to have portable OSes and tools and code, but that doesn't mean we must reject DOS. I guess it depends on whether you are willing to do the work yourself or only use "standard" pre-built solutions. Is the glass half-empty or half-full?

I use pure DOS on a bare-metal Pentium 4 desktop system every day -- MS-DOS 7.1 from Windows 98SE with 4-DOS Command Shell (what allows me to have 625k of free conventional RAM, with all 53k of TSRs in UMBs (25k still free), and have not encountered any incompatibility in over 25 years of usage). And (as discussed in a previous topic) Directory Freedom file manager. Those are what make DOS actually usable for me. (HX extender runtime helps as well!)

Admittedly, my computing needs are somewhat modest, but i use DOS for about 80% of what i do -- text processing (PC-Write), spreadsheets (1-2-3), database (Paradox), audio playback (MPXPlay), video playback (MPlayer). I'm an admitted utilities junkie (!), and also do some 16-bit programming/debugging (including assembler, but i'm not a whiz).

Maybe it's because i got in on the PC-DOS ground floor in the early '80s, but I find DOS quicker, more intuitive, less feature bloated, and less oppressive than Windows (i don't even have any Windows past XP). I do use a "pimped-up" Win98SE for about 15% of stuff not do-able in DOS, and Linux Mint Mate for the remaining 5%. I actively despise the new-ish Windows i'm forced to use at work.... :)

Ok, carry on....

- Doug B.

> Who here boots their computer into actual DOS on a regular basis ?
>
> If so... how often ?
>

Not so regulary. When I do, it lasts for several days, but then I don't touch it for couple of months.

I have a Core 2 Duo computer that has FreeDOS/Windows XP/Linux triple boot. That's kinda a main DOS machine. Although, It takes a lot of space, so I'll likely either give it away or sell it. I might replace it later with a mini computer (maybe one of those SFF Core 2 Duo PCs or one of thin clients with decent specs and standard ATA/SATA/MSATA disks).

The others are computers I ocassionaly work with. Those are a couple of 486 laptops with 4mb of ram. One runs a dual boot of FreeDOS and Basic Linux.

The other is in state of disrepair and might end up being scraped.

I hope to eventually get a 486 laptop or smaller 486 desktop with at least 8-12 MB to replace both of them.

I do use DOSBOx and DOSEMU (ver. 2.0) very often under Linux, though.

> Not so regulary. When I do, it lasts for several days, but then I don't
> touch it for couple of months.

Yes, the same on my primary PC. Sometimes I don't boot DOS for a month (when I need use "modern" apps I boot to WinXP mostly, many DOS cmdline tools works there too via NTVDM) but sometimes when I do some DOS devel./testing I boot DOS more intensively for days. I also have a lot of older hardware from 8086 to PIII-4 and sometimes play with it mostly using DOS.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.