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Considering MS-DOS (Users)

posted by Rugxulo Homepage, Usono, 30.07.2011, 13:52

Hi,

> I'm considering using MS-DOS on a 'modern' computer (dual-booting with XP
> or Windows 7) and I have a few queries.
>
> (1) should I use MS-DOS 6.22/MS-DOS 7.1 or one of the compatible OSs e.g.
> FreeDOS, and if so why?
Depends on if you have a license and what you want to do. 6.22 is old standard but (IIRC) lacks LBA and FAT32 (which 7.x has). If you want to run really old stuff like Win3x or Desqview, you're much better off running true MS-DOS or DR-DOS. However, you could also run ROM-DOS 7 (LFNs) or EDR-DOS (both support FAT32, free for personal use). And DR-DOS 7.03 ($35 US) supports multitasking (max 64 MB per task) but no FAT32 nor LFN. Oops, almost forgot PTS-DOS 32 (shareware) may support FAT32. PC-DOS 7.1 (eh?) in IBM Server Scripting Toolkit may?? be "freeware" nowadays and supposedly now has FAT32 support.

Really, the main advantage to FreeDOS is still being (barely) supported, open source aka free/libre, and lets you tinker ad nauseum. It's not perfect but fairly close. ;-) It does support LBA, FAT32, optional LFN (w/ driver).

Actually, you don't have to choose, you can use MetaKern or BootMGR (or ...) to multi-boot between DOSes. But if you don't have any particular preference, I think FreeDOS is a safe bet. (And you can join the mailing lists for free tech support, whee!)

> (2) given that I'll be running DOS on a PC with 3 or 4 GB of RAM, I presume
> DOS won't cough at this i.e. DOS will just 'see' 640k conventional RAM or
> up to 16MB EMS/XMS?
Amount of EMS or XMS depends on hardware and driver, not DOS per se. With HIMEMX or XMGR (both XMSv3), you should be able to access 2 GB. With HDPMI32 or CWSDPMI r7, you should be able to (maybe??) access 4 GB. I'm not aware of the limits of MS-DOS 6.22 or 7.x's EMM386 or JEMM386, but Japheth or Jack would probably know. (Some old old versions limited to 32 MB. And XMSv2 is limited to 64 MB, but you won't probably have to worry about that.)

> (3) would I be better using FAT16 or FAT32 filing system? If FAT32 am I
> right in assuming I'd need MS-DOS 7.1 (or FreeDOS)?
DR-DOS 7.03 and MS-DOS 6.22 don't support FAT32, nor does traditional PTS-DOS nor ROM-DOS 6 (I think??). It's only important if you need or want more than four primary partitions (where FAT16 maxes out at 2 GB, so 4 x 2 = 8 GB). In theory, also FAT32 supports 4 GB individual files (vs. 2 GB for FAT16), but tools' support for that is problematic, and FreeDOS doesn't (yet) support more than 2 GB per file (sadly).

I'm not exactly sure of the implications of cluster size with FAT16 vs. FAT32. It may depend more on the FDISK tool used. But I always thought (right or wrong) that FAT16 was worse at cluster waste than FAT32. I know that I was always mad that I created a 1 GB FAT16 drive (16 kb clusters) when I should've used two 500 MB ones (4 kb clusters) instead to save space.

> (4) are the utilities in FreeDOS e.g. JEMM386, 'better' than their MS-DOS
> equivalents?
Some (but not all) FreeDOS utils support LFNs (if DOSLFN or similar loaded), unlike MS-DOS. However, some things in MS-DOS don't exist elsewhere or are better (QBASIC, DOSSHELL). Otherwise, FreeDOS is mostly superior, esp. codepages supported.

JEMM386 supports V86 mode "enhanced" (586) for faster speed. It also supports JLMs (via JLOAD). And it's probably less buggy and limited than MS-DOS 6.22's, but you'd have to ask Japheth or Jack for more details. Some (?) people don't load EMM386 at all unless they need it (rare, only for "old" apps using EMS), esp. since modern DOSes give you enough free RAM to not worry about UMBs. And JEMM386 (if no UMBs used) can "LOAD" or "UNLOAD" at will, unlike MS'. Also, it supports "FASTBOOT", which is nice.

> (5) what other utilities (not included in MS-DOS or FreeDOS) do the experts
> on this forum recommend?
I really hate to promote my own crappy site, but it does have a bunch of links and stuff. Or search FreeDOS' iBiblio section (5.5 GB of stuff) or Club DR-DOS wiki.)

> TIA
YW. ;-)

> Paul
> Melbourne, Australia
P.S. I'm American, but I did find out recently that I do have a (distant) American (second) cousin living in Melbourne with husband and new baby. :-)

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