DOS ain't dead

Old DOS Newbie Seeks Advice (Miscellaneous)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 12.07.2012, 21:36

> I recently was given an old laptop with a floppy drive, so I dug out all my
> old floppies, and am trying get my old DOS system working again on this
> "new" hand-me-down computer.
>
> I'm afraid that with the passage of the years, and the cognitive deficits
> from my illness, I'm having quite a difficult time remembering how my old
> system worked. But, I am making progress, albeit very slowly, and am very
> close to having my (overly complicated) note-taking system up and running
> again.

Do you just need a refresher on the common DOS commands or how to install or ... ?

http://help.fdos.org/en/index.htm

fdisk (create FAT), reboot, format c:, sys c:, xcopy /s a:\*.* c:\dos, etc.

Also be aware of FreeDOS' iBiblio mirror (lots of third-party files, not counting the FreeDOS kernel, shell, .ISO, etc):

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/

> My goal is to first get myself up-to-speed on my old MS-DOS 6.21 system,
> and then try to transfer it over to a more up-to-date version of DOS that I
> can run on a modern laptop.

Some people swear by MS-DOS' kernel. There's nothing majorly wrong with it, depending on what you're actually trying to do. Heck, you can dual boot different DOSes (e.g. via MetaKern), but that's probably overkill here. Outside of lacking FAT32 and LBA and some minor installation restrictions, I think MS-DOS 6.x should be fine.

> I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some advice on this project here in
> this forum.

Yes, of course. Feel free to ask or discuss anything DOS-related.

Complete thread:

• Old DOS Newbie Seeks Advice - CluelessInSeattl, 12.07.2012, 20:35 (Miscellaneous)
  • Old DOS Newbie Seeks Advice - Rugxulo, 12.07.2012, 21:36
    • Old DOS Newbie Seeks Advice - CluelessInSeattl, 13.07.2012, 03:31
      • New DOS Oldbie Seeks Advice - Rugxulo, 13.07.2012, 06:48
        • New DOS Oldbie Seeks Advice - ron, 13.07.2012, 07:52