DOS is not dead

[John]

...like punk is not dead
Yeah, the famous ''distros'' are ''dead'' (MS-DOS,PC-DOS...), but some are still ''alive''.
I started this topic because saw that one member suprised with how anyone today use DOS
Today DOS is cheap system to someone who has small private bussines (as doctor, dentist...) and why he/she for one program which use to buy expensive licence for multitasks OS?
DOS has long history, so you can find very big collection of software for it.
Currently ''distros'' are:
-DR-DOS 7.03 by DR DOS Inc.
-ROM-DOS 7.1 by Datalight
-PTS-DOS 32 by PhysTech Software
-ZDOS by Zebor Technology
and there are some open-source ''distros'' which are theoretically immortal:
-FreeDOS (I think version 1.1)
-RXDOS
-RTXDOS 2000 (derivate of RXDOS)
-NX-DOS

and smaller, not so famous ''distros''...
DOS available and for other architectures as MSX,PDP-11...and almost those ''distros'' are dead...

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by John

Today DOS is cheap system to someone who has small private bussines (as doctor, dentist...) and why he/she for one program which use to buy expensive licence for multitasks OS?

Actually, the *BSD can do all this, & they are free too. Some might argue that they are more free.

Personally, I wouldn't be so risky to base a business on DOS. While a quick Google search did reveal that some word processors are still available, I question how long drivers will remain current. Equally problematic, a large part of business is based upon sharing documents, & when a potential partner or customer wants you to write up a proposal & it isn't written in a Word-compatible form, you may have killed the deal.

DOS proper was also limited to 640KB of memory. Yes, there was DPMI, but do all third-party applications support it?

The problem in advocating that DOS is not dead is that anyone seriously using it will be entirely on their own -- meaning all support, configuration, & troubleshooting. While there may be someone who has the technical acumen to fix everything that breaks or needs to be enhanced, how much time will they be dedicating to the effort? Will the core business suffer from lack of attention?

While it might be a romantic notion that DOS can be made viable today, the rest of the world most likely doesn't share in the nostalgia.

[John]

Absolutelly, for longtime distance future is guaranted for BSDs' & Linuxes' distros as sure.Proprietary OSes will available as their publishers. DOSes are almost proprietary OSes, and only one open source version is still active, but its development is so, so, so slow (my opinion)...DOS is good as I said for small bussines if customer use one or two programs and have no time to learn other OSes.And they are the best as you said for nostalgia, as ZX Spectrum emulator and nowday free or public domain games for it

Also there are so many fakes maybe more than any other OS, and in the most cases they are from Russia newer (and they are absolutely illegal) and older from East bloc (in some cases their legality is unknown because they are so good clones of Western famous DOSes).

[Carpetsmoker]

I use FreeDOS for a LiveUSB/CD I make. It includ~1 some basic utiliti~1 such as hard disk testing tools etc. we use at work.
Don't worry, it also includes a FreeBSD part

The main reason I use FreeDOS by the way is because our techni~1 are used to the various tools. But it also comes in handy when flashing mainbo~1, even some fairly recent ones only support flashing the BIOS from DOS.

In general, however, I believe DOS is a piece of junk, and most contem~1 OS's fared better on almost every single point at least since the late 80's...

[BSDfan666]

I laughed, cried, then threw up all over my monitor.

Well played.

[John]

Originally Posted by BSDfan666

I laughed, cried, then threw up all over my monitor.

Well played.

please do not cry

Yeah, I would like to see in near future reborned but as free, open source OS which will be similar as Windows 9x/Me (easier to say DOS-based daemonly-good GUI )...

[markben]

Dos can never be dead .

[RichardDyson]

With FreeDOS well on it's way, DOS can never truly be dead.