Dr. DOS Betamax's DOS Fansite | Hacker News Reader

Dr. DOS Betamax's DOS Fansite

chebucto.ns.ca

63 points_krii66 comments

TIL the term "asperand" for the @ sign http://chebucto.ns.ca/~ak621/DOS/DOS-Char.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperand

You skipped that part of the Wikipedia article: "but none of these have achieved wide use."

Arobase is used a lot in France, probably like the other Spanish and Portuguese terms. However, the English ones not so much.

I didn't say anything about its popularity, just that I liked it and had never seen it before :)

Somewhat related: a repository of FreeDOS-compatible freeware or open source software, no "abandonware": https://clasqm.github.io/freedos-repo/

You don't see that /~username/ pattern in URLs so often these days. I always liked it.

Still configurable in Apache :)

With some work to get around SELinux rules. (And you do have SELinux on your server, right?)

Sure, it's not even that hard to configure, just set it to "disabled" and things actually start working. :-)

I read that as DR DOS (Digital Research) which I was enamored of until MS DOS 5.0 came out.

Digital Research made GEM (a Mac-like desktop GUI) and included a pared down version called ViewMAX in DR DOS 5.0 but ultimately didn't deliver on providing a Mac-like interface.

Yeah I too loved DR-DOS until that was supplanted by Windows 3.11 and then Windows 95.

Of all the flavours of DOS it was the best at the time.

DR didn't deliver a Mac-like interface on DOS because Apple sued them:

https://www.osnews.com/story/26322/apple-vs-dri-the-iotheri-...

But GEM ran on 2 different platforms: DOS PCs, and on the Atari ST. The Atari version was not affected by Apple's lawsuit and delivered a very slick interface.

https://aranym.github.io/screenshots.html

Ahem! Sorry, those screenies don't show GEM as it looked at the times. That looks like something from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiNT which although started early after, wasn't that common and/or usable. It got a boost in development much later only, IIRC.

What can be seen there is a work of love/passion, from not that much people, running in an emulator, which enables configurations which were either very expensive, rare, or didn't even ever exist.

I didn't claim that they were from the time.

What I am saying is much simpler: that DR didn't deliver a Mac-like GEM on the PC for the excellent reason that Apple sued them to stop them doing it. That's why PC GEM got crippled, and ended up as just a file manager/app launcher in the form of ViewMax.

(It is also worth nothing that Caldera subsidiary Lineo made GEM GPL around the turn of the century, and since then, PC GEM regained all the features Apple made DR remove and more, including Bézier curve support and things.)

All I am saying is that Atari GEM wasn't crippled, was a popular and well-loved GUI that people are still using and working on even today.

https://emutos.sourceforge.io/

https://aranym.github.io/afros.html

It’s odd to me these days to see a DOS defender. I grew up on DOS, but these days would take a Linux command line over it any day. I guess you need X to do anything graphical on Linux whereas pure dos games exist?

You can have framebuffer applications running without X. Not really much different than DOS other than the kernel is still mediating hardware access. Notably, you can build Qt apps that run without X.

I use Tiny Core Linux in framebuffer mode every day. Ali G. Rudi's framebuffer tools were a huge inspiration: https://litcave.rudi.ir/

I've also been curious about fbui (in-kernel windowing system). Not sure how well it works with current kernels, though: https://github.com/8l/fbui

Having really modest needs, I even made an effort to use FreeDOS for essential tasks (writing, PDFs, some scripting), but gave up quickly as I cannot live without a good PDF pager or (for some tasks) soundcard support. I also had trouble with constant fan noise on DOS (you'll need some hacks to maybe get around this). It is still mind blowing how fast FreeDOS (or e.g. the even more barebones SvarDOS) boots. It took literally about 2 seconds to greet myself with the good old "C:\>".

Also, it is a system that fits inside the head of even an ordinary person. This is really refreshing these days.

In the olden days we used SDL ports of games that used a framebuffer, just the same as in DOS.

I wonder, Does a version of Doom exist doing this? Every version of Doom I have seen for Linux over the years required X

I recall compiling several versions years ago.

https://hackaday.com/2022/06/09/a-linux-distribution-for-doo... including some converting it to ascii

Any port that uses SDL (which is most of them) can be made to run like this.

In the olden DOS days, we used stuff like Allegro to make games that used the framebuffer.

Allegro is still a thing among some hobbyists, I used it years ago for dome experiments first on Windows and then on Linux.

That's so cool to hear! I have fond memories of Allegro and DJGPP

Don't remember how I stumbled on this site, but it had to have been 15-20 years ago that I did. Was pleasantly surprised to see that it's still online and that the author is still singing the praises of DOS.

I was just thinking that the site looks about the same as the first time I saw it too. That must have been around 2007.

IIRC, that site once had Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 pages as well.

I wonder how often and for what purposes (if at all?) does the Doc actually use DOS these days. These kind of rants [1] are always interesting and oddly inspiring.

1: E.g: https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=freedos-user@lists.sou...

Or: https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=freedos-user@lists.sou...

Lynx-friendly should become a web design standard.

I thought that was cute that that was an image, I had to make sure with lynx that the alt text was there.

Was DOS considered to be better than Windows back then?

They were different tools and could not be used to replace each others.

The transition to Windows was a lot more painful than the glossy history suggests. DOS had a huge eco-system of programs, TSRs to help you context switch, incredibly popular word processing and spreadsheet packages and solid networking if you had Netware available.

Windows wouldn't even load on some PC's depending on which memory manager you had installed, what else you were trying to run and what kind of network stack(s) you had loaded.

In some places, trying to get people to switch to Microsoft Word away from WordPerfect result in some very heated discussions. Similarly with products like "Sidekick"[0] - a manner of working that many people got used to.

Windows was often an imposition from corporate. Windows 3.0 was popular but it wasn't necessarily an improvement over the way people were working with IBM PCs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminate-and-stay-resident_pr...

On this note, the Royal Bank of Canada used a DOS-like system well into the 2000s. The tellers were amazingly proficient with it, entering data, hitting tab-tab-tab, entering more data, tab-tab-tab, etc.

When they switched to Windows, you could see how much the point-and-click interface slowed them down.

When we first starting writing windows programs back then, one of the main considerations of a desktop / client server CRUD program was getting the tabbing order right.

A lot of those green screen / dos / mini computer CRUD programs were carefully designed around productivity with a keyboard.

>A lot of those green screen / dos / mini computer CRUD programs were carefully designed around productivity with a keyboard.

Some of the best late DOS programs did a good job of optimizing for both keyboard & mouse also.

There's a cargo installation around here where they got a high-dollar mainframe in the 1970's and the data could be accessed by the few plant employees having CRT terminals. Even into the early 80's independent contractors had to do their field work by hand, and largely back in the office too since PC's were slowly adopted.

Once desktop IBMs became accepted for bigger companies, the whole shebang was rewritten for DOS by the mid-80's and their people had to get accustomed to that.

Finally with the migration (of the rest of the world) to Windows 3 and 9x, there was another DOS rewrite to handle an alternative database.

Each of these was ungodly expensive and took forever. Nobody wanted to repeat that.

Independent contractors like us were then allowed to have a copy of the key DOS modules on our laptops and the preferred procedure was to reboot to the bare metal DOS underlying the Windows 9x shell, and run the program in DOS.

Since then there really hasn't been much more to get accustomed to, each generation of everyday operators is just fine with doing things as they have always been done.

Fortunately for many hardware configurations it would also run from the command prompt window in Windows, but similarly to DOS games, this didn't work for everybody.

This is probably what has made it possible for geeks to kludge it into functionality until I had to figure it out on Windows 10 a few years ago. They were blown away when I gave them the first mouse they had in years.

Some contractors have never used it and just do without, it's only one marine terminal but it's the one where we happen to have people stationed 24/7.

So next week I have to show an IT guy how to get it to run in the latest 64-bit Windows 10 using vDOS again.

DOS really will still boot on the bare metal in BIOS mode with a CSM enabled as long as you have a well prepared Active FAT32 volume on an MBR layout storage device recognized by BIOS, etc.

And I did find the settings to get the DOS app to run from the 32-bit Windows 10 command prompt last time.

Too bad they have to use 64-bit Windows and GPT layout on the SSD, with UEFI booting.

The good emulator turned out to be vDOS.

You don't see vDOS mentioned much, although my limited understanding is that it's designed to get all those old business oriented DOS apps working (instead of games) i.e. it works with the original version of Wordstar that no longer runs on newer DOSs due to the way file handling works.

It's fascinating to me just how long you can keep old programs going in the modern age. Emulation is such a life saver.

I wish tab order was considered more in some applications. One of our in-house apps has had a lot of fields added over time and it's a jumbled mess trying to tab through it, essentially forcing point/click when a keyboard would otherwise be enough.

Also, this is a pet peeve of mine, we used until 2017 a DOS program (think invoicing) that could fit ALL needed fields in a single 80x25 screen (navigated via TAB and ENTER or SHIFT TAB/ENTER to go back).

The new windows program, on a decent screen resolution, opens instead a small window where the same fields are scattered on three or four tabs.

Even if within the same window fields can be navigated via TAB, you need to switch to the other tabs/windows and it slows down the input, as you never have a "whole" view of the data, so you have to go back through each tab to check whether you missed a field or mistyped inside a field.

It's a stretch of a tangent, but this reminded me of the Therac-25 incident in which experienced operators of the machine could enter commands too quickly and cause it to enter an unexpected state.

> One failure occurred when a particular sequence of keystrokes was entered on the VT-100 terminal which controlled the PDP-11 computer: if the operator were to press "X" to (erroneously) select 25 MeV photon mode, then use "cursor up" to edit the input to "E" to (correctly) select 25 MeV Electron mode, then "Enter", all within eight seconds of the first keypress, well within the capability of an experienced user of the machine. These edits weren't noticed as it would take 8 seconds for startup, so it would go with the default setup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

The Czech taxation authority has the "Automated Tax Information System" as the primary IS. It has been running since 1993, it has a classic DOS text-mode interface and its maintenance cost is huge, which is completely fine with its supplier, IBM, which is the only subject allowed to make any modifications to it (per the contract). Textbook case of vendor lock-in. An official study of what to do with the system from 2016 (including a screenshot): https://www.financnisprava.cz/assets/cs/prilohy/f-novinky/20...

> ... and its maintenance cost is huge ...

Would you mind expanding on this a little?

There is more detail in the (Czech-language) presentation; the ongoing cost is in hundreds of millions CZK (~millions to tens of millions EUR) every year, the TCO for the whole time was in 2019 estimated over 9 billion CZK (~400M EUR).

Text interfaces are still quite common in mainframes. If the vendor is IBM, the screenshot is probably a 5270 terminal running a RPG (or COBOL) application. In fact, these kind of systems are still so popular in the financial industry that there are libraries to wrap a modern GUI on top of existing terminal-based applications.

> If the vendor is IBM, the screenshot is probably a 5270 terminal running a RPG (or COBOL) application

From the linked PDF I gather the app is written in Informix 4GL (I can’t read Czech, just guessing based on the smattering of English words-I also think in mentions some modules are written in C?). If that’s right, it is probably a character mode VT100 app running on some Unix box, not 3270 or 5250, not COBOL or RPG

IBM used a DOS-based OS called "4690" for their point-of-sale systems, which IIRC had 32-bit extensions and various forms of networking including a weird 56kbps "token ring" type system that tills could (s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y) netboot off.

It's still in use, and although it's been replaced by Linux in current products there were bugfix releases at least as recently as late 2020.

4690 OS evolved from Digital Research FlexOS, which replaced Concurrent DOS 286.

The revised license for CP/M from DRDOS, Inc this month covers "CP/M and derivatives".

DRDOS is a derivative of CP/M, as is Concurrent DOS/Multiuser DOS, and arguably the FlexOS line too.

The health service in Northern Ireland still used TUI terminals way into 2006, I remember seeing the staff bring up my records with a few taps of the keyboard.

Mouse UIs aren't a universal boon, and I think the recent failures at shoehorning touch screen UIs demonstrate that there isn't 'one HID to rule them all'.

Thanks for writing that.

I think it was also a result from PCs being sold in mid-90' with Windows preinstalled [0] and the disappearance of naked PCs or PCs sold with alternative OS like GEM [1]. For example around the time of Windows 95 commercialization (1995), Apple went nearly bankrupt. Same for DEC, Atari, commodore and many other small providers.

[0] https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_(desktop_environment)

The DOS Word was actually pretty good but, yes, there was a lot of competition for (incompatible) word processors at the time which basically continued until Office on Windows basically squashed it all. Latterly you had pretty good text-based user interfaces and, as you say, there were lots of kludges like TSRs, Double DOS, etc. that filled in a lot of gaps in the original DOS.

The other problem is that PCs basically weren't fast enough for full graphical interfaces at the time. So there was a period when DOS was acceptably fast for most purposes and Windows really wasn't even when it started to get reasonably usable in the Windows 3.0 timeframe.

> The other problem is that PCs basically weren't fast enough for full graphical interfaces at the time.

A PX XT (8088) with the graphical GEM was absolutely usable. I was impressed by it in 1986, at a time were Windows 1 was nearly unusable, and Windows 2 (from 1988) not much better.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/IBM_PC_G...

Yes and no.

Lots of people had workflows using non-graphical or non-windows based DOS software. Windows was one of many GUIs. A lot of early Windows software wasn't as fully featured as the DOS version, and DOS was in many cases faster. It was pretty clear after a few hours with GUI software that it was the future, but early Windows 1, and 2 for a lot of users, the answer was not now.

I liked the Windows 3.1 UI. Win95 was a step down.

There is a certain charming simplicity to Windows 3.x. If you think about it modern smartphones really aren't that different from it--you get a big pane (or homescreen) of app icons and more or less run one thing full screen at a time (but with the ability to switch between apps).

Win 95 was when people really started to ditch MS-DOS and love the GUI. But for gaming DOS held on for a few more years and there was definitely a period of time where whenever you wanted to fire up Doom or other games you had to reboot out of Win 95 GUI and into DOS mode.

> a period of time

Less than a 2 years I'd say, with 2.5 years at the maximum: Win95 GA is August '95 and Quake 2 hit the last nail in the DOS gaming coffin in December '97

It was an absurdingly fast process, in Jan 1996 we got Duke3D, Quake in the summer, and dual boot with DOS was the norm.

In 1997 we got a bunch of Build-engine releases for DOS: Blood and Redneck Rampage in ~May, Shadow Warrior in September; while MDK, GTA, Carmageddon, Dungeon Keeper, Fallout got a mixed Win/DOS release and 3dfx was at it's peak.

Quake 2, Tomb Raider 2, Wing Commander: Prophecy are released for the Christmas sales and are Windows only.

Dual boot is still a thing for some games, but the new games are targeting Windows and DirectX.

Diablo (January), NFS2 (March) and AoE (October) are Windows only.

In 1998 there is no noticeable DOS-only or Win/DOS releases, except some add-ons for the earlier games.

Before mentioned Quake 2, StarCraft (April), Unreal (May), FreeSpace (June), Half-Life (November) are the ones which dictate the OS would be used. Win98 was released in May.

Even Derek Smart stops developing DOS versions of Battlecruiser 3000AD.

This is correct - the DOS games of ‘94-95 would often do better in DOS and for the games that came in both types you’d often be better in DOS - but by the time 97 and 98 rolled around most computers running windows were quite capable of running windows games.

For a time in the mid 90s, “high performance” games all ran in DOS mode. You’d quit out of Windows to maximize memory and CPU.

I did all the computer related admin work at an ngo back in the day (and the transition from dos to windows was painful to say the least. Netware, word processing, mail clients, front-end menus, you name it, it all became a problem , not only due to the switch, but to be able to maintain two systems working, make them compatible AND interconnected. In our case Windows got itself thru the door only because we wanted to be able to use Aldus Pagemaker to do our DTP in-house.

The www was also a big windows ally. I remember having a perfect setup for uucp our mail, some gopher interfaces for the most savvy users, but once the web started to grow, it was all windows and trumpet winsock. Thank god for Peter Tattam!

DOS had a lot of great games and programs that worked very well. It took years to build up the ecosystem and the performance, graphics and other techniques.

While Windows could multi-task and had other features that were theoretically better, there was still some catching up to do with regard to available software. DOS was also more stable, until the NT kernel was integrated into Windows. Windows 3.11 was quite stable, but 95 and 98 had issues.

Before Win2K, Windows ran on DOS.

That is incorrect.

Windows 2000 is Windows NT 5.

Before that, there was Windows NT 3.1 (the first version), NT 3.5, NT 3.51 and NT 4.

Windows 2000 was the fifth version of Windows that did not need DOS.

You are thinking of Windows NT family which is not the same as Dos based Windows 1/2/3.0/3.1/3.11/95/98

And as Windows NT was a pure 32 bit OS, where the Dos based Windows were 16/32 bits.

Windows NT was designed by Dave Cutler and released from July 27, 1993.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

By that time there were already 5 editions of Dos based Windows: 1/2/3.0/3.1/3.11.

The first Dos based Windows was released much earlier: November 20, 1985

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0x

To add to the confusion there were a Dos based Windows 3.0 and 3.1 and a Windows NT 3.0 and 3.1.

I used Windows 2.01 at the time, and I deployed NT 3.1 in production.

Your claim is wrong. You said that the first Windows not based on DOS was 2000; that is not true. The first Windows not based on DOS was in 1993.

What name Microsoft marketing put on it is irrelevant. If you opened a command prompt on Windows 2000 and typed `ver`, it said Windows NT 5.0.

Do not get misled by branding. As Terry Pratchett said:

"Zoon tribes are very proud of their Liars. Other races get very annoyed about all this. They feel like the Zoon ought to have adopted more suitable titles, like ‘diplomat’ or ‘public relations officer.’ They feel they are poking fun of the whole thing." - Equal Rites

Marketing means lying. Marketing took the letters "NT" out of Windows 2000's name, but that does not mean it was the first product of its kind. It was not. It was the fifth.

I see there is no possible candid discussion here.

BTW I used Windows 1.1 on a PC XT. At the time, my employer wanted to use computers to teach employees technical subjects (adult education). My employer was Direction Général des Télécoms (now Orange) and the department was DFPT (in Montpellier/France) (I am 65 yo).

When I saw what was needed to just program a window with a simple text I was horrified. In DOS just a few lines were enough, on Windows 1.1 it was several hundred of lines!

My company much later used software such as Macromedia to make computer based learning. It ran on (Dos based) Windows 3.11, I think (but I am not sure ) that is was DOS 4 or maybe 5.

Win 2K was part of the NT line and roughly concurrent with Me in the DOS-based line. If you want the first non-DOS Windows, it's Windows NT, significantly earlier than Win2K

If you mean the first non-DOS Windows without a parallel DOS-based line, that would be Windows XP, a bit after Win2K (2K was, I think, originally planned as the convergence version, but that plan was abandoned.)

DOS was better for me until well into the Pentium era - Windows could run on a 386 or 486 but it was painful.

This reminds me of something you'd find on OldFiles back in the day:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110407222115/http://www.oldfil...

It was a webring/directory for old computers and DOS/Win3x enthusiasts. Unfortunately long gone, but it lasted from 2003 until the mid 2010s.

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