Hi, On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 6:35 PM, Jack <gykazequ...@earthlink.net> wrote: > >> I certainly agree with your stance here. I have been using one >> ms-dos 7.1 package since at least 2007 or so, easily and effort- >> lessly. I have helped others find it as well.
It might be "easier" to just tell them to make a bootable floppy via Explorer. Or use RUFUS to install FreeDOS to USB pen drive. >> I am not sure where the .bg country code is, but I could not >> connect to the site when I tried it before writing this note. > > For your info, ".bg" is Bulgaria. Given both Dennis's and your > problems with the website I noted, I suspect there could be some > "international" constraints AGAINST Bulgaria, in some areas! Not as far as I know. Though again, U.S. politics are horribly arbitrary and annoying. (I didn't realize FreeDoom was equivalent to munitions.) IIRC, there are some countries where you're not even allowed to share software (even via SourceForge), lemme search ... Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. (The whole country! Not just government, not just army, but even common people! No TuxKart for you!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourceforge#Country_restrictions > My father was a "packrat" (saved EVERYTHING), and I am not. My > total storage, after almost 50 years of software, is only 180-MB > and fits easily on CD-RW disks, of which I have 3 as my backups. It depends on needs. Some people have to test lots of software, so they have to keep backups of various compilers and OSes, etc. The days of software being small and self-contained are long gone, so often you have to download a lot of cruft just to get what you want. Again, a fast broadband connection is strongly implied, sadly. Also, and I hate to mention this (as it doesn't interest me and is frankly way outside the scope of traditional computing), but multimedia (esp. HD) takes up tons of space, and people often download (or make their own) movies, songs, etc. It's very very easy to run out of space with things like that. Heck, even a single modern game takes several gigs. One single-layer DVD is 4.7 GB (or such), and even that's (almost) "obsolete" in favor of Blu-Ray. I have no idea how many BD layers current consoles use (EDIT: Wikipedia says 16 layer [400 GB] for PS4), but long story short, it's far more than 180 MB. Though a lot of content doesn't have to be locally available on hard drive as most people don't "need" the full Wikipedia or full Project Gutenberg or full DJGPP mirror or all sources (20 GB?) to every software from their Linux distro installed on their system. > Thus, I do not need FAT32 or "long filenames", FAT32 was only in later versions (OSR2?), so the original "vanilla" Win95 didn't support it anyways, IIRC. LFNs aren't reliant on FAT32, you can use any FAT, though Win95 explicitly doesn't support those at all in DOS mode, so even there you're stuck to an external driver like DOSLFN. BTW, NT 4.0 (1996?) didn't support either of those, so only Win2000 fixed that, but at least DJGPP mirrors have a NTLFN driver to somewhat support LFNs there (which most software these days refuses to live without): http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/current/v2misc/ntlfn08b.zip http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/current/v2misc/ntlfn08s.zip > and I do not need the "bloat" that comes with most V7.10 MS-DOS programs. Heheh. You can't even download VirtualBox without them forcing both Windows 32-bit and 64-bit editions in one lump! 100 MB! Pardon me if I think "bloat" doesn't really apply to DOS in any form. > I also do NOT like that V7.10 will LOSE a "lock drive" command for some > reason that I have never understood, and that is a "nuisance" as > it always occurs when I do not expect it. So I stay with V6.22 > MS-DOS, which is NOT "bloated", and has NO "lock drive" to cause > me any profanity! IIRC, Win95 came on 18 (overformatted) floppies. I guess traditional MS-DOS only used three to five? So, I'm not saying there isn't some fluff (esp. if you don't care for GUIs), but it's not "that" bad. Of course, I think one guy made a minimal Win95 install in only 5 MB, but it leaves a lot to be desired. (My current Win7 has a 400 MB \%windir%\fonts subdir, 517 files, and I don't even actively use any of them!) > My actual "Internet vehicle" is V4.0 Win/NT, > since there are no good browsers, CD burners, etc., for use with > MS-DOS. V6.22 or V7.10 helps me there, as Win/NT denies me the > right to deal with some system files. V6.22 MS-DOS does not! Good browsers? Depends on what you need. These days, they are almost OSes in their own right, using Flash, Javascript, HTML5, and a billion other plugins. It's a far cry from where HTML started twenty years ago. So no, compared to Firefox or Chrome, nothing is any good. But having said that, Georg's build of Dillo or Mikulas' build of Links are more than just a little impressive, even with known limitations. But a major problem is a heavy lack of (modern) packet drivers. IIRC, there is no free/libre (nor maybe even freeware) ASPI.SYS replacement, so CD-RW support is almost impossible without that. >> Most important of all, hear hear on using what you desire. It >> is why there is a personal in pc after all. > > A pleasure to know you, dear Lady, after all my dealings on this > forum with "legalists" who FAIL to see that I was only giving an > EXAMPLE of V7.10 still being available! We all know how to get it. Most of us already have it. That's why most of us are using DOS in the first place. But that's leftovers, not something MS actively develops anymore. > V6.22 MS-DOS and V4.0 Win/NT also save poor-old retirees like me from paying > $500/year > "tribute" to Gates & Co. for their semi-annual collection of new > BUGS, which they call "service packs"! The service packs are free, but the full releases are not. Admittedly, it's not that cheap anymore (something like $199 upgrades, on average??, IIRC), but there's no other choice (if you want to run modern Windows software). Blame all the developers who refuse to restrict themselves to a common denominator, so everyone is constantly having to upgrade the OS just to support userland stuff. Even latest IE won't run on anything less than Win7. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292607 You apparently can upgrade to WinXP Pro from NT 4, but I don't know how good an idea that is (on several fronts). Presumably your PC could handle it, XP isn't "that" bloated (compared to Vista or higher, which need much higher requirements). But XP is almost dead. Still, no worse than NT 4 or 2000, both of which (sadly) most software doesn't target anymore. Heck, even Linux doesn't work very well on old machines. It's just not a priority for them. They all want to chase newer features, they don't want minimalism, which unfortunately means they don't test (or care) for older hardware, much less older OS editions. Who knows, maybe FreeBSD would work better (64 MB RAM + 1.1 GB storage??), but I kinda doubt that too. Yeah, modern computing is a mess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sponsored by Intel(R) XDK Develop, test and display web and hybrid apps with a single code base. Download it for free now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=111408631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
