> >> Hall did an analysis of DOS users two years ago, finding that DOS was > >> being called upon almost entirely to run three things: > >> legacy bus software, classic DOS games, and embedded systems. > >
Interesting that they abbreviated "business" to "bus" in that article -- that changes the meaning. At the time (around 2012) we had run a survey of people who visited www.freedos.org and found that most people used FreeDOS for three things: 1. Running legacy business software (and at the time, we still saw occasional emails from people using FreeDOS for something at work -- usually recovering old data, or running an old 'one-off' app, or something like that) 2. Playing classic DOS games 3. Developing embedded systems (After #3, there was a noticeable gap, then "using FreeDOS to update BIOS in a computer) We ran a survey a few years ago (I don't remember the exact timeframe anymore) and the usage had shifted a little bit: 1. Playing classic DOS games 2. Running DOS applications 3. Developing other DOS programs (Again, there's a noticeable gap, then "updating BIOS in a computer") We didn't see people running FreeDOS to support a business (maybe a few small businesses, like a CNC shop I helped out earlier this year) but "applications" was still on the list -- it's just the *reason* to run the DOS apps had changed to something like "because I like that app" or "because I like computing" or (in a few cases) "it's a minimalistic working [writing?] environment." But "games" had moved to the top of the list. "Embedded" fell off, replaced by others who used FreeDOS to write other DOS programs -- likely skewed by so many FreeDOS developers responding to the survey. We haven't run that survey in a while, but I don't think it's changed much. _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
