Dr. DOS Betamax's DOS Fansite (opens in new tab)

(chebucto.ns.ca)

63 points_krii3y ago66 comments

66 comments

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

speps3y ago

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.

Lammy3y ago

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

marttt3y ago

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

tpmx3y ago

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

unixhero3y ago

Still configurable in Apache :)

chungy3y ago

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

iforgotpassword3y ago

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

wenc3y ago

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.

lproven3y ago

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

LargoLasskhyfv3y ago

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.

lproven3y ago

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

intothemild3y ago

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.

donatj3y ago

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?

kevin_thibedeau3y ago

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.

marttt3y ago

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.

Gordonjcp3y ago

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

alophawen3y ago

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

GTP3y ago

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

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donatj3y ago

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

ghostDancer3y ago

I recall compiling several versions years ago.

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

chungy3y ago

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

ttgurney3y ago

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.

visiblink3y ago

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.

marttt3y ago

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...

mike_hock3y ago

Lynx-friendly should become a web design standard.

Bluecobra3y ago

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

samwestdev3y ago

Was DOS considered to be better than Windows back then?

smackeyacky3y ago

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...

visiblink3y ago

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.

smackeyacky3y ago

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.

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mormegil3y ago

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...

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accrual3y ago

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

HeckFeck3y ago

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'.

Gordonjcp3y ago

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.

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JPLeRouzic3y ago

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)

ghaff3y ago

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.

JPLeRouzic3y ago

> 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...

indymike3y ago

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.

jcadam3y ago

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

qbasic_forever3y ago

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).

donatj3y ago

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.

qbasic_forever3y ago

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.

justsomehnguy3y ago

> 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.

bombcar3y ago

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.

robarr3y ago

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!

jasfi3y ago

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.

bombcar3y ago

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

unixhero3y ago

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

JPLeRouzic3y ago

Before Win2K, Windows ran on DOS.

lproven3y ago

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.

JPLeRouzic3y ago

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.

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dragonwriter3y ago

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.)

HeckFeck3y ago

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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