To a computer novice, the subject of operating systems is usually a cloudy one, a too-technical matter riddled with unintelligible terms such as ”DOS,” ”UNIX,” ”BIOS” and ”CP/M.” Even worse, computer ...

Earlier this month, I spent a day working in the throwback world of DOS. More specifically, it was FreeDOS version 1.1, the open source version of the long-defunct Microsoft MS-DOS operating system.

FreeDOS is an open source operating system that allows you to run MS-DOS applications even though Microsoft stopped developing and supporting MS-DOS more than two decades ago. While FreeDOS has been ...

Editor’s note: After this article was published, Microsoft issued a statement clarifying that cmd.exe will not be going away after all. Read Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols’ follow-up column. My very first ...

In context: Back in 1980, Tim Paterson was creating a new operating system he called QDOS or Quick and Dirty Operating System. The system was later renamed 86-DOS, as it was being designed to run on ...

It’s been decades since Microsoft stopped developing MS-DOS, but there are thousands of old DOS applications that aren’t designed to run on newer operating systems like Windows 10. Enter FreeDOS, a ...