The FreeDOS Project

I like using #FreeDOS to explain how a computer starts up. DOS is simple enough and small enough that you can see the moving parts.

And once you see how it works in DOS, you can understand more complex systems like #Linux

https://www.both.org/?p=13889

I always encourage more folks to learn a bit of C programming, so they can write their own programs, like command line tools.

Here's an example that shows how to write a program like Unix 'seq' to generate a sequence of numbers.

https://www.both.org/?p=14036

FreeDOS doesn't have a 'seq' command, so if you want one, this is how you'd write it.

I had a zip drive on my computer at the time, which I used for backups. It was great!

Until I had the click of death. Then I dropped zip drives. I think I burned a monthly CDR for backups until I eventually got a USB flash drive.

https://www.xda-developers.com/zip-drives-dominated-90s-vanished-almost-overnight/

The f2c program helped me to compile FORTRAN 77 programs on #Linux in the early days when Linux didn't yet have a FORTRAN compiler

https://www.both.org/?p=14140

I should try to compile f2c on FreeDOS sometime. We don't really need it, thanks to Open Watcom FORTRAN, but it would be an interesting throwback experiment to compile #FORTRAN programs with just a C compiler

For added #retro fun:
I wonder if BCC will support f2c? 🤔

FreeDOS includes a FORTRAN 77 compiler as the Open Watcom FORTRAN compiler.

If you're interested in trying out FORTRAN, here are a few points to get you started:

https://www.both.org/?p=14100

1️⃣ Programs are column sensitive

2️⃣ DO loops

3️⃣ No WHILE loop

4️⃣ DOUBLE PRECISION variables

5️⃣ Output with FORMAT

@fluidlogic@oldbytes.space Good to know. That may be the case for several projects* not just fujinet. What's the link for fujinet?

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• For example, at FreeDOS we welcome contributors, but our doc infrastructure is difficult to contribute to since our wiki was spammed out of existence and we restarted it as a markdown process.