Tag Archives: Virtual Machines

More 21st Century DOS

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It is the third decade of the 21st century and I found Running DOS on 64-bit Windows and Linux: Just because you can

I have experimented with FreeDOS. To conveniently have any networking you have to install it in a virtual machine. I have done this and it works. The problem is getting files in and out of the VM. This is doable, but it is certainly not convenient. I also installed it native on an old (2011) laptop, and then afterwards installed Xubuntu as a dual boot system. Xubuntu can see the FreeDOS disk partition, so I can copy files into it, then reboot into FreeDOS. There I can do whatever I had in mind, then reboot into Xubuntu to extract my output files. Even more hassle than using a VM. The only reason to do it is to experience DOS natively on (sort of) modern hardware. So I looked for other options.

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WordTsar

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I read WordTsar Is Reviving the ’80s WordPerfect Writing Experience with considerable interest, but following it up with a look at WordTsar and WordTsar: Wordstar for the 21st Century quickly showed that the first author was not present during the word processor wars of the 1980s. WordStar lost to WordPerfect in that conflict, but still has some diehard fans, the most famous being George R.R. Martin, who still uses it on a DOS machiue. I have been able to run WordStar on FreeDOS, with FreeDOS running on a virtual machine. This was WordStar 4.0, which is now “abandonware,” i.e. free, but without any official support.

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WordStar on FreeDOS

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After last time I tried to ftp a file from my Linux host to FreeDOos. The connection worked, but I could not do the transfer. Somehow my C drive was full. 0 bytes free. So I looked again at How to Backup VM(s) on VirtualBox to see how to restore my snapshot. This worked, although I had to use the “clone” option to restore it under another name. After the restore dir c:\ showed plenty of free space. So I tried the ftp again. I ran cd c:\net\mtcp and then used ftp (the basic ancient ftp client) to get Ws4.zip from the host. I had used this program a lot back in the 1990s. This particular zip archive has the installation files for WordStar 4.0, which was released jn 1987 and which I used at home in the late 1980s and into the 90s.

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Installing FreeDOS

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After mentioning DOS in Programming in Pascal I Downloaded FreeDOS 1.3. I had previously installed VirtualBox on Ubuntu 22.04 system using Synaptic Package Manager. For the installation I followed How to install FreeDOS on VirtualBox. It seems that I have a later version of VirtualBox than the video, so I did not see exactly what is in the video, but it was close enough. Per the video I used the VDI file type for the VM file. The installation was successful. A couple notes:

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Programming in Pascal

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Back in 2021 I wrote about APL, a computer language that I used early in my career. I have not seriously worked with it in the last 30 years, but it is still around.

Recently I read that Apple Just Released Code for Its 40-Year-Old “Lisa” Computer. This sentence caught my eye.

Much of the code is written in Pascal, an early programming language dating back to 1970, which was also used for some of the Mac’s early software.

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Replacing a hard disk

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I have a Dell Optiplex 780, which I bought used from the Box Shop some years ago for about $250. The date of the BIOS is 2008, so it is quite ancient. However it is a 64 bit system, with 4GB RAM, and virtualization support. It must have been considered a fine machine in its day. It still works. I have installed Windows 10 on it, even that OS is not officially supported on it, and before that two varieties of Linux. It is no longer my primary system, but I am not yet ready to part with it. Hence How to Copy Your Windows Installation to an SSD caught my eye, since replacing a hard drive by an SSD is a good way to speed up an old system.

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A Note on Computer BIOS Settings

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Enabling VM features on a computer is a BIOS feature, so do to it you have to interrupt the startup with the Escape or some other key, depending on the machine. My HP EliteDesk uses the Escape key, but the boot started so fast that my 70 year old fingers could not hit that key fast enough to prevent Windows from starting. A web search suggest that I use the Windows power settings to disable the “quick boot” and actually do a full shutdown and restart rather than a simple reboot. This worked and I could click Escape in time and get to the BIOS settings. After a little searching I found the VM setting (Every BIOS is different) and turned it on. I also added a 5-second delay to the boot settings to make the next time easier.