Microsoft Launches Open-Source MS-DOS On GitHub

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft Launches Open-Source MS-DOS On GitHub

Four years ago Microsoft made public the source-code to MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 to the Computer History Museum. Today though they're making it much more accessible and friendly to modern developers by pushing it onto GitHub...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-MS-DOS-GitHub

[mhartzel]

Wow I just downloaded it. The binary and assembler files for DOS 1.25 and 2.0 combined is 4 MB. This is a treat for retroheads like me

[kapouer]

Oh wow ! Let's open source our work on github. Legal guys told us we can buy github before so it's okay !

[DanL]

How long before they release DOS 6.22? 10 years?

[funkboy]

& it's not even April 1 yet...

[M@yeulC]

I wonder if that could end up being useful for dosbox somehow?

[ms178]

That's history. I'd rather like to hear more from Microsoft about their future Core OS modernization effort. It has been really quiet on that front. And I fear they might tank that project with their UWP centric effort. Also they will get a contender with Google's Fuchsia. I hope we as a consumer will get something out of that competition on the OS level...

[ElectricPrism]

Will this provide any value to projects like ReactOS or nil?

[kpedersen]

How long before they release DOS 6.22? 10 years?

Perhaps once we can properly emulate it. Qemu absolutely fails when it comes to digital preservation.

This is just one of many bugs:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1574246

Desqview and DOSShell are not functional either because of our failure to correctly simulate a computer from the 80s. Microsoft can take their time with the 6.22 source release until we catch up

Yes, I sound bitter because I am fond of DOS and it is getting quite hard to access it. DosBox focuses on games but there is more to life than that

[thunderbird32]

Perhaps once we can properly emulate it. Qemu absolutely fails when it comes to digital preservation.

This is just one of many bugs:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1574246

Desqview and DOSShell are not functional either because of our failure to correctly simulate a computer from the 80s. Microsoft can take their time with the 6.22 source release until we catch up

Yes, I sound bitter because I am fond of DOS and it is getting quite hard to access it. DosBox focuses on games but there is more to life than that

Have you tried 86Box or PCem? I find both to be very good at legacy DOS system emulation (and newer systems as well). I don't recall if 86Box compiles correctly on Linux (it didn't last I checked), but I believe PCem should (IIRC, 86Box was forked from PCem a few years ago, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get it building on Linux, with enough work).