Bootstrap/386 is a Bootstrap v2/3/4/5(in progress) theme to make webpages look like they are from the gentler, less distracting time of the 1980s. Does a great job of making a website look like an MS-DOS application running on a somewhat slow PC. Resembles the Borland Turbo UI in many ways. The Javascript even looks fairly configurable.
mTCP is a set of TCP/IP applications for personal computers running PC-DOS, MS-DOS, FreeDOS, and other flavors of DOS. The applications include a DHCP client, FTP client and server, HTTP getter and server, IRC client, netcat implementation, network drive share client, ping utility (natch), packet sniffer, SNTP client, and telnet client.
mTCP runs on all variants of DOS including IBM PC-DOS, Microsoft MS-DOS, DR-DOS and FreeDOS. All of these applications will run well on the oldest, slowest PC that you can find - I routinely use them on an IBM PCjr made in 1983 because nothing beats the fun of putting a 39 year old computer on the Internet.
People are using mTCP for goofing off and for real work. If you have a DOS machine that needs to send data across the network mTCP can help you get that done. Besides its utility to vintage computers I have heard of people using it to transfer lab data from dedicated industrial PCs, allowing backups to be run on old machines, and sending sales reports from the branch offices of a retail store to a central server.
Don't have a vintage computer laying around? No problem! mTCP applications will run in a variety of virtual and emulated environments. It has been tested with modified DOSBox builds, VirtualBox, VMWare, and QEMU. See the documentation for the details.
mTCP applications should work on any IBM PC compatible personal computer running DOS. To be more specific, an IBM PC compatible with an 8088 or better CPU, 96KB to 384KB of system memory depending on the application, DOS v2.1 or newer, and a network interface that has a packet driver like NDIS or ODI.
Retro7zip is a native backport of 7-Zip for DOS and Win32c that runs on old Microsoft operating systems. Will run on MS-DOS, FreeDOS, PC-DOS, SvarDOS, or OS/2. Will run on Windows 95 through NT4.
Visual DOS 2024 is a narrative / cryptogram puzzle game. After upgrading to Visual DOS 2024, you start exploring the OS, but instead meet someone trapped at the other end. Using cryptogram puzzles, and a pre-installed news reader, you unravel the mysteries behind the scenes, and attempt to save your trapped friend. Visual DOS has over 60 cryptogram puzzles, a DOS like environment with DOS and other command-line commands that do things, and no real generative AI behind it.
There's a prequel, too - Interger Overflow.
Jemm is an "Expanded Memory Manager" (EMM), based on the source of FreeDOS' Emm386. It should work with MS-DOS and compatible DOSes, including FreeDOS. Like other EMMs it uses extended memory to simulate expanded memory (EMS) according to EMS v3.2 and EMS v4.0. Can load drivers and resident programs into UMB (upper memory blocks) to free up core memory. Can map RAM to the video address segments A000-AFFF and B000-B7FF. Installs VCPI (Virtual Control Program Interface) services to allow DOS applications running in V86-mode to switch to protected mode. VCPI also implements a simple memory manager. Installs a VDS (Virtual DMA Service) API to give drivers/applications some control over DMA and physical addresses in V86-mode.
There are 2 versions of Jemm:
- Jemm386: standard version which needs an external eXtended Memory Manager (XMM; examples: Himem[S]X, MS Himem, XMGR ) to be loaded.
- JemmEx: extended version which has an XMM already included.
JemmEx most likely is the better choice because it will need less DOS memory than an external XMM + Jemm386.
SvarDOS is an open-source project that is meant to integrate the best out of the currently available DOS tools, drivers and games. DOS development has been abandoned by commercial players a long time ago, mostly during early nineties. Nowadays it survives solely through the efforts of hobbyists and retro-enthusiasts, but this is a highly sparse and unorganized ecosystem. SvarDOS aims to collect available DOS software and make it easy to find and install applications using a network-enabled package manager (like apt-get, but for DOS and able to run on a 8086 PC).
Once installed, SvarDOS is a minimalistic DOS system that offers only a DOS kernel, a command interpreter and the most basic tools for system administration. It is then up to the user to install additional packages. Care is taken so SvarDOS remains 8086-compatible, at least in its most basic (core) configuration.
SvarDOS is published under the terms of the MIT license. This applies only to SvarDOS-specific files, though - the auxilliary packages supplied with SvarDOS may be subject to different licenses (GPL, BSD, Public Domain, Freeware...)
SvarDOS is a rolling release, meaning that it does not adhere to the concept of "versions". Once the system is installed, its packages can be kept up-to-date using the SvarDOS online update tools (pkg & pkgnet).
Read-only Github repo: https://github.com/SvarDOS/core
DOSBox-X is a cross-platform DOS emulator based on the DOSBox project (www.dosbox.com).
Like DOSBox, it emulates a PC, necessary for running many MS-DOS games and applications that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems. However, while the main focus of DOSBox is for running DOS games, DOSBox-X goes much further than this. Started as a fork of the DOSBox project, it retains compatibility with the wide base of DOS games and DOS gaming DOSBox was designed for. But it is also a platform for running DOS applications, including emulating the environments to run Windows 3.x, 9x and ME and software written for those versions of Windows. By adding official support for Windows 95, 98, ME emulation and acceleration, we hope that those old Windows games and applications could be enjoyed or used once more. Moreover, DOSBox-X adds support for DOS/V and NEC PC-98 emulations so that you can play DOS/V and PC-98 games with it.
zFRAG is a little Zen Game in which you can manually defrag a virtual Hard Disk. You can also turn on the AutoDefrag and sit back and watch. Developed in Unity, the game is available on itch.io.
Runs on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, OSX, and Linux.
The simplest API to run DOS/Win 9x programs in a web browser or node.js.
js-dos is a frontend for emulators that provides nice UI and infrastructure to run DOS or Windows programs in browser. It provides full-featured DOS player that can be easily installed and used to get your DOS program up and running in browser quickly. js-dos provide many advanced features like multiplayer and cloud storage. All available features are enabled for any integration and free.
Supports DOSbox and DOSbox-X.
Pure Javascript and WebAssembly versions available.
The world's biggest collection of classic text mode fonts, system fonts and BIOS fonts from DOS-era IBM PCs and compatibles - preserving raster typography from pre-GUI times. Includes 8-bit and 16-bit fonts as well, including Atari, Tandy, and even some BIOS' characteristic typefaces.
TrueType (.ttf), bitmap (.fon) and web (.woff) remakes for 200+ character sets. Both pixel-perfect and aspect-corrected reproductions of the original raster fonts. Multi-lingual Unicode enhancements of selected system character sets. Free to use under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
How to configure and use the virtual modem in DOSbox. Rather than dialing phone numbers, you dial IPv4 address/port pairs.
A super-tiny (512 bytes!) DOS with a My Little Pony schtick. Supports booting a live floppy image in QEMU.
The file archives of the Dreamland BBS, for Amiga, DOS, Linux, Windows, SunOS/Solaris, BSD, and more.
It's hard to say what all is in here, so poke around and see if anything looks good.
The Internet Archive is also aware of needing to back up this archive: https://archive.org/details/dreamlandbbs.com
An interesting operating system with file system compatibility to CP/M-80 (and other similarities).
"What I (Richard A. Leary) have done is attack the software side of the problem in order to make any 6502 system a truly workable disk based system. In addition a degree of compatibility is now possible not only between 6502 systems but with large parts of the world of CP/M systems. The result of my efforts is a system of software which I have named DOS/65."
FreeDOS is a complete, free, DOS-compatible operating system that you can use to play classic DOS games, run legacy business software, or develop embedded systems. While we provide some utilities, you should be able to run any program intended for MS-DOS. Pretty much any program that works on MS-DOS will work on FreeDOS. You can also use FreeDOS on a network! However, you may experience problems running Windows on FreeDOS. For example, Windows standard-mode works on FreeDOS, but ‘386-mode Windows for Workgroups 3.11 does not.
Github: https://github.com/FDOS
Yes, there are people who still run DOS and use WordPerfect. Here's how.
DOS on dope. The last MVC Web framework you'll ever need.
All of the controllers in DoD are batch files.
All of the views are batch files.
The model is based on batch files. The helper functions are... you guessed it! Beautiful batch files!
(Okay, I'm no purist. There's a few lines of C# for url routing and batch file execution. Everything else is either a .bat or a .cmd file. With a liberal helping of .csv mixed in.)
MicroPython/CircuitPython DOS-like shell for microcontroller boards like the RasPi Pico and Featherwing.
xBIOS is like a programmers version of DOS. With it you can easily access files from your programs without using Atari DOS. It is smaller than DOS and therefore saves memory in your programs. You can even run programs from as low as $0200, however $0800 or $2000 are more common.
Limitations
- New files cannot be created.
- Existing files cannot be extended in length.
- New directories cannot be created programatically.
A curated list of references for development of DOS applications.