In these days when Microsoft dominates the desktop (and looks set to dominate just about everything else), it has been forgotten that it could easily have been very different. Once upon a time, there was another company that in it's day also dominated the operating system market and was the first company to bring a GUI to the PC. That company was Digital Research which was founded by the late and very great Gary Kildall. Who? You can find more information about him here. Suffice to say that he (and not Bill Gates) practically single-handedly created all the elements that later came together to create the computers as we know them today. One of DR's products was DRDOS now known as OpenDOS which in it's day was pretty advanced and put Microsoft's then product MSDOS 4.01 distinctly in the shade. But times have moved on and everyone it seems wants Windows. So what of poor old DOS. Is it dead or could there be life in the old dog yet. Oh and all the software has to be free (or GPL).

Well, let's take a moment to examine the possibilites. DOS of one kind or another is still around providing excellent service and value for money in the embedded industry but what of the desktop. I recently put together a DOS only machine just to see how useable it is. The specification is:

• 486 DX66
• 16Mb RAM
• 1.44 Floppy drive
• 230Mb Hard drive
• External 33.6 modem
• 800x600 SVGA monitor
• PS/2 keyboard and mouse
• MSDOS 6.2

So what do we want a computer to do for us these days. Top of everyones list is of course...

Internet

Can DOS really get you on the Internet? It certainly can. Pop over to the home of Arachne, a DOS Internet browser and very good it is too. Nice and fast as you would expect and it found my modem no problem. It is of course not perfect with various plugins missing and no support for Java or Javascript (yet...). Some CSS link rollovers seem to work as do animated gifs and all other graphics display fine. There may be problems with some fonts but most of the major ones appear to be supported. It reminds me very much of older versions of Netscape in use although it has to be said that many of the screens are very pretty and there is a built-in file browser. It also supports email, FTP and can connect across a LAN (although I haven't tested these). Quite impressive for a DOS product and it seems to work on a lowly 486 with 16Mb of RAM reasonably well.

File Manager

Spoilt for choice really. I have found two very good products. The first is Desktop 2 which combines a file manager and program manager in one. Looks good with an attractive interface and icons. I also found WinDOS which isn't quite so pretty but very functional and has the added bonus of being able to open ZIP files as if they were ordinary folders - very handy. The only other file manager is DOSSHELL that came free with MSDOS 4 & 5 although it is largely text based and also doubles as a GUI (see below).

Graphical User Interface

Alright so this is a tough assignment you might think. However, the Internet is awash with GUI's for DOS although I must admit that finding ones I actually liked was a bit tougher. As mentioned above, there is the old DOSSHELL if you've got an old copy of MSDOS kicking about. Text based but it works not unlike Windows 3.1 with Groups and you can run more than one program and switch between them using ALT TAB - not exactly multitasking but pretty close.

Alright, so what you really want is a Graphical UI. Well, probably one of the best is Seal which also comes with the FreeDOS project (a cone of DOS 3.3) although for some strange reason it wouldn't run on my target machine. Having drafted in a replacement, it looks nice but it does take a lot of resources and can be rather slow to load and run. Then we come to the creme de la creme - GEM. This was a commercial product that has now been released under the terms of the GPL. It also comes with a wide range of software such as drawing packages and Word Processors. However, I will be devoting a full article to GEM which you can find here with all the low down as to where to download it. Finally, I have found several GUI's written in QBasic that are fast and can be easily programmed to suit individual needs. It is called Windoze and there is a textmode version and a fully graphical version. You can find more information and some tutorials on my pages here.

So is DOS a viable alternative? Well certainly there is no shortage of good quality free software and of course there are limitations one of which is printer support which is restricted to old secondhand printers (although new dot matrix printers are still available albeit at rather expensive prices) because no one supports DOS drivers for new printers but nevertheless it provides quite a useable system. Soundcards is one area that is well supported and WAV files can be played by both GEM and Windoze. GEM also supports a very good scripting language and Windoze can provide an interface to quite sophisticated programs (such as PIM software the source to which is widely available on the Internet). One could argue of course that Linux is a better supported system and a much more viable alternative to Windows (it supports most of the modern hardware including printers and is continuing to evolve). However, Linux won't run on my target PC even with the addition of more memory (there is a 48Mb limit) and a CDROM drive. DOS could also give a new lease of life to old laptops that could still have many years of useful life. GEM of course is also still evolving thanks to it's release under the GPL and hopefully a 32 bit version is not far away. All in all, DOS should not be forgotten and could provide a useful service. And best of all it's FREE! Have fun!