..i know, there are freedos and opendos and drdos and pts-dos (.., and blah-dos, and shwah-dos, and ...) Does anyone have some experience with them and could tell me which one i should install? I'd like to have a maximum set of these features: - clean 32bit protected mode kernel (*I* *WANT* *RAM* !) - reasonable multitasking - long filenames (vfat?) with short name capability like win32 - a _cool_ shell (perhaps bash-like?) - virtual consoles would be cool - preferably a native tcp stack - still 100% msdos 6.22 compatibility (real-mode emulation or what..) - available on the web (i *DO* prefer open source but if there is none.. ;) i don't know if that is quite possible, it sounds a bit like a "dos-binary-compatible-yet-just-as-compact-as-msdos unixlike", doesn't it? still, i see claims here and there on the web that one or the other of the above mentioned OSs has got some of the features. I simply want to know by someone who does have tried out *several* of them: # Which one does actually come closest? # thanks a lot °oO ddddummy, the DOSficionado;) Oo° P.S. it is a bit like a win32 with absolutely all gui components stripped, yet still long- filename-enabled and so on; plus virtual consoles. Is there perhaps a possibility to modify a win32 system in that way? can those vfat and multitasking drivers still be loaded? (it SHOULD work somehow.... the gui IS just a gui and takes away most of the space. is there such a project?)

There is no one DOS that does all you ask... DR-DOS has good multitasking, but it's not 100% compatible with MS-DOS (only MS-DOS can be %100 compatible with MS-DOS). ROM-DOS has good LFN compatibility (I use it for all my boot disks), has very good compatibility with MS-DOS, but it doesn't do multitasking. PTS DOS is supposedly very good but I haven't used it. You can add multitasking and long file name support to just about any dos via TSRs, but they aren't all that stable. As for the stripped down windows... People have worked on such a project... I haven't been able to find any good information on it (all the links I have found appear to be dead) though. To start, all you need is a bare minimum windows installation, with the shell set to command.com in the system.ini file. I have managed to get a windows 3.1 installation to boot to only a command prompt, but it wasn't very stable. Windows 95/98 can get very complex, and it's hard to isolate which programs are necessary and which aren't. It would be a cool project though. Well enough rambling, just my $.02. -Michael

Try using DrDOS with SEAL ontop ... SEAL is a GUI that we are programming and it is very flexible... http://seal.pmad.net

Dear, Michael. Hi! I have seen in your message that you use Datalight ROM-DOS! 7.1 version? You could help me? Please... I needed boot disk ROM-DOS 7.1: system files, country page with Russian support, "mscdex.exe" and similarity of "smartdrv.exe" from MS-DOS. Only ~10 files! Please, help me!

For some reason a DOS compatible 32 bit OS has been available for sometime for evaluation from www.Sandh.com which everyone appears to have overlooked. It is called TSX-32 LITE. It does have a 32bit protected mode kernel and it does do ultra stable multitasking. This is an old version so it does not do long file names nor is it FAT 32 compatible. It does incorporate a TCP stack. Also since this version is for evaluation it supports only two users and there is no networking. You can also download an excellent users manual from the same site. If you have 450 dollars to spend you could of course have most the features you require. After experiencing the diabolical setup program my enthusaism for testing it has waned, but I will report back to the DOS forum with my conclusions eventually. Go on, give it a go and E-mail me with accounts of your TSX-32 experiences. It could change your life! E-mail to Courcha@btinternet.com