{"id":14397,"date":"2026-07-03T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14397"},"modified":"2026-07-03T00:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T04:24:15","slug":"hands-on-with-freedos-beta1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14397","title":{"rendered":"Hands-on with FreeDOS Beta1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n

The FreeDOS Project recently passed its 32-year anniversary<\/a>. This is a long time for any open source project, especially one that reproduces a classic operating system like DOS. We’re excited that so many people still download and use FreeDOS in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To celebrate the FreeDOS anniversary, I shared some early releases of the FreeDOS distribution, available from the FreeDOS Project<\/a> website. Download the FreeDOS Alpha5 and Beta1<\/a> if you’d like to see where it all started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently took a look back at the FreeDOS Alpha5<\/a> distribution. The “alpha” releases were essentially prototypes of what FreeDOS could be. In the Alpha5 version (1996) many traditional DOS commands and features were not yet working. However, by the time we released FreeDOS Beta1 (1998) things were in much better shape. The DOS commands now worked more like the traditional DOS versions they replaced. And most importantly, you could now boot your computer with the FreeDOS kernel from Beta1 and most<\/em> things would work. Let’s take a hands-on look at Beta1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A note about the name<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As you review these screenshots, you may notice some inconsistencies with the name. Sometimes the screenshots say “FreeDOS” and others use “Free-DOS” with a hyphen. There’s some history here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting in 1994 when I first announced<\/a> the project, I called it “PD-DOS” because I assumed giving away the source code was the same as public domain. But others pointed out that because we used the GNU General Public License, the project was actually Free software, so I quickly renamed it “Free-DOS” after a few weeks. We dropped the hyphen several years later, around the time that Pat Villani published his book, The FreeDOS Kernel<\/a> in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While we had officially adopted the “FreeDOS” (no hyphen) name by the time we released the Beta1 distribution in 1998, we weren’t always consistent with how we named it. That’s why a few screenshots still show the name as “Free-DOS” instead of “FreeDOS.” For consistency in this review, I’ll refer to this distribution simply as “Beta1” so I can avoid confusing you with “Free-DOS” or “FreeDOS.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Installing the Beta1 distribution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We provided the Beta1 distribution as a set of ten zip files: base1, base2, edit1, lang1, sys1, util1, source1, source2, source3, and source4. Only the “base” files were actually required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To install Beta1, you first unzipped the contents of these archives to separate floppy disks. But because the early kernel wasn’t yet stable, Beta1 didn’t provide a boot disk to install from. Instead, you had to unzip the installer to your system’s hard disk and run it from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The installer used special files in the installer’s directory and on each of the floppies to control its behavior. When the installer started up, it first displayed the contents of the OEM.TXT<\/code> file from the installer’s directory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

----------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSTOP!  READ THIS!\n=================\n\nIf you downloaded the FreeDOS *disk sets* in separate zip files,\nfirst make sure that you unzipped the files onto separate floppies\nbefore you run this Install program.  That is, make sure you aren't\ninstalling from base-1.zip, base-2.zip, lang-1.zip, etc.  :)\n\nIf you downloaded the *contents* of each install disk, then you are ok.\n\nAlso, please run the Install program from a directory on your hard\ndisk, and not from a boot floppy, at least in version 1.x.  Otherwise,\nthe Install program will not be able to find the UNZIP program that it\nneeds to extract the distribution packages.  (This will be fixed in\nversion 2.0).\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The installer then read the contents of INSTALL.DAT<\/code> for the list of disk sets<\/em> in the distribution. Each disk set was marked Y<\/code> for required<\/em> or ?<\/code> for prompt the user to install<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
base: Y\nedit: ?\nlang: ?\nsource: ?\nsys: ?\nutil: ?<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
As the installer processed each disk set, it used matching lines from the INSTALL.TXT<\/code> file to display information about the disk set. These descriptions were usually one or two lines long:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
base: The essential DOS utilities, which reproduce the functionality\nbase: of MS-DOS.\nedit: The free emacs clone, \"freemacs\".  Other COMPLETELY FREE editors\nedit: will be added to the distribution later.\nlang: Free compilers and assemblers.  Also includes some cool BASIC\nlang: programs you can run under BWBasic (included in \"base\".)\nsource: Source code to all the programs in the distribution.\nsys: Various free system utilities, such as system information\nsys: programs and keyboard locking programs.\nutil: Free file and directory utilities.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Each floppy contained its own list of packages, stored in a file like BASE.1<\/code> for the base1 floppy, BASE.2<\/code> for the base2 floppy, or generally set.n<\/em> for any floppy in a disk set. For example, the BASE.1<\/code> file on the base1 floppy marked each package with Y<\/code> (required):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
asgn14x: Y\nattr-x: Y\nb1932-x: Y\nbwbas-x: Y\ncdx13-x: Y\nckdsk-x: Y\nclsx-x: Y\ncom072bx: Y\ncomp-x: Y\ncopy-x: Y\ndbg095x: Y\ndeltr-x: Y\ndocs: Y\nfdsk04x: Y\nfdxms-x: Y\nfmt10x: Y\nhelpdocs: Y\nlabel-x: Y\nloadhi-x: Y\nmkdir-x: Y\nmode-x: Y\nmove-x: Y<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The installer read from the matching lines in a .TXT<\/code> file to display information about each package, such as BASE.TXT<\/code> for each of the floppies in the “base” disk set. For example, the first few lines in the BASE.TXT<\/code> file on the base1 floppy listed these packages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
asgn14x: Steffen Kaiser's ASSIGN program, version 1.4.  Allows you to\nasgn14x: assign one drive letter to a different drive.\nattr-x: The ATTRIB program, to view and set file attributes.\nb1932-x: Pat Villani's DOS-C kernel (the FreeDOS Kernel.)  This is\nb1932-x: beta code, but Pat says it is okay to distribute anyway.  It\nb1932-x: is more stable than any previous DOS-C kernel.\nb1932-x: THIS DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY INSTALL THE DOS-C KERNEL AS YOUR\nb1932-x: DEFAULT OS.  YOU WILL NEED TO RUN THE BAT FILE IN THE KERNEL\nb1932-x: DIRECTORY TO CREATE A BOOTABLE DOS-C FLOPPY.\nbwbas-x: Ted Campbell's ByWater BASIC interpreter.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
If the installer found a .END<\/code> file on the floppy, it knew it had finished with that disk set. Otherwise, it assumed at least one more floppy in the disk set and prompted for the next floppy, then repeated the process until it found a floppy with a .END<\/code> file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This mechanism made it easy to extend the installer to include other disk sets and more packages for later versions of the distribution, without having to update the program. Here’s a sample session from installing Beta1:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"white
Installing FreeDOS Beta 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"white
Installing FreeDOS Beta 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"white
Installing FreeDOS Beta 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"white
Installing FreeDOS Beta 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Installing Beta1 didn’t automatically make your system bootable with the FreeDOS kernel. Instead, you had to create your own boot floppy. At the time, we felt this was the safest option, so you could test FreeDOS without committing your hard disk to always booting from a still-incomplete DOS kernel. To create a boot floppy, go to the DOS\\BIN\\KERNEL<\/code> directory and run the INSTALL.BAT<\/code> file, which will do the manual step to write the kernel boot image to a 1.44 MB floppy disk:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"white
Making a boot floppy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
You can now boot from this floppy to use the FreeDOS kernel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"white
Booting the kernel floppy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
This early kernel used a multi-step initial program loader<\/em> or “IPL” to load the kernel image into memory, before booting the system. That’s why the directory listing of the boot floppy shows several extra files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exploring the Beta1 distribution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Like the “alpha” distributions before it, Beta1 installed its files using a hierarchical structure. Starting at the DOS<\/code> directory (or wherever you installed Beta1) all EXE, COM, and SYS programs were stored in the BIN<\/code> directory. Online help files were in HELP<\/code> and general program documentation was saved in DOC<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beta1 provided replacements for many of the classic DOS commands, and by this time the programs worked mostly as you’d expect. Available commands included ASSIGN, ATTRIB, BWBASIC (the ByWater BASIC<\/a> interpreter), CDX (a CD-ROM extender like MSCDEX), CHKDSK, COMP, DEBUG, DELTREE, FDISK, FDXMS (a replacement XMS driver, like EMM386), FIND, FORMAT, LABEL, LOADHI (load TSR drivers into high memory, like LH or LOADHIGH), MODE, MORE, MOVE, PAUSE, SORT, SWSUBST (replacing both JOIN and SUBST), TSDK (a RAM disk driver, like RAMDISK), UNZIP, ZIP, as well as our own COMMAND.COM<\/code> shell (contributed by Tim Norman).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some commands that were usually internal<\/em> commands in classic DOS were actually external<\/em> commands in Beta1. The shell didn’t support all internal commands yet, so we provided external versions of CLS (plus an extended version called CLSX), COPY, DATE, DEL, MAN (like HELP), MKDIR, RMDIR, TIME, TYPE, VERIFY, and VERSION.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, we still did not have an editor; FreeDOS Edit<\/a> (contributed by Joe Cosentino), FreeDOS edlin<\/a> (by Gregory Pietsch), and other editors like the FED editor<\/a> were added much later. Instead, we provided Freemacs<\/a> (by Russell Nelson, similar to GNU Emacs) on the edit1 floppy, with Freemacs extensions including MINT program modes, emulation for 101-key keyboards, EGA support, FORTRAN and LaTeX edit modes, and an integrated spell program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What runs, and what doesn’t<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
After installing Beta1, and booting from the FreeDOS Kernel boot floppy, I tested this early distribution with several of my favorite DOS games and applications. It’s important to note that while the kernel was quite advanced, not all features were implemented yet. Some programs, like the DOOM installer, flatly refused to run. Commander Keen exited with an “Out of memory” error. The Wolfenstein 3D installer worked, but the game did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"colorful
Wolfenstein 3D installs but won’t run on Beta1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
But many other programs worked fine on this old kernel. For example, I copied DOOM from my modern FreeDOS virtual machine, and was able to play a game:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"first
DOOM runs great on Beta1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The venerable Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet worked great on Beta1. I was able to perform different calculations flawlessly, such as this linear regression:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"spreadsheet
Lotus 1-2-3 runs fine on Beta1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
I had some troubles running my favorite DOS spreadsheet, As-Easy-As. The application would randomly freeze and crash the virtual machine. Running As-Easy-As with the \/NE<\/code> (no EMS) option didn’t fix it. However, using the \/NT<\/code> (no turbo keyboard) seems to prevent crashes. After running the application with that command line option, I could use all the regular features of As-Easy-As, although it reported that my freshly-installed shareware copy had already been run 1,376 times:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"start-up
As-Easy-As on Beta1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"spreadsheet
As-Easy-As on Beta1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
I wasn’t able to run Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS. The program repeatedly complained that “No file handles are available” despite having FILES=20<\/code> in my CONFIG.SYS<\/code> file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"error
I couldn’t run Word for DOS on Beta1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
However, Word’s MSD<\/code> program (Microsoft Diagnostics) runs fine and reports that my QEMU virtual machine is a 486, and the operating system is MS-DOS 3.3:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"diagnostic
MSD reports “MS-DOS 3.31” on Beta1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Try it for yourself<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
There’s more to explore in the Beta1 distribution. Download this original distribution and install it on your virtual machine. If you use QEMU, I recommend using the isapc<\/code> machine type, which emulates a legacy ISA PC from the 1990s. Use the QEMU monitor to change floppies, using the change floppy0<\/code> command to give it the filename for the next floppy disk image. Here’s an example showing the output from DIR A:<\/code> of the base1 floppy, then using the QEMU monitor change the floppy to use the base2 floppy before running DIR A:<\/code> again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"3
Load a new floppy image with “change floppy0”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Install the Beta1 distribution to take a step back in time to the early days of FreeDOS. As you explore Beta1, keep in mind that this was still an early release. Expect some bugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the current version of FreeDOS is quite stable, and I encourage you to try this more modern DOS. Download the FreeDOS 1.4 distribution (2025) from the FreeDOS Project<\/a> website. Or download our test release, updated monthly, and help us test the next FreeDOS distribution. The FreeDOS T2607 (July 2026) test release includes an updated kernel that now supports running Windows 3.1, as well as other improvements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Take a look back at this important milestone in FreeDOS history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":4259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[340,106],"tags":[267,316],"class_list":["post-14397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freedos","category-history","tag-freedos","tag-history"],"modified_by":"Jim Hall","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14397"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14402,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14397\/revisions\/14402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}