FreeDOS(98)

[98digger]

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What is FreeDOS?

FreeDOS is an MS-DOS clone that maintains (almost) complete compatibility with MS-DOS, while at the same time is GPL compliant (which basically means it's free). FreeDOS advances over MS-DOS in numerous ways.
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What is FreeDOS(98)?

In the early 2000's, several programmers began work on a PC-98 version of FreeDOS. FreeDOS is a PC operating system, so it needed to be modified in order to work with the PC-98 series. The programmers were able to complete and release FreeDOS(98) in 2004. As of today, FreeDOS(98) is incomplete, and no work has been done on it since 2005.
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FreeDOS(98) Links:

FreeDOS for IBM PC:
http://www.freedos.org/

Original site:
http://www.retropc.net/tori/freedos/

Helpful tools/information:
http://dosmania.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-76.html

SYS:
http://silphire.finito-web.com/freedos/

FreeCOM:
http://dos.minashiro.net/freecomj.html

Other site:
http://silphire.finito-web.com/freedos/image.htm
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^I think one of those sites contains a link to HDD images

(Personally, I have not been able to get FreeDOS(98) to run anything in emulators. I think, however, that it may be different with real hardware.)

Basically, I'm posting this to make the PC-98 community here aware of its existence, so that anyone without the MS-DOS install floppies can enjoy the PC-98 without paying $150+. Hopefully, as this community grows, someone may be able to expand upon and further optimize FreeDOS(98) to provide us with an OS that we can all easily install and use.

<I would greatly appreciate it if someone could test it out on real hardware and post their findings here! >

                                                                                                                                                   -98digger

[AnnaWu]

(Personally, I have not been able to get FreeDOS(98) to run anything in emulators. I think, however, that it may be different with real hardware.)

http://nesgbgg.seesaa.net/article/252900306.html
http://yotama.blog84.fc2.com/blog-entry-3.html

[SkyeWelse]

Today I tried writing FreeDOS98 from a FreeDOS98.HDI image I found on a Japanese site linked from one of Anna's sites above. I copied the contents of the .HDI file from Disk Explorer to a new 1.2MB formatted disk using DiskImage. The result was a "No System Files" error message. If there is something else you would like for me to try and write for testing purposes, I would be glad to try it when I able.

-Thomas

[98digger]

Today I tried writing FreeDOS98 from a FreeDOS98.HDI image I found on a Japanese site linked from one of Anna's sites above. I copied the contents of the .HDI file from Disk Explorer to a new 1.2MB formatted disk using DiskImage. The result was a "No System Files" error message. If there is something else you would like for me to try and write for testing purposes, I would be glad to try it when I able.

-Thomas

Actually, copying the OS from a hard drive to a floppy disk will not work with any computer, even PC-98. I have an old Leading Edge PC-XT and tried the same thing with that, but it refused to boot. It turns out, the OS files are not the only thing an OS installs on a hard drive. They also write information (which is not accessible inside the OS) to the first few tracks of the hard drive. This information basically allows for the computer to recognize the hard drive and boot from it. When copying system files, the first few tracks of the hard drive are not copied. It is for this reason HDI's exist: because they copy the entire disk onto an image, including the first few tracks of information.

I do know that the HDI's of FreeDOS(98) do in fact work (I've seen videos), so try writing the .HDI to a CF/SD card or a real hard drive. Then it should be able to boot properly. 

By the way, does anyone know if the FreeDOS(98) .IMG files contain some sort of NEC Copyright? A user on the Touhou forum claims he examined the image files in a hex editor and found a "Copyright NEC Corporation" string. Is this true, and if it is, why exactly is it in the images files?

("NEC Copyright" post on the Touhou forum (reply #16: https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=16841.0)

Thanks! 

[kobushi]

Today I tried writing FreeDOS98 from a FreeDOS98.HDI image I found on a Japanese site linked from one of Anna's sites above. I copied the contents of the .HDI file from Disk Explorer to a new 1.2MB formatted disk using DiskImage. The result was a "No System Files" error message. If there is something else you would like for me to try and write for testing purposes, I would be glad to try it when I able.

That is not how you make a bootable floppy! The low-level interface and kernel code MUST be written in the correct order starting from the boot sector of the disk.

By the way, does anyone know if the FreeDOS(98) .IMG files contain some sort of NEC Copyright? A user on the Touhou forum claims he examined the image files in a hex editor and found a "Copyright NEC Corporation" string. Is this true, and if it is, why exactly is it in the images files?

Most likely it's the PC-9801 hard disk MBR. The disk must have been formatted in MS-DOS before FreeDOS was installed.

[SkyeWelse]

Today I tried writing FreeDOS98 from a FreeDOS98.HDI image I found on a Japanese site linked from one of Anna's sites above. I copied the contents of the .HDI file from Disk Explorer to a new 1.2MB formatted disk using DiskImage. The result was a "No System Files" error message. If there is something else you would like for me to try and write for testing purposes, I would be glad to try it when I able.

That is not how you make a bootable floppy! The low-level interface and kernel code MUST be written in the correct order starting from the boot sector of the disk.

I think I originally took an existing HDM disk image that was meant for starting Dos 6.2 and replaced the contents of the disk with that of the FreeDos files. Then once I saved that HDM, I wrote that new FreeDOS HDM file using DiskImage to a 1.25 format to a newly formatted 1.25 diskette. It was the same process I did for creating the other bootable Dos 6.2 disks with the Bios tools on each disk linked in the other thread.

But you're right, if I had to create a disk without working from an existing HDM image to be bootable directly, I'm not sure how I would accomplish this step. I'm pretty new to PC-98 Dos in general and even in the past working with regular Dos applications, I had never really worked with creating bootable Dos disks in the past. With my other hobby, MSX, there is a similar tool to DiskImage that can be used to create either a MSX1 or MSX2 bootable disk, as long as it has the 2 required files of command.com and msxdos.sys so perhaps it creates the needed header/boot sector needed automatically when selecting those options. It seems that so far with PC-98 and Dos disks, I need a lot more than just two files for it become bootable. 

-Thomas

[98digger]

@SkyeWelse

I just discovered a FreeDOS(98) bootable floppy image you could use:

http://silphire.finito-web.com/freedos/image.htm

The site does recommend that you make the Hard Drive invisable in the BIOS before using the disk, because apparently there is a chance of FreeDOS messing something up.

Actually, I just realized that you could theoretically use the PC-98 with only the Freedos floppy and a CF card. No real hard drive would actually be required, and this means that people could simply buy a base pc-98 with no HDD (one that displays "no system files") and still use it. This might make the PC-98 more accessible to people in regards to buying it and getting it to work  .

[SkyeWelse]

98digger - Sounds good. I'll try it out tomorrow after work. No need to worry about the harddrive for me. I think I killed it in an experiment a long time ago...  So currently I only boot from a floppy without a harddrive installed.

-Thomas

[98digger]

Welp, I've spent about an hour trying to get the FreeDOS(98) Floppy Image to work on T98. Turns out, the download site says "hangs on startup". I did actually get past this, by copying some of the actual FreeDOS(98) files to the FDI, but then it complained about "Missing or incorrect command interpreter", filled the screen with this message, and locked up. I copied the latest version of FreeCOM(98) to the image, but it still refused to work. If anyone knows how to fix this, please share it here  .

Meanwhile, I investigated the FreeDOS(98) Hard Disk Images (which seem to be the only ones available on the internet), and found that, like I did, someone else complained about them including the MBR with the copyrighted NEC boot loader in the images. I did, however, discover a solution to this problem: GRUB98.

http://www.kmc.gr.jp/projects/linux98/arch/i386/boot/grub98/

Grub98 is a PC-9800 version of the popular GRUB boot-loader. The site says it does work, but warns that it can destroy the entire hard disk if you do something wrong (some sort of glitch or something). If anyone is able to create a bootable FreeDOS(98) Floppy or Hard Disk Image, using GRUB98 instead of the (C) NEC MBR boot-loader, please do so and upload it here. 

Thanks! 

[98digger]

So today I tried using a "Free alternative to MS-DOS" called GR-DOS. Finding the Floppy Disk image was a challenge, as I had to go on web archives to find it (no existing download works). But when I tried to get it to run Touhou in T98, it refused to. The keyboard was also way too sensitive; it kept typing double on every key unless I tapped the key very quickly. But the real problem I had was when I tried accessing virtual drive C:\ (Blank HDD image). The emulation window displayed misplaced glitch characters and T89 immediately locked-up. Then all my other programs started freezing, so I tried CTRL+ALT+DELETE and Windows 2000 would not let me close out of T98; it claimed T98 was currently being used and could not close. So, what I eventually had to do was hold in the power button on my desktop, which of course caused it to do a chkdsk on startup.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE GR-DOS. THERE IS A REASON WHY GREEN SYSTEMS RELEASED THE OS FOR FREE. BECAUSE IT DOES NOT WORK AND NO MONEY COULD BE MADE FROM IT. IT WILL NOT RUN DOS PROGRAMS, AND IS UNFINISHED AND EXTREMELY GLITCHY. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RUN IT ON REAL HARDWARE OR IN AN EMULATOR.

Anyways, please continue this thread from my previous post. I just wanted to post this so I could make sure no one screws up their PC-98 or Windows PC trying to run it.

[SkyeWelse]

Hey 98digger, just wanted to let you know that I was able to try that disk image and it does try to at least load FreeDos, but it hangs. I believe the original Japanese poster is explaining that it hangs as well and if I understood it correctly from Google translate it sounded like it was unfinished and wasn't providing any error codes as to why it would not load. You can try the disk in an emulator, I used Neko Project II, and the result that you get with that was the same one I received.

Now I did try this Hard Disk Image in Neko Project II that I found on the web and it seems to load just fine in the emulator:
http://retro-type.com/PC98/files/FreeDOS-98-HDDImage.zip

-Thomas