DOS ain't dead

Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? (Announce)

posted by Oso2k, 15.04.2026, 21:27
(edited by Oso2k on 16.04.2026, 09:24)

> I haven't thought of MS-DOS 4.01 but that one is, more or less, a monster
> IMHO. But thanks anyway for the pointer.
>
>
> > FreeDOS being a prime example with it primarily in C.
>
> I'm not a C fan. I grew up with Pascal and when in 1985 I had to make a
> choice, I chose for Pascal. I still program a lot in Turbo Pascal,
> FreePascal and Lazarus.

Oh oh, apologies. I thought you were going up the stack instead of down.

As ecm mentioned, DOS 4.01 is the most recent and generally most useful. It has some support for 386+ machines that is useful (especially memory managers that let you use more than 1MB of RAM).

MS also made 2.0 and 1.25 available which have much smaller footprints but have restrictions that might not make them as suitable. v1.25 only has FAT12 support. v2.0 only has small drive FAT16 support (I think <512MB). v4.01 can do FAT16, has memory manager source, plus some other things.

Honestly, building MS DOS 4.01 is not too hard.

https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
https://youtu.be/oFlpSMtzYIs
https://youtu.be/ZiT1lvXqUrQ
https://youtu.be/BR6F0EdyulA
https://youtu.be/X7r76V_gWQ8

Complete thread:

• Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - Ruud, 13.04.2026, 08:31 (Announce)
  • Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - kerravon, 13.04.2026, 09:10
    • Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - Oso2k, 13.04.2026, 19:12
      • Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - Ruud, 14.04.2026, 09:17
        • Is there a DOS with source code available written in assembly - ecm, 14.04.2026, 12:29
        • Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - Oso2k, 15.04.2026, 21:27
  • Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - rr, 15.04.2026, 21:41
    • Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - Ruud, 20.04.2026, 09:56
      • Is there a DOS with source code available written in ML? - Rugxulo, 21.04.2026, 02:10