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FreeDOS People
FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is a free software operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. It intends to provide a complete MS-DOS-compatible environment for running legacy software and supporting embedded systems. FreeDOS can be booted from a floppy disk or USB flash drive. It is designed to run well under virtualization or x86 emulation. Unlike most versions of MS-DOS, FreeDOS is composed of free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. However, other packages that form part of the FreeDOS project include non-GPL software considered worthy of preservation, such as 4DOS, which is distributed under a modified MIT License. History The FreeDOS project began on 29 June 1994, after Microsoft announced it would no longer sell or support MS-DOS. Jim Hall – who at the time was a student – posted a manifesto proposing the development of PD-DOS, a public domain version of DOS. Within a few weeks, other programmers including Pat V ...
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Jim Hall (computer Programmer)
Jim Hall (James F. Hall) is a computer programmer and advocate of free software, best known for his work on FreeDOS. Hall began writing the free replacement for the MS-DOS operating system in 1994 when he was still a physics student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. He remains active with FreeDOS, and is currently the coordinator for the project. Hall has said he created FreeDOS in response to Microsoft announcing end of support for MS-DOS in 1994, a year before Windows 95 was released. As a user and fan of MS-DOS, Hall did not want the functionality of DOS to go away. Prompted by a March 31, 1994 post on comp.os.msdos.misc asking if "anyone, for example GNU et al. ever considered writing a Public Domain DOS", Hall decided to garner support for a free version of DOS, written under a free or public domain model. In a June 29, 1994 post, Hall announced an effort to create a free DOS, called PD-DOS, writing: Within a few weeks, other programmers including Pat Villani a ...
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Floppy Disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. The first floppy disks, invented and made by IBM, had a disk diameter of . Subsequently, the 5¼-inch and then the 3½-inch became a ubiquitous form of data storage and transfer into the first years of the 21st century. 3½-inch floppy disks can still be used with an external USB floppy disk drive. USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch, and other-size floppy disks are rare to non-existent. Some individuals and organizations continue to use older equipment to read or transfer data from floppy disks. Floppy disk ...
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CD-ROM
A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both computer data and audio with the latter capable of being played on a CD player, while data (such as software or digital video) is only usable on a computer (such as ISO 9660 format PC CD-ROMs). During the 1990s and early 2000s, CD-ROMs were popularly used to distribute software and data for computers and fifth generation video game consoles. DVD started to replace it in these roles starting in the early 2000s. History The earliest theoretical work on optical disc storage was done by independent researchers in the United States including David Paul Gregg (1958) and James Russel (1965–1975). In particular, Gregg's patents were used as the basis of the LaserDisc specification that was co-developed between MCA and Philips after MCA purchased ...
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Pat Villani
Pasquale "Pat" J. Villani (18 April 1954 – 27 August 2011) was an American computer programmer, author, and advocate of free software, best known for his creation of DOS-C, a DOS emulator written in the C language and subsequently adapted as the kernel of the FreeDOS operating system and a number of other projects including DOSEMU for Linux. He used to sign his edits with siglum "patv". FreeDOS involvement Villani had already been working on a DOS-like operating system for use in embedded systems for some while before the advent of FreeDOS. His efforts started when he developed an MS-DOS 3.1-compatible interface emulator to write device drivers in the C high-level language instead of in assembly language, as was the usual approach at that time. This interface emulator grew into a minimal operating system named XDOS around 1988. He added an IPL to set up a boot environment before loading the actual operating system and developed an MS-DOS-compatible frontend API to applica ...
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Public Domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, and composition. Legal definitions Creative works require a cre ... to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, anyone can legally use or reference those works without permission. As examples, the works of William Shakespeare, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci and Georges Méliès are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by a country's copyright laws, and are therefore in the public domain; for example, in the United States, items excluded from copyright include the for ...
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Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washington, United States. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to do ...
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Blinky
Blinky may refer to: Characters * ''Blinky'' (comics), a character in the UK comic ''The Dandy'' * Blinky (ghost), a red (sometimes orange) ghost in the ''Pac-Man'' franchise * Blinky (mascot), the mascot of FreeDOS * Blinky (The Simpsons), three-eyed fish from the animated television sitcom ''The Simpsons'' * ''Blinky Bill'', anthropomorphic koala appearing in Australian books and a television program * Blinky the Clown, a clown from the television program called ''Blinky's Fun Club'' * Blinky, the villain from '' Stamp Day for Superman'' * Blinky the Dog, a character in the weekly comic strip ''This Modern World'' * Blinky, male koala in ''Noozles'', an anime also known as ''The Wonderous Koala Blinky'' * Blinky, the robotic title character from the film ''BlinkyTM'' * Blinky, the playable character in '' Titanic Blinky'' People * Blinky (singer) (born 1944), artist on Motown, real name Sondra Williams * Blinky Elizalde, judoka competitor and coach * Blinky Palermo (1943–19 ...
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MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license compatibility. Unlike copyleft software licenses, the MIT License also permits reuse within proprietary software, provided that all copies of the software or its substantial portions include a copy of the terms of the MIT License and also a copyright notice. , the MIT License was the most popular software license found in one analysis, continuing from reports in 2015 that the MIT License was the most popular software license on GitHub. Notable projects that use the MIT License include the X Window System, Ruby on Rails, Nim, Node.js, Lua, and jQuery. Notable companies using the MIT License include Microsoft ( .NET), Google ( Angular), and Meta (React). License terms The MIT License has the identifier MIT in the SPDX License List. It is ...
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4DOS
4DOS is a command-line interpreter by JP Software, designed to replace the default command interpreter COMMAND.COM in Microsoft DOS and Windows. It was written by Rex C. Conn and Tom Rawson and first released in 1989. Compared to the default, it has a large number of enhancements. 4OS2 and 4NT are similar products that replace cmd.exe in OS/2 and Windows NT respectively. Overview 4DOS is most often used as a command-line replacement for the following operating systems: * command-line: MS-DOS, IBM PC DOS, DR-DOS. * graphical: Windows 95 to Windows 98, Windows 98SE. Since Windows NT and Windows 2000 includes both COMMAND.COM and cmd.exe, 4DOS and 4NT and derivatives can both be installed. Earlier versions of 4OS2 can be run under Windows NT, and OS/2 can run the two DOS and Windows NT shells, all three can be used on Windows NT-type machines and OS/2 multiple boot machines. Among the many commands, statements and functions in 4DOS and lacking in MS-DOS/Windows 95-98 COMM ...
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Digital Preservation
In library and archival science, digital preservation is a formal endeavor to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable. It involves planning, resource allocation, and application of preservation methods and technologies,Day, Michael. "The long-term preservation of Web content". Web archiving (Berlin: Springer, 2006), pp. 177-199. . and it combines policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and "born-digital" content, regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time.Evans, Mark; Carter, Laura. (December 2008). The Challenges of Digital Preservation. Presentation at the Library of Parliament, Ottawa. The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services Preservation and Reformatting Section of the American Library Association, defined digital preservation as combination of "policies, strategies an ...
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Software License
A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both source code and object code forms, unless that software was developed by the United States Government, in which case it cannot be copyrighted. Authors of copyrighted software can donate their software to the public domain, in which case it is also not covered by copyright and, as a result, cannot be licensed. A typical software license grants the licensee, typically an end-user, permission to use one or more copies of software in ways where such a use would otherwise potentially constitute copyright infringement of the software owner's exclusive rights under copyright. Software licenses and copyright law Most distributed software can be categorized according to its license type (see table). Two common categories for software under copyright ...
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