I gave my students a surprise a couple of years ago. I brought in an old DOS laptop and wrote the lecture on Harvard Graphics 3.0 with a VGA to HDMI dongle so it could be projected. They actually liked it.
Felt the need to let you know how much I enjoy your DOS videos: great voice, historical knowledge, personality and your obvious love of the topics. Thank you!
I remember my dad's work switched to Quattro Pro, so he brought home a copy to learn it. Very nice, and I liked the tabs. But I still loved As Easy As, my fingers still remember how to navigate the menus.
@@freedosproject Quattro (and later Excel) were my work partner's main area. I was the networking, integration and Word (for DOS) guy. I've never left Word for DOS. 30+ years and counting.
Still using Quattro Pro. And Libra Office. Strange is that Libre and Excel never adopted the good Quattro characteristics. Just writing macros in Quattro is a nightmare.
I do a lot of forensic data analysis for my clients. A /lot/ of them have tapes, diskettes, and hard drives FULL of Lotus, Quattro, and even early Excel spreadsheets that need analysis. Thankfully, it's easy to import them into LibreCalc, but I still need to at least touch each spreadsheet in its original software, so I have a couple old laptops loaded with FreeDOS so I don't have to find and repair the clients' old systems.
I used to serve as campus CIO in higher ed, and we once had a faculty member come to us with a stack of 3½ floppies that had research data from the 1990s. They didn't have the DOS program that wrote them, but the floppy label suggested the program name (a database app). So we installed FreeDOS on a spare PC that still had a floppy drive, found a copy of the old app and installed it .. and helped the faculty load the data and "save as" to CSV files so they could load them in some other application. I love that we could use FreeDOS for that! ☺
Several more videos coming on DOS spreadsheets! I want to do at least one video for every "lab" we studied in class, to show it can be done on DOS spreadsheets too. We'll see if I do all 7. 😎 Next one will show VisiCalc and Lotus 123 to demo forward references (not in VisiCalc) then I will probably switch to As Easy As, just because it's my favorite.
Did you try out the recent Lotus 1-2-3 for Unix character terminals port to Linux? Almost surprised it didn't get mentioned in a video on retro-spreadsheets.
daaamn bro i envy you so much!! you're super intelligent, i wish i could do the same stuff you do, and also i admire you because you made something for free without wanting anything in exchange and still you develop your stuf.. i wish i could do something really good as you did!!! i admire you so much!!
I'm glad you like it. You should try some of the other DOS spreadsheets too. I meant to do more after this one - I just got behind on things with the holidays. Another video coming soon though. ☺
I like programming on DOS. It's not very different from programming in C on Linux .. at least, if you're doing command line stuff, it's basically the same. But conio on DOS is similar-yet-different than curses on Unix/Linux. The major limitation in writing new DOS programs is the C compiler will likely use an older standard so you [probably] don't have neat functions like getline(3) - depending on the compiler. But you can write your own implementation if you need it.
@@freedosprojectHi yes it used r1c1 for cell addressing My first exposure was on a C64 back in the day, then at work on those new NEC 286 powermates was multiplan - i made plenty of overtime, helping out 3 floor of spreadsheet data It had 2 or 3 export formats, which you could use in Excel 1 to 4 or Version 5 - i have a old IDE drive that i imaged and it is part of a VM, it was from work and had win 311 and office ( it gets confusing office 4 or 4.3, but excel varies in those 2 versions from 4 to 5 ) You can link to another sheet, i dont recall if that exports well into excel - it may on early excel versions eg up to 3/4/5 but by that stage most of the new sheets were created in excel where i worked Anyway , all my multiplan work ended up in excel at that time so i can still review it. I still think of it as a decent spreadsheet, while i use excel today 40% of my time - Excel is seen as a tool that tries to do everything ( i am guilty of doing artwork and presentations on it ) and due to the large line limit available it tends to be used as a data base ( again guilty as pivot tables are great )
Great video again! It feels a bit repetitive with this grades example (I watched all of your videos, except gaming and installing ones), but that's OK. There's an audio clipping at 13:19. Is it possible to obtain a version of Quattro Pro for DOS for free these days? What version did you use in the video?
I probably downloaded this version of Quattro Pro from Win World PC. I don't remember exactly. My favorite DOS spreadsheet is As Easy As, and TRIUS released it for free. You can find a link on their forums. (I'll cover As Easy As soon.) ☺
@@freedosproject yeah, I've already gotten it from the links in the description under one of your older videos about AsEasyAs (with a key from their site).
The last console-mode spreadsheet I tried was SC back when I first ran Linux. It was basically a replacement for VisiCalc (i.e. text only, pretty simple) but I was already using As Easy As by then.
Yes, they made one. I'm planning to feature VisiCalc for DOS in the next video (about "forward referencing" .. VisiCalc couldn't do it, but Lotus 1-2-3 could .. which was the primary driver for folks to switch to Lotus 1-2-3)
You might be looking for Logger, which is included in the latest test build. Here's the description: "Device driver and interface program for boot and general console message logging in DOS. It includes a built in viewer and utilities to output/save the log as Plain, ANSI or HTML text." Find it here: fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/logger.html
The FreeDOS boot menu will give you the option to choose between different memory manager configurations. Try one of those, like JEMMEX or JEMM386, depending on what you need.
I gave my students a surprise a couple of years ago. I brought in an old DOS laptop and wrote the lecture on Harvard Graphics 3.0 with a VGA to HDMI dongle so it could be projected. They actually liked it.
That's so cool, and a great idea! I might do that the next time I teach this class. 💡
I actually think the next generation are an extremely capable and inquisitive set of young people, moreso than what they get credit for.
at my university we usd retro computers too - but at the time they were new
Felt the need to let you know how much I enjoy your DOS videos: great voice, historical knowledge, personality and your obvious love of the topics. Thank you!
Wow, thank you!
Excellent video on Spreadsheet History! Thank you!
Thanks! And I figured #DOScember was the month to do it. 😃
Decades ago I standardized our Uni department on Quattro Pro
I remember my dad's work switched to Quattro Pro, so he brought home a copy to learn it. Very nice, and I liked the tabs. But I still loved As Easy As, my fingers still remember how to navigate the menus.
@@freedosproject Quattro (and later Excel) were my work partner's main area. I was the networking, integration and Word (for DOS) guy. I've never left Word for DOS. 30+ years and counting.
Still using Quattro Pro. And Libra Office. Strange is that Libre and Excel never adopted the good Quattro characteristics. Just writing macros in Quattro is a nightmare.
I do a lot of forensic data analysis for my clients. A /lot/ of them have tapes, diskettes, and hard drives FULL of Lotus, Quattro, and even early Excel spreadsheets that need analysis. Thankfully, it's easy to import them into LibreCalc, but I still need to at least touch each spreadsheet in its original software, so I have a couple old laptops loaded with FreeDOS so I don't have to find and repair the clients' old systems.
I used to serve as campus CIO in higher ed, and we once had a faculty member come to us with a stack of 3½ floppies that had research data from the 1990s. They didn't have the DOS program that wrote them, but the floppy label suggested the program name (a database app). So we installed FreeDOS on a spare PC that still had a floppy drive, found a copy of the old app and installed it .. and helped the faculty load the data and "save as" to CSV files so they could load them in some other application.
I love that we could use FreeDOS for that! ☺
I didn't use it but I think Quattro is good enough.
Since it's Doscember, I'm expecting more videos to come soon (I hope).
Thanks Jim!
Several more videos coming on DOS spreadsheets! I want to do at least one video for every "lab" we studied in class, to show it can be done on DOS spreadsheets too. We'll see if I do all 7. 😎
Next one will show VisiCalc and Lotus 123 to demo forward references (not in VisiCalc) then I will probably switch to As Easy As, just because it's my favorite.
@@freedosprojectthat will be great 👍
Did you try out the recent Lotus 1-2-3 for Unix character terminals port to Linux? Almost surprised it didn't get mentioned in a video on retro-spreadsheets.
I haven't, but I should try it out! ☺
daaamn bro i envy you so much!! you're super intelligent, i wish i could do the same stuff you do, and also i admire you because you made something for free without wanting anything in exchange and still you develop your stuf.. i wish i could do something really good as you did!!! i admire you so much!!
I'm glad you like it. You should try some of the other DOS spreadsheets too. I meant to do more after this one - I just got behind on things with the holidays. Another video coming soon though. ☺
I want to develop some application on dos, i steel use Linux and windows terminal , I surprised about existing freedos. It’s look good,
I like programming on DOS. It's not very different from programming in C on Linux .. at least, if you're doing command line stuff, it's basically the same. But conio on DOS is similar-yet-different than curses on Unix/Linux. The major limitation in writing new DOS programs is the C compiler will likely use an older standard so you [probably] don't have neat functions like getline(3) - depending on the compiler. But you can write your own implementation if you need it.
blast from the past, my parents used multiplan for there business.
Interesting. IIRC, Multiplan used r1c1 addressing, right?
@@freedosprojectHi yes it used r1c1 for cell addressing
My first exposure was on a C64 back in the day, then at work on those new NEC 286 powermates was multiplan - i made plenty of overtime, helping out 3 floor of spreadsheet data
It had 2 or 3 export formats, which you could use in Excel 1 to 4 or Version 5 - i have a old IDE drive that i imaged and it is part of a VM, it was from work and had win 311 and office ( it gets confusing office 4 or 4.3, but excel varies in those 2 versions from 4 to 5 )
You can link to another sheet, i dont recall if that exports well into excel - it may on early excel versions eg up to 3/4/5 but by that stage most of the new sheets were created in excel where i worked
Anyway , all my multiplan work ended up in excel at that time so i can still review it.
I still think of it as a decent spreadsheet, while i use excel today 40% of my time - Excel is seen as a tool that tries to do everything ( i am guilty of doing artwork and presentations on it ) and due to the large line limit available it tends to be used as a data base ( again guilty as pivot tables are great )
Great video again! It feels a bit repetitive with this grades example (I watched all of your videos, except gaming and installing ones), but that's OK.
There's an audio clipping at 13:19.
Is it possible to obtain a version of Quattro Pro for DOS for free these days? What version did you use in the video?
I probably downloaded this version of Quattro Pro from Win World PC. I don't remember exactly.
My favorite DOS spreadsheet is As Easy As, and TRIUS released it for free. You can find a link on their forums. (I'll cover As Easy As soon.) ☺
@@freedosproject yeah, I've already gotten it from the links in the description under one of your older videos about AsEasyAs (with a key from their site).
It'd be really cool if you printed it from DOS. Makes me wonder if there are any modern terminal based spreadsheet programs, especially with Vim keys.
The last console-mode spreadsheet I tried was SC back when I first ran Linux. It was basically a replacement for VisiCalc (i.e. text only, pretty simple) but I was already using As Easy As by then.
I'm pretty sure Quattro Pro is still around too, no idea if it has anything in common with its DOS ancestor
I haven't used the new Quattro Pro, only the DOS version. But I know they did eventually release a Windows version.
Corel Office, got you Quattro and Wordperfect.
Do I need a USB Flash Memory to install Windows on freedos computers?
No, you will need the around 6 floppy disks that where shipped with Windows. Then boot FreeDOS. After that change to the floppy drive and enter setup.
Visicalc for MSDOS?
Yes, they made one. I'm planning to feature VisiCalc for DOS in the next video (about "forward referencing" .. VisiCalc couldn't do it, but Lotus 1-2-3 could .. which was the primary driver for folks to switch to Lotus 1-2-3)
Hello,people. Is there some info how to debug FreeDos itself,and how to write all debug info,redirecting it into text file?
You might be looking for Logger, which is included in the latest test build. Here's the description: "Device driver and interface program for boot and general console message logging in DOS. It includes a built in viewer and utilities to output/save the log as Plain, ANSI or HTML text." Find it here:
fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/logger.html
@@freedosproject Thank you. I will look at it.
Dos programs do the trick until you want to run more than one program and exchange data between them.
how do i get more than 1mb of RAM i need to run doom with sound on real HW
The FreeDOS boot menu will give you the option to choose between different memory manager configurations. Try one of those, like JEMMEX or JEMM386, depending on what you need.
Be careful of the del * command!