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[madcrow]

Well, seeing as most abandonware runs on DOS, I thought that it might be a good idea to compare the various versions of DOS available for the PC and judge which one is the best. Here are the results of the comparison. Feel free to comment on anything I say.

MS-DOS 5 and PC DOS 5:
Generally decent and runs just about everything. Memory management could be be better, but if you're good at configuring your system, that's OK...

MS-DOS 6:
Well, basically this is DOS 5 with some fresh new tools and with a nice memory manager added. Usable but frankly most of the tools aren't that useful for gamers and other DOSes do the memory management thing better.

PC DOS 6.3:
IBM's take on the whole "let's add nice tools to DOS 5" thing. In general the tools are nicer than those found in M$ and the memory management is slightly better too.

PC DOS 7 (2000):
The ultimate classic DOS. Nice tools, support for the years above 2000 and the euro symbol and the nicest memory management out there: Let's just say 617KB free in the bottom 640KB and that's with SCSI CD-ROM drivers and EMS enabled... This is the version you want.

FreeDOS beta9:
An almost finished DOS fully under the GPL. Quite usable and decent compatability (MOST games will work) Still, I'd wait for 1.0 to come out...

DR-DOS 7/ OpenDOS:
A semi open-source version of DOS that can be gotten for free. Includes some advanced networking and multitasking functions but gives me some problems with some games.

ROM-DOS Personal:
Another "freeware-for-personal-use" version of DOS. Reasonable compatability and small size but no automatic memory management. Reccomended for experts.