Releases/Alpha4

The FreeDOS Alpha 4 distribution was released between 20 May 1995 and 18 June 1995. We assume June 1995.

History

We don't have a complete history of the early FreeDOS releases. The MARC.info page suggests Alpha 4 around 2nd quarter or mid 1996.

From a FAQ posted to Usenet, we were talking about Alpha 4 in June 18 1995, so that suggests Alpha 4 was at least mid 1995.

An archived announcement dated May 20 1995 says Alpha 3 is the current version and "A new release is due Real Soon Now." So that narrows Alpha 4 to after May 20 1995 and before June 18 1995.

Announcement

This announcement (May 20, 1995) for FreeDOS Alpha 3 suggests the FreeDOS Alpha 4 release "is due Real Soon Now."

                        The Free-DOS Project
The goal of the Free-DOS project is to produce a free MS-DOS compatible
operating system, suitable for any DOS capable platform. Free-DOS is
distributed under the terms of the GNU general public license.
I am pleased to announce that an updated version of the Free-DOS FAQ
and Status Report is available via the Free-DOS project home page:
   http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/freedos.html
It has been some time since I have made any announcements regarding the
Free-DOS project, but I can say that there have been several new
developments, including:
   Version 0.90 of the DOS-C kernel by Pat Villani
   Several new programs, and the upcoming ALPHA 4 RELEASE
PROGRAMMERS are wanted for C and ASM projects, or to donate source code.
If you have written, or are willing to write, an FDISK, CHKDSK, UNDELETE,
XCOPY, EMS driver, etc. as detailed in the status report, please contact
me, we could certainly use your help! Your assistance in helping to provide
some of these few remaining critical programs will be invaluable to the
success of the Free-DOS project.
The current release of Free-DOS is the ALPHA 3 RELEASE:
   ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/freedos3.zip
Please note that the alpha 3 release does NOT contain a substantial
number of new programs and code. Check the /incoming directory of
the FTP site for new items. A new release is due Real Soon Now.
To reiterate, more complete information is available on the Free-DOS
WWW page:
   http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/freedos.html
                                        M. "Hannibal" Toal
                                        Free-DOS project coordinator