The FreeDOS Beta 6 "Midnite" distribution was released 30 March 2001.
Codename
Jim says the FreeDOS Beta 6 was released shortly after his beloved cat Midnight died. From Jim: "I would have changed the name slightly so I didn't get sad every time I looked at the codename. (Will look into it.)"
History
This Wayback snapshot says "The Beta6 ("Midnite") Distribution of FreeDOS was first posted on Friday, March 30, 2001!" Assume that is correct date; any earlier dates on install instructions or release notes are because I would have written them beforehand.
Release notes
THE FREEDOS BETA6 ("MIDNITE") DISTRIBUTION
RELEASE NOTES
Jim Hall <jh...@freedos.org>
18 March 2001
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Welcome to the Beta6 distribution!
I'll post any problems/updates with the Beta6 on the FreeDOS web site
at www.freedos.org/ and also at www.freedos.org/files/.
Please read the errata.
In the meantime, some things you need to watch out for:
* Floppy access under the FreeDOS kernel is still a little slow. The
installation will take longer than you may expect, and running
programs from the Install Boot Floppy is slow.
* The install program has a little bug in it where you SHOULD NOT use
a trailing backslash for the install Source Dir or Dest Dir. You
will get a weird error if you do this. If you do get the error,
just exit out of the install program and re-run it (remembering
this time NOT to use the trailing backslash.)
* The install program really should ask you to insert the first disk
of the first install set before it tries to do anything. But I
didn't fix that bug before Beta6, mostly because I'm lazy. If you
have the Install Boot Floppy in the drive, the install program will
correctly ask for the Base1 disk. However, if you don't have ANY
floppy in the drive at the time, you get a very odd error message
from the kernel. Please watch out for this.
* The install program (rather, the underlying Unzip library) will
only create the last level subdirectory. That means that if you
are trying to install to C:\BETA6\FDOS and C:\BETA6 does not exist,
you will receive an error. However, if you are trying to install
to C:\FDOS and C:\FDOS does not exist, then C:\FDOS will be created
for you.