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| The '''FreeDOS Alpha 5''' distribution was released 10 August 1996. | | The '''FreeDOS Beta 4 "Lemur"''' distribution was released 29 December 1999. |
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| == History == | | == Codename == |
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| We don't have a complete history of the early FreeDOS releases. The 25+ years of DOS history page shows two dates for Alpha 5: 10/97 and 11/97. The page also explains that "The FreeDOS A5 released Nov '97 was the first modern FreeDOS distribution, and was a re-release of the FreeDOS Alpha5." So the date for Alpha 5 should be updated to either 10/97 or 11/97.
| | Jim always wanted to have a mascot for the FreeDOS Project (it's a gimmick.) Linux had the penguin, BSD had the daemon, and GNU had the gnu. Jim hadn't pushed the idea of officially adopting a FreeDOS mascot because he didn't want to get distracted by the noise that would create. Jim named the Lemur distribution as a way of "adopting" a mascot when we really didn't. Plus, Jim always thought lemurs looked cool. |
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| Looks like we had an official Alpha 5 release on Aug 10 1996 per this archived announcement.
| | == History == |
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| See different archive of announcement which also says Aug 10 1996
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| An announcement archived elsewhere dated Jan 28 1996 suggests Alpha 5 will be released early 2/96. This was probably very optimistic; if other release docs show Aug 96, then that is probably correct.
| | This Wayback snapshot says "The Beta4 distribution was released on 29 Dec 1999." Assume that is the correct date. |
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| == Announcement == | | == Announcement == |
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| FreeDOS Alpha 5 release (August 10th, 1996)
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| INTRODUCTION TO FreeDOS
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| ------------------------------------------------------
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| INTRODUCTION
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| ------------
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| You have in your possession, the product of the combined work of
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| over 50 programmers and software developers from around the world, as
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| well as the end result of literally thousands of hours of work designing,
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| developing, coding, and testing of this software. It is now released
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| to you free of charge, in the hope that it will, in some way assist you,
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| no matter where your journeys will take you. With that said, on behalf
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| of everyone who has contributed to the FreeDOS project, I would like
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| to welcome you to the FreeDOS Alpha-5 release.
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| If you haven't figured it out yet, FreeDOS is a Disk Operating
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| System (OS), which is very similar to MS-DOS. In fact, Free-DOS has
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| been designed to eventually be 100% compatible with all MS-DOS software.
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| As of right now, however, FreeDOS has not reached that 100% mark, and
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| is in fact still under Alpha Development. It would not do much good to
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| release a software that was exactly the same is MS-DOS, so most of
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| FreeDOS has been programmed to provide features and enhancements above
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| and beyond those of MS-DOS. Further, FreeDOS will run on ANY IBM or
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| COMPATIBLE x86 based processor. The best part about FreeDOS to most
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| people is the fact that is 100% Free, you will never have to pay any
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| registration software, or anything of the sort (although any
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| contributions will be welcome).
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| .. | |
The FreeDOS Beta 4 "Lemur" distribution was released 29 December 1999.
Codename
Jim always wanted to have a mascot for the FreeDOS Project (it's a gimmick.) Linux had the penguin, BSD had the daemon, and GNU had the gnu. Jim hadn't pushed the idea of officially adopting a FreeDOS mascot because he didn't want to get distracted by the noise that would create. Jim named the Lemur distribution as a way of "adopting" a mascot when we really didn't. Plus, Jim always thought lemurs looked cool.
History
This Wayback snapshot says "The Beta4 distribution was released on 29 Dec 1999." Assume that is the correct date.
Announcement
..add here..