Okay, so I messed around with FreeDOS today – specifically, getting it to run FoxPro. It was a bit of a trip down memory lane, let me tell you.
First, I grabbed the FreeDOS 1.3 image. I went with the “Lite” version ’cause, you know, gotta keep it old-school small.
Then I fired up VirtualBox. Gotta have somewhere to run this thing, right? I created a new VM, nothing fancy, just enough to get DOS going. I made sure to mount the FreeDOS ISO as a virtual CD-ROM. Pretty standard stuff.
Booting it up was…well, it was DOS. Text everywhere! I followed the on-screen prompts to install it. It’s been a while, but it all came back pretty quick. I partitioned the virtual hard drive – a whopping 200MB! – and formatted it. Seemed huge at the time, haha.
The install was surprisingly fast. Before I knew it, I was staring at the glorious C:> prompt.
Getting FoxPro Working
Next up, the real challenge: FoxPro. I had an old copy of FoxPro 2.6 for DOS lying around (don’t ask). I created another ISO image from the install files of FoxPro.
Back in VirtualBox, I mounted that FoxPro ISO as a second CD-ROM. Then, in FreeDOS, I switched to the D: drive (the virtual CD-ROM) and ran the *. Classic DOS stuff, you know?
I used the command `*`to install.
It churned away for a bit, copying files. Again, I was impressed by how quick it was, considering the “hardware” it was running on.
After the install, I navigated to the newly created FOXPRO directory on my C: drive. I typed in FOXPRO and hit Enter.
And there it was! The FoxPro splash screen. Success! It felt strangely satisfying to see it running again.
I even loaded up an old database file I had, just to make sure everything was working. It was. I could browse records, run reports… it was like stepping back in time.
Finally I typed in fox to call the program.
I even can see the cute little fox there. Amazing!
- Download FreeDOS
- Create a VirtualBox VM
- Install FreeDOS
- Get FoxPro for DOS
- Install FoxPro
- Run FoxPro!
It’s funny, this whole thing was completely pointless from a practical standpoint. But it was a fun little project, and it reminded me of how far we’ve come. And hey, maybe I’ll actually use FoxPro for something… someday. Probably not, though.
