We announced the FreeDOS Project on June 29, 1994. So that means FreeDOS turned 27 years old today! If you'd like a reminder about FreeDOS history, you can read today's article on Opensource.com about A brief history of FreeDOS. Despite all of the new development on FreeDOS, we remain true to our DOS roots. As we continue working toward FreeDOS 1.3 "final," we carry several core assumptions, including: + Compatibility is key + Run on new and old PCs + FreeDOS is open source software. We welcome your help in making FreeDOS great! Please subscribe to our email lists and join the discussion.

FreeDOS turns 27 on June 29 - and to help us celebrate, Opensource.com is running a month-long article series about FreeDOS. Every Monday-Friday in June, you can find a new "how-to" article about FreeDOS. Recent topics include: How to install FreeDOS manually, Listen to music on FreeDOS, How to set up FreeDOS as an embedded system, Why text has 16 colors, How to edit with Edlin, Programming with GW-BASIC, How to edit with Freemacs, Programming with Bywater BASIC, How to use copy files between Linux and FreeDOS, Programming in C. On June 29, look for a special article about the history of DOS and FreeDOS. The article series wraps up on June 30, with an interview about FreeDOS.

Paul Dufresne has ported GNU Chess to FreeDOS. This is an update from GNU Chess version 4 in the FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 distribution. Version 5 was released in 1999, and version 6 in 2011 - but version 5 is easier to build on DOS, to not use threads. GNU Chess is ASCII-based and uses algebraic board notation to indicate your moves, so you use "e2e4" to move a pawn. You can find GNU Chess 5.05 at Paul's gches GitLab. Thanks Paul!

JEMM is an "Expanded Memory Manager", based on the source of FreeDOS EMM386. It should work with MS-DOS and other DOSes, too. JEMM just released version 5.80 with a ton of new updates and features, including: + Jemm does again scan the region C000-EFFF for RAM; this avoids a system crash if upper memory has been supplied by UMBPCI and is used by DOS. + new option MOVEXBDA for Jemm implemented. + JemmEx will recognize memory blocks activated by UMBPCI and include them into its UMB pool; this makes option S=start-end virtually obsolete. + a warning is displayed if the extended memory block where Jemm386 will reside is beyond the 16MB limit. + strategy to realloc an EMB to increase its size has been changed and is + now smart enough to check if the block can be increased without moving it. Read the release notes for the full details. You can download the latest JEMM at JEMM v5.80 on GitHub. We've also mirrored it in the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio, under /files/dos/emm386/jemm386

Thanks to everyone who joined today's FreeDOS virtual get-together! As usual, we opened with social time and greeting new members, then did a "deep dive" on some FreeDOS distribution questions and other FreeDOS topics. Overall, I think the discussion went well. We talked about several things, including printing, installing, and using Help. We also had a big discussion about MBR during the install process, and came up with some possible solutions that Jerome is looking into. I really do enjoy these get-togethers. I exchange emails with so many of you, but it's great to actually meet face-to-face .. even if it's virtual.

We started these as monthly get-togethers, but later changed to every other month. I'd like to keep a monthly schedule. Let's plan for the third Sunday every month for the rest of 2021 - that means the next two are July 18 and August 15. I'll share a reminder before each one, as always. Since our "social time" went a bit long today, I'd like to alternate the "agenda" for the get-togethers. Every other month (July , September, and November) let's keep it to "social time." On opposite months (August, October, and December) let's focus on technical issues.

Jeremy Davis has been working to update the FreeDOS kernel and FreeCOM, the FreeDOS command shell. Jeremy has shared new versions on GitHub. Thanks Jeremy!

For the kernel, some changes include now support building with GCC-ia16, CHAIN command in config.sys, various fixes, new setver capabilities. Source and 8086 compatible builds provided, f16 only supports FAT12/FAT16, while f32 also supports FAT32 formatted disks (both 8086). kernel.zip provides a FreeDOS package, 8086 version with FAT12/FAT16 and 386 version with FAT12/FAT16/FAT32. ke2043_rufus is a 386 compiled version with FAT12/16/32 support and FORCELBA enabled. Also see the git history for the full change log. You can find the updated kernel at kernel.freedos.org and via GitHub in the version 2043 release. We've also mirrored the updated kernel in the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio, in the /files/dos/kernel directory.

The FreeCOM release provides multiple variants - the recommended is one of the Open Watcom xms-swap versions. The files with ow are built with Open Watcom and the files with bc are built with Borland C/C++. Currently only English xms-swap GCC (ia16) built version is provided, please see automatic builds for latest builds with GCC. The files with -intl use English language for critical errors and provide strings. for all supported languages. The xmsswap. files are recommended for computers with XMS memory, as XMS memory is used for swapping. The command.* files use standard swapping and swap to disk. The language specific versions are compiled for the specific language so the critical errors will also be translated if available. These are only provided in Open Watcom builds. You can find the updated version in the FreeCOM GitHub, and in the FreeCOM 0.85 release directory on GitHub. We've also mirrored this version in the FreeDOS Files Archive on Ibiblio, under /files/dos/command.