FreeDOS: history, legacy, and a valuable resource for old machines

FreeDOS is a free and open‐source operating system designed to be compatible with MS‑DOS. Developed to keep the DOS experience alive even after Microsoft ended support for MS‑DOS, FreeDOS has grown into a complete environment that not only preserves classic DOS functionality but also introduces modern enhancements. Its simplicity and low resource requirements have made it a cherished resource for retro computing enthusiasts and a practical tool for embedded systems and legacy hardware.
↫ André Machado

A short but useful overview of what FreeDOS is. One of my favourite stories about FreeDOS will always be not just that HP offered it as an option on some of its laptops – supposedly because it couldn’t sell laptops without an operating system preinstalled – but also just how convoluted this preinstalled copy of FreeDOS was set up. They shipped several FreeDOS virtual machines on top of a minimal installation of Debian, in a complex web of operating systems and VMs.