> obviously better

What is better critically depends on the "coordinate system". There was (and still is) something infinitely precious about MS-DOS. Simplicity, ease of accessing hardware, and all that alongside the vast multitude of extremely powerful and useful software that was available for it. In other words, DOS had something that few, if any, other OS could offer at the time.

The entire article is incoherent.

Hey I know this is super off topic but can you please email me? I'm in the process of fixing an old computer (an i486 'portable' system) and I need to find some stuff to get it up and running. I'm looking for someone who can point me to where I can find a bootable 5 1/4 drive to see if my IO card is good. I have asked a few professors at my college but all of them have cleaned out their old hardware.

I know this may be strange but there aren't many people left that can debug these kinds of systems. Sorry for disturbing this thread!

Those computers I wrote about are gone a long time ago. I don't know where to look for those components. Maybe ebay?

I've looked, nothing bootable sadly. I hope some day someone sees this message and emails me. I'd be willing to pay at least 10 bucks + shipping for a DOS image or something.

Not sure if this will help any. http://www.emsps.com/oldtools/msdos.htm I also read about using a CF to IDE adapter. http://www.yqcomputer.com/1118_467_1.htm

I could make the image provided I had both a 5 1/4 floppy drive and an actual 5 1/4 floppy. I don't have either of those for my new computers.

It's like trying to write a DVD with no burner. Where do you have a computer that still has a DVD drive burner? Same problem I'm having.

My laptop came with a DVD burner a couple of years ago. Maybe used once. I swapped it with a 1 TB SSD earlier this year but I can connect it with USB if I have to.

A 486 with a 5.25 drive? that's an odd combo to put it mildly.

You beat me to it. I was just about to point out that ridiculous sentence.