[jszymborski]

I've long considered getting a netbook, slapping freedos on it and running WordStar or WordPerfect as a writing deck.

I'm not sure how I would get my files I create off the device since USB support isn't really a thing.

[hakfoo]

If you use a machine with an ISA slot, you can get a card with a chip called CH375 or CH376, which deploys a USB flash drive like a normal hard disc with either a loadable driver or option BIOS ROM. You can just pull out the entire drive and mount it on a normal Windows or Linux box.

I think the below-mentioned Pocket 376 might have one soldered-on already.

[toast0]

I thought freedos could use usb? Get something with built in ethernet or serial and you can transfer that way pretty easy too.

Or just run joe as jstar and close enough, maybe? I use joe for mostly everything, but I never used WordStar (well, I ran into it once)

[WorldMaker]

Apparently the right combination of BIOS and FreeDOS gives you somewhat easy USB support: https://superuser.com/questions/740474/how-to-access-a-usb-s...

[geonineties]

If you want just load the dos net ios/smb stack (or a tcp stack) and go to town.

[jwrallie]

Something like the Pocket 386 but with a regular size keyboard could be the perfect device for this purpose.

[kevin_thibedeau]

It should run fine under dosemu with a minimal console only Linux.