I am trying to compile a 16-bit COM file in FreeDOS and I keep getting "System is in protected mode without 32-bit DPMI etc". The program is TinyBASIC from some ftp site. I'm just looking for the most likely causes...not necessarily someone to debug it. I will however post the code if all else fails.

fasm is not able to run in V86 mode DOS unless there are DPMI services available. A simplest option to provide DPMI when you have none is to download CWSDPMI and load it before starting fasm. You can find more information in the thread about running fasmd in DOSBox.

That worked...thanks

As far as FreeDOS is concern you may like to check out HX dos extender https://web.archive.org/web/20141013114801/http://www.japheth.de/HX.html

it comes with 16 and 32 bit DPMI host. This comes from the author of Jmmem http://freedos.sourceforge.net/software/?prog=jemm386

default FreeDOS memory manager. Both tools work nicely together. On the other hand DosBox is probably more convenient as long as you don't want to use complex debugging tools like SoftICE. FreeDOS has support for VMWare shared folders but I've never tested this feature.