History of MS-DOS 1981-1995

Hii

IBM PC 40th anniversary tommorow!

What a great video. These were exciting times.

DR-DOS 3.?? was my first OS i used, it shipped with my first PC. Later i switched to MS-DOS 6.20 when it was available.

Well i always thinked internet explorer was a great idea. no matter what you think about it.

MS-DOS 5.0 was a game changer in 91! I love command line operating systems.

Very informative , whole lotta thanks for the post tbh

Very informative , whole lotta thanks for the post tbh

i want it back

who else remembers debugging msdos using edlin? I thought it was version 3.1 (around 1985?) that had a bunch of bugs we had to manually repair. One that (I think) I remember was that "echo on/off" behaved opposite than intended. Microsoft didn't send out a new set of floppies when a bug was discovered back then, they just published a few pages in a magazine with the steps required to correct them. Ahh yes. the good old days... I would really like to find more information about this particular situation.

I still have an unopened copy of MS DOS 6.6 - waited long enough to not actually own anything that will read a disk. It’s gathering dust on my office shelf with a few other (relative) antiques. Sure miss the simplicity and raw speed of the DOS family.

Still have a copy of Paradox somewhere too. A very under-appreciated database with its own language (PAL, later ObjectPAL).

Thanks for the look back. Enjoy your videos.

how your mic is really cutting out here, you might want to increase your gain next video, just some constructive criticism.

There were other computers running a disk operating system. TRSDOS comes to mind as does other flavors used with Radio shack computers.

I didn’t hear you mention SMARTDRV.EXE, which came with MS-Dos 5 and was very, very useful. It was a fairly good disc caching program, especially if you took the time to learn its options and features, because by default it didn’t cache disc writes. An earlier version was less excellent, came with Dos 4.01 and (I think) Windows/386, and was distinguished by a .SYS extension.

For several years we got improvements in SMARTDRV, HIMEM.SYS and EMM386 with each alternating release of Dos or Windows; you always wanted to have whichever was the latest of those files, because the latest improvements were always good. As I remember, the version of EMM386.SYS that came with Dos 4.01 and Windows/386 didn’t provide much relief at all from the DOS 640k RAM limit, as its only functionality was allowing memory above 640k to be used as emulated EMS, which was only useful in programs written for banked, hardware expanded memory, like Lotus 1-2-3. Later .EXE versions added much better features, like direct remapping of RAM that Dos would otherwise allocate to unnecessary hardware or even leave unused, and this allowed skilled users to load most device drivers and TSRs into upper memory, leaving much more RAM available below 640k, where Dos applications run.

Most users were better off with 3rd party replacements for these files, like Quarterdeck’s QEMM386 and PC Tools’ PC-CACHE, because those programs were better and much easier to use effectively. But it was nice that Dos and Windows provided the basic functions to users who were willing to learn about them.

I just found this. I also started with DOS 3.3. Threats to security and privacy made me long for those days when new technology was so exciting. Is it still possible to build a DOS pc? I do not want emulators and certainly no "calling home". No Internet necessary. Do you have some pointers?

I worked at Kalamazoo UK n we sold IBM PS2 model 30 with 1up software on DOS.. in 1988...

My computer career started 30 years ago, in 93, when I took a vocational course in "Electronics and CPU Repair." (that's what it was called). I had "zero" computer knowledge when I started. All Pomona school district computers, came to our class for the instructor to repair. I would go up and ask him, 'whacha doin' Paul?'... he'd explain about whatever the current thing he was working on... at some point, I said "is that something I could do?"... and he said 'sure, here's what you do..." . And whoosh! I was on my way! after 3 months, a friend I met who was a former student that visited Paul, gave me a 286AT Kaypro 12mHz motherboard with no math co-processor. I took the motherboard to class next day, and said to Paul: "Hey Paul, look what I got!"... uhm,, what do I do next with it?" Paul pulled out a pen and a notepad, and we noted each item, I would need to complete the computer. He sent me to a mom and pop PC shop... where I got all the parts, I paid $5 for a brand new horizontal case with a power supply. So, after day three, and a dozen MFM drives later, I had a working computer! I was happy, and then several students approached me, from like, outta nowhere... and they were all like, 'man, you built that in 3 days...'. And I was like, 'hey, yeah, guess I did'. I was a single father with 4yo twins boy and girl. By the time they were 5 (in 1994) They had a 286AT, with a CGI (16 color) monitor. I created simple batch files, and the kid's would type "1" and "Mickey Mouse 123" would load. From there it was one great adventure after another, as PC boards got better, CPU's got faster. I had a few computer jobs, then went into business for myself for about 5 years, when I was forced to move and lost all my clientel. AT 50yo, a highschool and jr college dropout, I started attending college. Lasted 5 1/2 years before my health forced me to drop from college. I was 3 classes from graduation.
But I took every single electronics class they offered just about, some twice because after 3 years, things changed, so there was new stuff to be learned. It was networking, electronics where you create projects and test them, then there were the Computer electronics classes, same location, just PC related. I'm grateful I was able to do go all those years, liked the Windows 10 Power Users class a lot. Nowadays, I just hangout with my big service dog and try to do this and that to keep busy.

Factoid: When MS-DOS 6.22 came out, there was no more "DOS-SHELL". When I saw this, I approached my instructor and said, "Hey Paul, y'know what? It looks to me like their trying to force everyone into using Windows....". His response? A bigass grin!

I actually got to see, a computer with MS-DOS 3.0 installed.
There were 17 files.

PIP Peripheral Interchange Program

To me DOS 4.00 was the (beta) multitasking DOS that I was working on while sent to Bellevue by my employer, a French PC clone manufacturer. It was similar to Concurrent CP/M 86, with virtual consoles and real multitasking. It's never been released AFAIK. Its main drawback was that it was leaving less than 400K of RAM available to user programs. At that time, my company wanted to use it as the platform for a non-dedicated MS Networks file server. Only IBM had that, Microsoft's version available to OEMs was dedicated. The project was abandoned due to the memory issues and we developed our own TSR, INT24-based task dispatcher that allowed the file server to run in background under DOS 3.3 (much like the print spooler)

There was a great utility in those days "PCTOOLS" for sorting out complete directory's in rows, very handy.

PIP=Peripheral Interchange Program

Nice but there are many more things I would note: for example you saw MWAV.exe, which the Windows version of Microsoft AntiVirus. It was actually the first time MS-DOS shipped WINDOWS programs (of course you would need Windows for that, so alone they were useless). DEFRAG was very interesting, as it was not licensed from CP like UNDELETE or MSAV, but rather from Symantec - it was Norton SpeedDisk 6 in a stripped down version. Also MS-DOS 6+ had hard disk compression, which was huge back in the days with small hard drives. MS-DOS 6 also had the option to define start up menus to load different CONFIG.SYS configurations, so you didn't need to swap it out and reboot or build DOS diskettes with special own CONFIG.SYS definitions just to load some specific game or application.
Great way back in history :)

Really enjoyed this (trip down memory lane)

Did MS-DOS 3.0 lack BACIS?

Flex, 68/DOS, and several others were out there too for 8080 and Z80 based systems.

i feel old already, i enjoyed working and studying DOS in 1997,, was awesome time

C/PM was influenced by TOPS-10. That’s the history of early operating systems, improving on something older.

There was a time when Unix was thought to be the future….

PIP stands for Peripheral Interchange Program.

AFAIR the only versions I remember 3.3 and 6.22 /*and then 7.10 with Windows95 :D */ everything else was not stable/popular...

Thank you. Brought back many memories of my DOS days from the 80's and 90's. Fantastic. The good old days.

Come to an agreement?
F u
The illustrious William h Gates III stole it from Dr. Dos

Ah, memories of EDLIN.. lovely editor; not fully WYSIWYG yet, but close 😜😜
But seriously: I actually liked MS-DOS, at least since version 3-ish
👍👍🦆🦆👍😜🏳️‍🌈👍

one error ..Microsoft purchased Q-DOS from Seattle Computer (for $25K-$50K depending on the source MS themselves changed how much they paid over the years) they did not license it... 2 different things..since MS owned it they could license it out..

First DOS i used was TRSDOS 2.11.41 MS licensed DOS to Tandy Radio Shack..

MS-DOS 4 was the worst DOS version it was written by MS and IBM ..MS offered refunds for people that were not happy with it..is super bloated..MS-DOS 4.01 was too late so MS pushed through development of MS DOS 5..which was a great improvement from MSDOS 3.3..Also MS offered free upgrade from MSDOS 4 to 5 they were still trying to get customers back from MSDOS 4 debacle

UNDELETE / UNFORMAT..did not need mirror..but could be used with it..
The way undelete worked is if you delete a file all that happens is the first letter of the file name is changed and it is marked as deleted in the FAT table ..the actual file is still on the disk..so as long you did not overwrite that area of the disk you could undelete it ..undelete would prompt you for the first letter of the deleted file name and update the FAT table your file is now back

The way unformat worked is when you format a disk the system would go through the disk checking sectors (read only) the last step was to zero out the FAT table ..so to unformat it would scan the disk for the files and rebuild the FAT table..we used do a trick to people type in format then when it said 99% reboot the machine and all files are there and perfectly fine..

Mirror for floppys would simply make a second FAT table..you could "restore" the disk ...mirror would copy the second FAT table to the main one..Mirror for HDD was much different..

useless information: FAT table was stored in the center of the disk on track 17 of 40 track disks

MS-DOS Shell lead to products from companies DeskMate from Tandy and GEM among others which lead to Windows/286 first real version of Windows

As for the subdirectory: there was an artificial limit in early DOS of 255 files root (the only directory) MS DOS would crash if you got close to 255 files..even later versions had a limit for root of 255 (files + directories) unlimited in subdirectories..

useless information: inside MS in the early 1990's if you called the Disk Operating System DOS you had to pay a fine..you had to call it MS-DOS

mkdir (md) didn’t exist until DOS 2 (being that v2 is when hard disk drives were finally supported in software and the 5160 XT supported them with beefier power supplies)

After all, a bare bones 5150 came with 16KB and no floppy drive (no room for DOS). What did you do with such a system? Run “cassette BASIC” from ROM and save to. Cassette. The 5150 had a cassette port in back next to the keyboard port. Hook up a tv to a CGA cord (the 5153 CGA monitor won’t come out until 1983 .. I think when the 5160 XT comes out.. yeah there is a composite output for just this reason) and enjoy 40 columns of BASIC like an Atari 400/800 or an Apple ][Plus for example.

Okay okay you spring for the whopper .. a SSDD floppy drive PC. SS (single sided?!?). Yes the DSDD would come later. Oh and you only got 8 sectors (512byte) per track so 160KB on the SSDD (and later 320KB on DSDD).

Who need’s subdirectories?

DOS 2 gave us 9 sectors floppy disks (180KB or 360KB) and mkdir (abbreviated “md”). But that was for the XT’s hard disk drive (okay the floppy supports directories too).

The worst thing about DOS: "Bad command or filename".

😅pip = peripheral interchange program

How win zip affect floating point calculations

If i make empty shell of zip matrix can it self works

If just zip as node can router hard coded as zip

File system is can ftp pip network

I love DOS. I love tweaking it. I love BASIC. I love BBS's. Okay, I'm a geek.

Watching, Yet Again LOL
Excellent Video Sir

PIP in CP/M stood for “Peripheral Interchange Program“. I still have a working Heath H89 model microcomputer that runs CP/M using floppy discs. I have written quite a few software applications under CP/M in the 1980s, and we had the ability in those days even to patch the OS. The entire Heath H89 operates on only 64K ram. The CPU is a 2MHz Z80. But I can load and run, on that machine, a Fortran compiler, an MBasic compiler, a very good word processor. These utilities ran fast, because the code had to be concise. There was room for large documents, because they could be read and swapped in on the fly, from floppies.

The Amiga 1000 was streets ahead of all this stuff

Thank you good sir