Talk:MS-DOS

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[edit] DIR

The "DIR" example needs to be changed. The output looks more like UNIX/Linux. I've never seen any such output from a DOS "DIR".

Thats probably from a Windows machine running an updated version of DOS. Older DOSes, as you most rightly probably see, did not comma-separate nor tab out the display as nicely as the newer DOSes did. Dysprosia 12:22 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
It looked very strange to me. I replaced it with a heavily edited version of my root directory, from Windows 98. I stripped off the LFNs, I think it's pretty much the same as DOS now. -- Tim Starling 12:35 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Well, comma separation came round v6.2, but I don't think we really need to dig that far back :) Nice work Dysprosia

[edit] Company Name

I think the company name should be Seattle Computer Products, not Seattle Computer Systems. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.223.151.14 (talk • contribs) 22:32, August 6, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed it is, SCP was relatively widely known back in the day for their add-on boards. But a thing that really get on my wits is the "Dirty" part of the Q-DOS acronym. Someone really ought to come up with the goods on this one. Never, never-ever was anything called "Dirty" back in the day. It was known variously as Seattle-DOS, 86-DOS or whatever, but never, never ever as the Quick And Dirty OS. Never ever. Tim (Paterson) himself never called it Quick and Dirty. Never. It's a name that's been slapped on the Q-DOS thingie later on. Quick and Dirty wasn't even really used as a term back in the day, it's a thing of the later 80's. I wish someone could provide some reference to this, since it's driving me up the wall. I keep on reading it here and there, but I never ever ever heard it back in the day. Please please. -Anonymous And Accountless —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.214.133.22 (talk • contribs) 02:27, June 22, 2006 (UTC)
Anonymous is incorrect about the name QDOS. The reason he "keeps reading it" is that Paterson himself called it QDOS. Here is the reference he asks for (from Paterson's web site): click here. --Blainster 20:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Release Timeline

I would add this timeline to the article, but it's so sketchy that I'd like to rough it out here first.

Eh...nevermind. I found a good source - will put on main page RobLa 21:33, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Use of backslash

The article says: Fearing copyright infringment complaints from AT&T, Microsoft decided to use backslashes as pathname separators rather than normal forward-slashes. I always thought backslashes were used as pathname separators because forward slashes were commonly used as the switch character in CP/M. Perhaps both reasons contributed to the decision; is it worth adding this to the article?-gadfium 22:42, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of evidence or a coherent legal theory for the former reason, I've replaced it with the latter and made the sentence indefinite. - User:66.15.40.17 (19 June 2005)

[edit] First sentence

The first sentence says "Microsoft's disk operating system, MS-DOS was the first operating system for the IBM PC."

But the PC-DOS article says: "It is commonplace to see people write "MS-DOS was the operating system for the original IBM PC", for example - which is quite wrong: the IBM PC always shipped with PC-DOS in the traditional IBM blue wrapper."

So this factual conflict needs to be resolved. --Blackcats 00:30, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
PC-DOS, as originally shipped, was pretty much MS-DOS with IBM branding. AlistairMcMillan 01:49, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The IBM PC was first introduced with three optional OS's. It was not sold as a complete packaged unit; you had to select the components and software you wanted. But PCDOS was only $60 while CPM-86 cost $240, and UCSD p-System was even more, which accounted for the difference in sales. Blainster 05:10, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Did someone deface this page?

A chunk of it has been removed and there's something in spanish.

Yes... 03:43, 22 May 2006 (UTC) Alexzero77

[edit] MS-DOS 'Dominance' Questioned

I would rather it said that it was complimentary to IBM's dominant PC-DOS version. There was just so much code flip flopping how could MS be considered the leader here?

See #First sentence, just half a page above, for details. tyomitch 17:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Windows XP COMMAND.COM Version Bug

This is not really a bug. In WinXP (and presumably 2000, 2003, Vista, etc.) there is a VER.EXE file in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 which displays the Windows XP version number 5.1. COMMAND.COM finds a file VER in the search path, and executes it, displaying "Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1 . . . ]". For some reason, when COMMAND is called with /c or /k it executes the internal ver command (which is normal DOS behavior); but when VER is typed it searches for VER executable files, instead of using the internal command (weird).

[edit] Expand OEM

Hoping that someone would expand OEM or suitably link it to appropriate articles. Arun T Jayapal 16:58, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who embeds what?

In the article it says several times "Shipped embedded in Windows …", however it was Windows that was embedded in DOS, not the other way around. Up until Windows Me, DOS was still the real OS and Windows just as much a GUI as Windows 1.0 was. Mütze 22:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Uh.... no, that's not quite right. SchmuckyTheCat 22:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DOS

Someone changes 'Disk' to 'Data' in the opening paragraph. Just to avoid an argument, according to microsoft it is Disk [1] -Localzuk (talk) 13:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where'd the code come from?

From the article, "However, MS-DOS 4.0 was actually based on IBM PC-DOS 4.0, as Microsoft was by then concentrating on OS/2 development." Does this mean that IBM actually wrote the code for MS-DOS 4.0 or that they had merely relicensed with minor improvements the code it already had from Microsoft? This is all rather confusing. It would be nice if a chart like Image:Unix.png could be creating for the DOS family of operating systems. Theshibboleth 12:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Most of the new code in PC-DOS 4.0 was written by IBM but the starting point was DOS 3.3. DOS 4 shipped on 5 360k disks; DOS 3.3 only needed 2 360k disks. IBM added a lot. The larger partitions were derived from the code used in Compaq DOS 3.31. DOSSHELL was derived from IBM's Fixed Disk Organizer. Addditional code was created by IBM to support all the hardware introduced as part of the PS/2 line. Expanded memory support would only work on IBM memory boards and PC-DOS 4 would only read hard disks formatted by PC-DOS. 24 OCT 2006

[edit] MS-DOS 8.00

Has anyone ever released ms-dos 8 as an unofficial standalone package, like the china dos union (I think) did with 7.1? Dr.-B 07:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Wengier DOS 7.10 is currently available here:
http://zhenlove.com.cn/cndos/msdos71/dos71cd.zip
http://zhenlove.com.cn/cndos/newdos/dosdown.htm
Because Wengier sites repeatedly disappeared in past, please download and mirror this file to other sites. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.5.35.178 (talk • contribs).
{ Additional comment from User:83.5.35.178 split from previous comment. If you are the author of this comment, please fix it's clarity as a standalone comment. --Sigma 7 13:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC) }
Please too mention these mirrors in discussion here.83.19.52.107 07:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
MS-DOS 8.00 Creator can be downloaded from here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041203233331/http://scp.gmxhome.de/msdos71/DOS71DL.zip (file is valid)
http://web.archive.org/web/20060501073351/http://scp.gmxhome.de/msdos71/DOS71DL.zip (file after repair becomes valid)
(both files - this originally valid and this after repair - have fully identical content)
http://web.archive.org/web/20040710051105/http://scp.gmxhome.de/msdos71/index.htm
Page disappeared, but hopefully Internet Archive Wayback Machine archived this. Similarly please download and mirror this file to other sites.83.5.35.178 13:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/98lite is useful tip how to make separate DOS 8.00 that boots from HDD.83.19.52.107 13:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Replacements.

I think a new section at the end of the article called "Replacements" could be a good idea. I've noticed FreeDOS and DOSBox are already mentioned, but for newbies trying to run old MS-DOS programs on other OS it could be more helpful if expressed in this fashion. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.125.97.122 (talk) 10:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] System operating on MS-DOS?!

How the heck can the old Windows products be based on MS-DOS? MS-DOS is a command prompt program, not the computer itself! HyperSonicBoom 00:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

These old Windows products are based on MS-DOS because they ran from DOS base. DOS in turn is based on BIOS.83.5.24.189 22:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Finally BIOS is based on hardware itself.83.19.52.107 07:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
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