Talk:IBM PC-DOS
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[edit] Merge
I propose merging List of IBM PC DOS versions with IBM PC-DOS on the latter's title. "List of IBM PC DOS versions" does not add anything new that IBM PC-DOS doesn't already discuss. SchuminWeb (Talk) 15:53, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] three major operating systems? CP/M, DR-DOS, Commodore, Macintosh, Pro-DOS?
PC-DOS was one of three major operating systems that dominated the personal computer market from about 1981 to 1995.
This introductory sentence is rather ambiguous. If by "personal computer,"- specifically x86 PCs and IBM "clones" is meant, than the third operating system would proably be CP/M by Digital Research. It could also mean Digital Research's DR-DOS which was aquired by Novel and renamed DR-DOS. If one includes Macintosh, it would be the Mac OS, I assume. If one includes Commodore and/or the Apple II as "personal computers," than PC-DOS might not even make the top three. I'm going to remove the sentence, although it could be re-written with a more specific reference and citation. Cuvtixo 17:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] IBM-DOS 6.10
There really was a short-time release of an what the manual describes as "IBM-DOS 6.00", what the "dosver" describes as IBM-DOS 6.00, but command.com's ver says IBM-DOS 6.10. This is in a similar packaging to the beta, but was released as a retail upgrade. It features the black icon that was used in PC-DOS 5.0.
There was also a PC-DOS 6.1, which had a similar packaging to PC-DOS 6.3, and features a five-disk install.
If one googles for 'PCDOS613', one will discover that there was also a short-time free stepup from pcdos 6.10 to pcdos 6.30. A similar step-up exists for 5.00 to 5.00.1, and for 7.00 to 2000. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wendy.krieger (talk • contribs) 09:51, August 23, 2007 (UTC). Wendy.krieger 09:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] IBM DOS history
The split between MS and IBM came while came while DOS 5 was still in the market. IBM decided to go from an OEM only to a compteing DOS, comparable to Microsoft DOS, beginning with DOS 5.00.01. The first retail version is a modified version of IBM-DOS 5, largely to run on generic hardware.
Such a move would also be necessary, because IBM no longer needed to put ROM-BASIC into their machines, and the bios of later machines would be more varied BIOS.
None the same, DOS 5 was released before the split, and the bulk of the system features were set.
Because of the split, the OEM version of MS-DOS was labeled as "MS-DOS and Optional Tools". Together these form the same package as the upgrade version since Optional Tools is different to Supplemental Tools. It is not clear exactly what is optional, but IBM licenced the base code and recompiled it as IBMDOS 6.0. The original package has a manual that has the same cover as the DOS 5 manuals, and it "Starting IBMDOS....". The manual and true-version is 6.00, but command.com says 6.10.
The whole package was overhauled with new manuals, icon and other things, and released as PC-DOS 6.1, Internally, it is still PC-DOS 6.00 (by true-version). Disk compression was by superstor, while many of the optional tools were old-version PC-TOOLS utilities.
PC-DOS 6.3 was a release of PC-DOS 6.1 with many of the fixes that make 6.20 different from 6.00. The DOS in OS/2 PPC is PC-DOS 6.3, with some features (rexx), that would make it into PC-DOS 7. IBM had offered also a free upgrade from DOS 6.1x to 6,30, although this is not widely advertised.
PC-DOS 7.0 replaced many of the features of MS-DOS, such as using OS/2 style PACK2 files, rather than the Compress/expand files. It includes also REXX, and VIEW, with Stacker 4 for DOS and Windows for compression. The manual warns not to install if you use Stacker 4 for DOS and OS/2.
After this DOS, IBM shut down both Boca Raton, and the PC Company. DOS and OS/2 became moribound after this.
PC-DOS 2000 is basically PC-DOS 7.0 with fixes slipstreamed. The manual was a poorer quality printing and cover. In stead of a standard 1.44 disk, and 4 * 1.68 XDF disks, this release was on six standard diskettes.
The PC-DOS download at IBM is actually a chinese version, as can be seen by -ZN- and -PRC-, the latter = peoples republic of china.
IBM continued with a subset of PC-DOS 7.0, with support for FAT32, and little else. The thing has been recompiled several times, some for external use [eg Norton Ghost].
See eg "Upgrading and Repairing PCs - Scott Mueller - Edition 6 - ch 22. Earlier versions had a detailed account of the early versions of DOS.
--Wendy.krieger (talk) 04:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Split_section_out_proposal
- Common discussion held at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:MS-DOS#Split_section_out_proposal
