

MS-DOS is 30 years old today - ukdm
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/91202-ms-dos-is-30-years-old-today

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pavlov
Sweet DOS memories. I could probably still remember how to write CONFIG.SYS
and AUTOEXEC.BAT files that wring out every possible byte of <640K memory so
that Ultima VII would run. (This game had a home-grown memory manager which
required an obscene ~620K of so-called "real" memory while also requiring
certain drivers that ate into that real memory, making it difficult to run the
game without manually customizing the DOS startup command files.)

~~~
nater
ahem.

LOADHIGH=c:\mouse\mouse.sys

~~~
pavlov
On my PC it required something else, making the boot files not quite that
trivial. Maybe it was the sound card, or maybe it was due to the oddball
MicroChannel bus and ESDI hard disk on that IBM PS/2 -- I can't remember.

~~~
trafficlight
I'm glad we don't have to do that stuff anymore just to play a game.

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snorkel
Ah, the wasted hours of IRQ mole whacking to make the sound card AND the cdrom
drive to both work at the same time ...

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Shenglong
C:/Dos C:/Dos/Run Run/Dos/Run

Happy birthday Dos. I still remember learning you to play Commander Keen, when
I was 5.

~~~
rimantas
You mean C:\Dos ? ;)

~~~
mrsebastian
Nowadays it'd have to be C:\/Dos... damn web-based OSes...

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iansinke
Brings back memories of programming QBasic in the MS-DOS shell on Windows 98.
Ah, those were the days.

~~~
jodoherty
You should check out FreeBASIC and Qb64. Maybe you can revisit some of those
memories. :)

I remember learning VGA programming in C and assembly language how it was
instrumental in helping me finally grasp just how low-level C really was.
That's when I finally realized what pointers really were and just how useful
and dangerous they could be.

~~~
nikcub
sounds like you went through a similar routine to me. I had the Norton book -
which was excellent. I had second hand or pirated copies of everything though.

my first thought on pointers was 'this can't be right because it is too
dangerous, i can write a program to do anything!'

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5hoom
Probably the best legacy of MS-DOS is the number of kids it taught how to
really use a computer.

When I got my first PC (486SX 33MHz FTW!) the ONLY way to run the best games
was to get down & dirty with the command line. Soon you'd learn how to edit
autoexec.bat/config.sys and how to zip big files to span several 1.44MB disks.
Before you know it you're playing with BASIC, hex editing save game files &
learning how to set up all sorts of ad-hoc networks with friends. Then came
Doom & DEU & things really took off…

Those of us that wanted to see the latest 'cool-shiny' stuff on our computer
had no choice but to learn about the ugly innards, & we got pretty good at
this 'hacker' stuff as a result ;)

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ltamake
Ah, the innocuous days of MS-DOS. Best game was definitely Flight Simulator
IMO. I remember playing it for hours every day with my Logitech joystick. By
the way, that joystick has a free game called Slipstream 5000 with it. Anyone
else remember playing that?

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Slackwise
> Thirty years ago, on July 27 1981, Microsoft bought the rights for QDOS
> (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for
> $25,000.

I have yet to see a definitive date for the creation of MS-DOS. This is just
the date QDOS was purchased.

I run a public "Geeky Events" calendar[1] and the research I've done points to
August 12th as the first date "MS-DOS" was created, but even that isn't 100%.
Does anyone know the actual date?

[1]:
[https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/embed?src=9t07jqib63if4k...](https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/embed?src=9t07jqib63if4kecndchr1nk74@group.calendar.google.com)

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yaix
Congrats MS-DOS!

I may not remember correctly, but wasn't it that MS-DOS 4.0 was replaced by
4.01 two days later or so?

Also, typo below the MS-DOS 2.0 picture: It should be 5 1/4" (the floppy with
the half one was 3 1/2").

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yuhong
Yea, the problem was the original 4.0 release was buggy.

~~~
caf
The entire 4.0 release was considered pretty sub-par - it was common practice
to remain on version 3.3 until 5.0 was released.

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known
Thanks DOS. When I first saw a computer I thought it was a type of typewriter.

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thought_alarm
To celebrate, I'll buy the first round of drive letters and back-slashes.

~~~
pnathan
Take them. Take them all. Please.

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yannis
My first encounter with viri. The waterfall virus and michelangelo.

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mkr-hn
Getting Wing Commander to run with sound and a joystick was fun.

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lawlypop
MS-DOS was my first experience with a computer. Great times.

