An example of the MS-DOS command-line interface, showing that the current directory is the root of drive C, later versions also usedOS familyWorking statePreserved pieces exist in 32-bit WindowsSource model; for select versions since 2018Initial releaseAugust 12, 1981; 37 years ago ( 1981-08-12)/ September 16, 2000; 18 years ago ( 2000-09-16)Update methodRe-installationNonePlatformstypeDefault,(v1.25 & v2.0)Succeeded by(as of )Official websiteSupport statusMS-DOS 6.0 unsupported as of December 31, 2001MS-DOS (; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System) is an for -based mostly developed. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as, and some operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as 'DOS' (which is also the generic acronym for ). MS-DOS was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s and the early 1990s, when it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a (GUI), in various generations of the graphical operating system.IBM licensed and re-released it on August 12, 1981 as 1.0 for use in their PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax, and capabilities.During its lifetime, were released for the x86 platform, and MS-DOS went through eight versions, until development ceased in 2000. Initially MS-DOS was targeted at processors running on computer hardware using to store and access not only the operating system, but application software and user data as well. Progressive version releases delivered support for other mass storage media in ever greater sizes and formats, along with added feature support for newer processors and rapidly evolving computer architectures. Ultimately it was the key product in Microsoft's growth from a company to a diverse software development firm, providing the company with essential revenue and marketing resources.

• Ms Dos Code

It was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI. It is a flexible operating system, and consumes negligible installation space. Further information: andMS-DOS was a renamed form of – owned by, written. Development of 86-DOS took only six weeks, as it was basically a clone of 's (for 8080/Z80 processors), ported to run on processors and with two notable differences compared to CP/M; an improved disk sector buffering logic and the introduction of instead of the CP/M filesystem. This first version was shipped in August 1980. Microsoft, which needed an operating system for the hired Tim Paterson in May 1981 and bought 86-DOS 1.10 for $75,000 in July of the same year. Microsoft kept the version number, but renamed it MS-DOS.

They also licensed MS-DOS 1.10/1.14 to IBM, who, in August 1981, offered it as 1.0 as one of three operating systems for the, or the.Within a year Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to over 70 other companies. It was designed to be an OS that could run on any 8086-family computer. Each computer would have its own distinct hardware and its own version of MS-DOS, similar to the situation that existed for, and with MS-DOS emulating the as CP/M to adapt for different hardware platforms. To this end, MS-DOS was designed with a modular structure with internal device drivers, minimally for primary disk drives and the console, integrated with the kernel and loaded by the boot loader, and installable device drivers for other devices loaded and integrated at boot time. The would use a development kit provided by Microsoft to build a version of MS-DOS with their basic I/O drivers and a standard Microsoft kernel, which they would typically supply on disk to end users along with the hardware.

Ms Dos Code

Thus, there were many different versions of 'MS-DOS' for different hardware, and there is a major distinction between an IBM-compatible (or ISA) machine and an MS-DOS compatible machine. Some machines, like the, were MS-DOS compatible but not IBM-compatible, so they could run software written exclusively for MS-DOS without dependence on the peripheral hardware of the IBM PC architecture.This design would have worked well for compatibility, if application programs had only used MS-DOS services to perform device I/O, and indeed the same design philosophy is embodied in Windows NT (see ). However, in MS-DOS's early days, the greater speed attainable by programs through direct control of hardware was of particular importance, especially for games, which often pushed the limits of their contemporary hardware.

Very soon an IBM-compatible architecture became the goal, and before long all 8086-family computers, and only a single version of MS-DOS for a fixed hardware platform was needed for the market. This version is the version of MS-DOS that is discussed here, as the dozens of other OEM versions of 'MS-DOS' were only relevant to the systems they were designed for, and in any case were very similar in function and capability to some standard version for the IBM PC—often the same-numbered version, but not always, since some OEMs used their own proprietary version numbering schemes (e.g. Labeling later releases of MS-DOS 1.x as 2.0 or vice versa)—with a few notable exceptions.Microsoft omitted support from MS-DOS because Microsoft's -based operating system, was fully multi-user. The company planned, over time, to improve MS-DOS so it would be almost indistinguishable from single-user Xenix, or XEDOS, which would also run on the, and the; they would be with Xenix, which in 1983 described as 'the multi-user MS-DOS of the future'. Microsoft advertised MS-DOS and Xenix together, listing the shared features of its 'single-user OS' and 'the multi-user, -derived operating system', and promising easy porting between them. After the, however, started selling. Believing that it could not compete with AT&T in the Unix market, Microsoft abandoned Xenix, and in 1987 transferred ownership of Xenix to the (SCO).On March 25, 2014, Microsoft made the code to and a mixture of and available to the public under the, which makes the code, but not as defined by or standards.

Microsoft would later re-license the code under the on September 28, 2018, making these versions.As an joke in 2015, launched a application called MS-DOS Mobile which was presented as a new mobile operating system and worked similar to MS-DOS.Versions. Main articles: andMicrosoft licensed or released versions of MS-DOS under different names like 'Software Bus 86' a.k.a., or before it eventually enforced the MS-DOS name for all versions but the IBM one, which was originally called 'IBM Personal Computer DOS', later shortened to. (Competitors released compatible DOS systems such as and that could also run DOS applications.)In the former East-bloc, MS-DOS derivatives named DCP ( ) 3.20 and 3.30 existed in the late 1980s. The original MS-DOS advertisement in 1981.On microcomputers based on the Intel and processors, including the IBM PC and clones, the initial competition to the PC DOS/MS-DOS line came from, whose operating system had inspired MS-DOS. In fact, there remains controversy as to whether QDOS was more or less plagiarised from early versions of CP/M code. Digital Research released a few months after MS-DOS, and it was offered as an alternative to MS-DOS and Microsoft's licensing requirements, but at a higher price.

For CP/M-86 and MS-DOS were not interchangeable with each other; many were sold in both MS-DOS and CP/M-86 versions until MS-DOS became preponderant (later Digital Research operating systems could run both MS-DOS and CP/M-86 software). MS-DOS originally supported the simple, which was modelled after a similar but binary incompatible format known from. CP/M-86 instead supported a relocatable format using the to avoid name conflicts with CP/M-80 and MS-DOS.COM files. MS-DOS version 1.0 added a more advanced relocatable. Executable file format.Most of the machines in the early days of MS-DOS had differing system architectures and there was a certain degree of incompatibility, and subsequently. Users who began using MS-DOS with their machines were compelled to continue using the version customized for their hardware, or face trying to get all of their proprietary hardware and software to work with the new system.In the business world the 808x-based machines that MS-DOS was tied to faced competition from the operating system which ran on many different hardware architectures.

Microsoft itself sold a version of Unix for the PC called.In the emerging world of home users, a variety of other computers based on various other processors were in serious competition with the IBM PC: the, early, the and others did not use the 808x processor; many 808x machines of different architectures used custom versions of MS-DOS. At first all these machines were in competition.

In time the IBM PC hardware configuration became dominant in the 808x market as software written to communicate directly with the PC hardware without using standard operating system calls ran much faster, but on true PC-compatibles only. Non-PC-compatible 808x machines were too small a market to have fast software written for them alone, and the market remained open only for IBM PCs and machines that closely imitated their architecture, all running either a single version of MS-DOS compatible only with PCs, or the equivalent IBM PC DOS.

Most clones cost much less than IBM-branded machines of similar performance, and became widely used by home users, while IBM PCs had a large share of the business computer market.Microsoft and IBM together began what was intended as the follow-on to MS-DOS/PC DOS, called. When OS/2 was released in 1987, Microsoft began an advertising campaign announcing that 'DOS is Dead' and stating that version 4 was the last full release. OS/2 was designed for efficient multi-tasking (as was standard in operating systems since 1963) and offered a number of advanced features that had been designed together with similar; it was seen as the legitimate heir to the 'kludgy' DOS platform.MS-DOS had grown in spurts, with many significant features being taken or duplicated from Microsoft's other products and operating systems.

MS-DOS also grew by incorporating, by direct licensing or feature duplicating, the functionality of tools and utilities developed by independent companies, such as, , expanded memory manager, and others.During the period when Digital Research was competing in the operating system market some computers, like, were sold with floppy disks for two operating systems (only one of which could be used at a time), MS-DOS and CP/M-86 or a derivative of it. Digital Research produced, which was compatible with MS-DOS 2.11, supported CP/M-86 programs, had additional features including multi-tasking, and could read and write disks in CP/M and MS-DOS format.While OS/2 was under protracted development, Digital Research released the MS-DOS compatible 5.0, which included features only available as third-party add-ons for MS-DOS. Unwilling to lose any portion of the market, Microsoft responded by announcing the 'pending' release of MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This effectively killed most DR DOS sales until the actual release of MS-DOS 5.0 in June 1991.

Digital Research brought out DR DOS 6.0, which sold well until the 'pre-announcement' of MS-DOS 6.0 again stifled the sales of DR DOS.Microsoft had been accused of carefully orchestrating leaks about future versions of MS-DOS in an attempt to create what in the industry is called FUD regarding DR DOS. As of 2011, MS-DOS is still used in some enterprises to run legacy applications, such as this food service management system.With the introduction of in 1990, the easy usability of severely diminished the usage of MS-DOS which is based on the command line. With the release of (and continuing in the product line through to ), an integrated version of MS-DOS was used for, troubleshooting, and backwards-compatibility with old DOS software, particularly games, and no longer released as a standalone product. In Windows 95, the DOS, called MS-DOS 7, can be booted separately, without the Windows GUI; this capability was retained through Windows 98 Second Edition. Main article:MS-DOS compatible systems include:.,.Microsoft manufactured for IBM. It and MS-DOS were identical products that eventually diverged starting with MS-DOS version 6.0. Did not follow Microsoft's version numbering scheme.

For example, MS-DOS 4, released in July 1988, was followed by DR DOS 5.0 in May 1990. MS-DOS 5.0 came in April 1991, and DR DOS 6.0 was released the following June.These products are collectively referred to as 'DOS', even though 'Disk Operating System' is a generic term used on other systems unrelated to the x86 and IBM PC. 'MS-DOS' can also be a generic reference to DOS on IBM PC compatible computers.Microsoft's control of the Windows platform, and their programming practices which intentionally made Windows appear as if it ran poorly on competing versions of DOS, crippled the ability of other DOS makers to continue to compete with MS-DOS. Digital Research had to release interim releases to circumvent Windows limitations inserted artificially, designed specifically to provide Microsoft with a competitive advantage. See also. – designed to replace the default command interpreter.

– an MS-DOS adaptation by for FM Towns. – commercial solution for DOS software on new systems. Ultima version de itune descargar. – an environment provided by Windows operating systems to support character-mode applicationsNotes.