DOS is the abbreviation of English Disk Operating System, meaning "Disk Operating System". DOS is a type of operating system on personal computers. From 1981 to 1995, a period of 15 years, DOS held a pivotal position in the IBM PC compatible machine market. Moreover, if some Microsoft Windows versions based on DOS, such as Windows 95, 98, and Me, are included, then its commercial lifespan can be counted until at least 2000.
The most basic DOS system consists of a BOOT boot program based on MBR [1] and three file modules. These three modules are: the input/output module (IO.SYS), the file management module (MSDOS.SYS), and the command interpretation module (COMMAND.COM). [2] In addition, Microsoft added several standard external programs (i.e., external commands) to the retail DOS system package, which together with the internal commands (i.e., commands interpreted and executed by COMMAND.COM) constructed a relatively complete man-machine interaction environment in the disk operation era. For various commands related to DOS, please refer to the DOS command list.
DOS 1.0 Microsoft bought the copyright of 86-DOS (QDOS) and in July 1981 became the first operating system on the IBM PC. At the same time, Microsoft developed a dedicated version PC-DOS for the IBM PC, but compared with the general-purpose version DOS, except for the system file names and some cores designed for IBM machines, external commands and utilities, the rest of the code is actually not much different.
DOS 1.25 In June 1982, it supported double-sided floppy disks and started to correct errors.
DOS 2.0 In March 1983, it added the UNIX-style tree file system and hard disk support. From a low-level perspective, this was the first major revision of DOS. In addition to being compatible with the CP/M FCB file system, this version officially adopted the FAT format and extensively used the handle-style file operation method with UNIX characteristics.
DOS 2.11 In March 1984, it was the main OEM version, corrected the errors of version 2.01, and added international support for non-English languages and their file formats.
MS-DOS 2.25 In October 1985, it supported additional expanded character sets (Japanese and Korean) and also corrected errors in the old version.
MS-DOS 3.0 In August 1984, it introduced the PC/AT, which could support 1.2MB floppy disks and added higher-capacity hard disks.
MS-DOS 3.1 In November 1984, it added support for Microsoft Network.
MS-DOS 3.2 In January 1986, it added enhanced support for 3.5-inch floppy disks and started to be able to use hardware EMS through drivers. Acer in Taiwan, with the support of the Institute for Information Industry and the guild, developed a full Chinese version in line with the CMEX standard based on DOS 3.2.
MS-DOS 3.3 In August 1987, it corrected some internal errors, added many external commands related to file processing, and started to support floppy disks. After that, DOS 3.3 became the most stable and best-selling version at that time, which can be said to be the second major revision of DOS. The 4.0 released a year later was not as popular as 3.3. The internal BASIC interpreter gradually changed from BASICA to GW-BASIC with enhanced drawing capabilities after 3.x. At this time, Yitian Company developed ETBASIC that supported the Chinese drawing mode based on the previous versions of BASICA, which almost became the standard equipment for learning the BASIC language in Taiwan at that time. The most important part of the external commands is the addition of XCOPY and APPEND, which enhanced the long-overdue file management capabilities.
MS-DOS 4.0 In June 1988, it was mainly based on IBM's code base, not Microsoft's own code base. It added support for hard disk drives with a maximum capacity of 2GB, introduced EMM (software simulation of EMS) and the new specification XMS memory technology, allowing the DOS operating system to use memory above 1MB. The use of DOSSHELL began. DOSSHELL can be regarded as a GUI interface of DOS and has the ability to switch program operations.
MS-DOS 4.01 In December 1988, it corrected a series of errors existing in the old version.
MS-DOS 5.0 In June 1991, it was the third major revision, and possibly the most important revision in the history of DOS. This version inherited the improvements in memory management of 4.0. It was the most stable and popular version of the EMM specification, and also added many memory management programs such as EMM386, MEM, etc., in order to cooperate well with Windows. As a result, DOS memory management became a direction that many software at that time urgently wanted to cooperate and enhance. How to set the DOS memory configuration became a hot topic. The BASIC interpreter was changed to the simple version QBASIC of QuickBASIC, and the built-in text editor was changed from the line editor EDLIN to the full-screen editor EDIT (actually just adding another parameter to QBASIC.EXE). It reduced the version requirements for external commands, and finally, after much anticipation, it added capabilities such as DOSKEY, UNDELETE, Quick Format, UNFORMAT, etc. Another thing worth mentioning is that the CONFIG.SYS of this version allows multiple options.
MS-DOS 6.0 In March 1993, it added many fancy external commands. The system detection program MSD was added. The DoubleSpace disk compression technology began to be used, and Microsoft's own virus解毒 software VSAFE and MSAV also started to be attached. In terms of network, it began to add support for LL5 transmission lines. For disks, it began to add the disk defragmentation software DEFRAG and the disk cache program SMARTDRV. In terms of file management, the luxurious MSBACKUP replaced the simple BACKUP. In addition, the DELTREE and MOVE utilities were finally added. It formally supported optical drives. In terms of memory management, the MEMMAKER configuration optimization program was added.
MS-DOS 6.2 In November 1993, DoubleSpace was renamed DrvSpace.
MS-DOS 6.21 In February 1994.
MS-DOS 6.22 In June 1994, it was the last sales version. Guoqiao (KC) obtained the authorization from Microsoft and IBM and released its own DOS 7.0 in combination with the Guoqiao Chinese system.
MS-DOS 7.0 In August 1995, the version brought by Windows 95, which supports long file names.
MS-DOS 7.1 In August 1996, it added support for large hard disks and FAT32 partitions, etc.
MS-DOS 8.0 In September 2000, it was the last version of DOS, canceling some functions, such as no longer supporting the SYS command and printer operations.
The DOS family includes MS-DOS, PC-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, PTS-DOS, ROM-DOS, JM-OS, etc., among which MS-DOS is the most famous. Although these systems are often simply referred to as "DOS", no system is simply named "DOS" (only an irrelevant mainframe operating system of IBM in the 1960s is named this). In addition, there are several disk operating systems unrelated to DOS that run on non-x86 microcomputer systems and also have "DOS" in their names, and they are also simply referred to as "DOS" in the occasions dedicated to discussing that machine (for example: AmigaDOS, AMSDOS, ANDOS, Apple DOS, Atari DOS, Commodore DOS, CSI-DOS, ProDOS, TRS-DOS, etc.), but these systems are not compatible with DOS executable files and MS-DOS API.
The most basic DOS system consists of a BOOT boot program based on MBR [1] and three file modules. These three modules are: the input/output module (IO.SYS), the file management module (MSDOS.SYS), and the command interpretation module (COMMAND.COM). [2] In addition, Microsoft added several standard external programs (i.e., external commands) to the retail DOS system package, which together with the internal commands (i.e., commands interpreted and executed by COMMAND.COM) constructed a relatively complete man-machine interaction environment in the disk operation era. For various commands related to DOS, please refer to the DOS command list.
DOS 1.0 Microsoft bought the copyright of 86-DOS (QDOS) and in July 1981 became the first operating system on the IBM PC. At the same time, Microsoft developed a dedicated version PC-DOS for the IBM PC, but compared with the general-purpose version DOS, except for the system file names and some cores designed for IBM machines, external commands and utilities, the rest of the code is actually not much different.
DOS 1.25 In June 1982, it supported double-sided floppy disks and started to correct errors.
DOS 2.0 In March 1983, it added the UNIX-style tree file system and hard disk support. From a low-level perspective, this was the first major revision of DOS. In addition to being compatible with the CP/M FCB file system, this version officially adopted the FAT format and extensively used the handle-style file operation method with UNIX characteristics.
DOS 2.11 In March 1984, it was the main OEM version, corrected the errors of version 2.01, and added international support for non-English languages and their file formats.
MS-DOS 2.25 In October 1985, it supported additional expanded character sets (Japanese and Korean) and also corrected errors in the old version.
MS-DOS 3.0 In August 1984, it introduced the PC/AT, which could support 1.2MB floppy disks and added higher-capacity hard disks.
MS-DOS 3.1 In November 1984, it added support for Microsoft Network.
MS-DOS 3.2 In January 1986, it added enhanced support for 3.5-inch floppy disks and started to be able to use hardware EMS through drivers. Acer in Taiwan, with the support of the Institute for Information Industry and the guild, developed a full Chinese version in line with the CMEX standard based on DOS 3.2.
MS-DOS 3.3 In August 1987, it corrected some internal errors, added many external commands related to file processing, and started to support floppy disks. After that, DOS 3.3 became the most stable and best-selling version at that time, which can be said to be the second major revision of DOS. The 4.0 released a year later was not as popular as 3.3. The internal BASIC interpreter gradually changed from BASICA to GW-BASIC with enhanced drawing capabilities after 3.x. At this time, Yitian Company developed ETBASIC that supported the Chinese drawing mode based on the previous versions of BASICA, which almost became the standard equipment for learning the BASIC language in Taiwan at that time. The most important part of the external commands is the addition of XCOPY and APPEND, which enhanced the long-overdue file management capabilities.
MS-DOS 4.0 In June 1988, it was mainly based on IBM's code base, not Microsoft's own code base. It added support for hard disk drives with a maximum capacity of 2GB, introduced EMM (software simulation of EMS) and the new specification XMS memory technology, allowing the DOS operating system to use memory above 1MB. The use of DOSSHELL began. DOSSHELL can be regarded as a GUI interface of DOS and has the ability to switch program operations.
MS-DOS 4.01 In December 1988, it corrected a series of errors existing in the old version.
MS-DOS 5.0 In June 1991, it was the third major revision, and possibly the most important revision in the history of DOS. This version inherited the improvements in memory management of 4.0. It was the most stable and popular version of the EMM specification, and also added many memory management programs such as EMM386, MEM, etc., in order to cooperate well with Windows. As a result, DOS memory management became a direction that many software at that time urgently wanted to cooperate and enhance. How to set the DOS memory configuration became a hot topic. The BASIC interpreter was changed to the simple version QBASIC of QuickBASIC, and the built-in text editor was changed from the line editor EDLIN to the full-screen editor EDIT (actually just adding another parameter to QBASIC.EXE). It reduced the version requirements for external commands, and finally, after much anticipation, it added capabilities such as DOSKEY, UNDELETE, Quick Format, UNFORMAT, etc. Another thing worth mentioning is that the CONFIG.SYS of this version allows multiple options.
MS-DOS 6.0 In March 1993, it added many fancy external commands. The system detection program MSD was added. The DoubleSpace disk compression technology began to be used, and Microsoft's own virus解毒 software VSAFE and MSAV also started to be attached. In terms of network, it began to add support for LL5 transmission lines. For disks, it began to add the disk defragmentation software DEFRAG and the disk cache program SMARTDRV. In terms of file management, the luxurious MSBACKUP replaced the simple BACKUP. In addition, the DELTREE and MOVE utilities were finally added. It formally supported optical drives. In terms of memory management, the MEMMAKER configuration optimization program was added.
MS-DOS 6.2 In November 1993, DoubleSpace was renamed DrvSpace.
MS-DOS 6.21 In February 1994.
MS-DOS 6.22 In June 1994, it was the last sales version. Guoqiao (KC) obtained the authorization from Microsoft and IBM and released its own DOS 7.0 in combination with the Guoqiao Chinese system.
MS-DOS 7.0 In August 1995, the version brought by Windows 95, which supports long file names.
MS-DOS 7.1 In August 1996, it added support for large hard disks and FAT32 partitions, etc.
MS-DOS 8.0 In September 2000, it was the last version of DOS, canceling some functions, such as no longer supporting the SYS command and printer operations.
The DOS family includes MS-DOS, PC-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, PTS-DOS, ROM-DOS, JM-OS, etc., among which MS-DOS is the most famous. Although these systems are often simply referred to as "DOS", no system is simply named "DOS" (only an irrelevant mainframe operating system of IBM in the 1960s is named this). In addition, there are several disk operating systems unrelated to DOS that run on non-x86 microcomputer systems and also have "DOS" in their names, and they are also simply referred to as "DOS" in the occasions dedicated to discussing that machine (for example: AmigaDOS, AMSDOS, ANDOS, Apple DOS, Atari DOS, Commodore DOS, CSI-DOS, ProDOS, TRS-DOS, etc.), but these systems are not compatible with DOS executable files and MS-DOS API.
