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The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

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Re: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

#51

Post by stevekemp »

mdip wrote: post #25
milpool wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd prefer 3.0 - because it was the baseline to DOS applications, it seems. EverythingTM runs on DOS 3.0. (I'm using MS-DOS 5.0 on my 386, though.)

I'm with you there -- IIRC, the 3.x series was all about hard disks. I'd lean toward 3.31, though, personally as the "Everything(TM)" item since (I think) that was the version that shipped with FAT16 (had to hit up Wikipedia and this was the version that supported partitions over 32MB). I remember, as a kid, that we had to have 2 partitions on our drive because of the version of DOS not supporting partitions greater…

I wrote a couple of TSR programs too, nothing too advanced, but it was a fun time to be learning and experimenting.

I suspect the most useful thing I wrote was a simple "undeleter" program, for recovering deleted files from floppies and drives. Unmarking the FAT-entry as deleted, then chasing blocks to reassemble the file.

Re: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

#55

Post by rnd0 »

themodelplumber wrote: post #47
0xabe wrote: post #36

Microsoft, please release QuickBasic to the world

That'd be really cool. Upgrades to QuickBasic would come out pretty fast I'll bet. In case it doesn't happen, I have to say FreeBASIC is pretty nice...I was happy with how easy it was to make a little simulation game and compile it. Also I haven't tried it out for very long, but Gambas seems pretty neat and does some kind of web app creation thing now too.

FreeBASIC is pretty cool, qb64 isn't bad either -and might be a shade closer to the original quickbasic? (I'm not sure as I don't know enough QB arcana to test).

https://www.qb64.org/

Re: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

#56

Post by xahrepap »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #46
sverhagen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate, do people love it nostalgically, or are they making a case for actual current day usage of some sort?

I love it nostalgically (and I actually enjoyed using it back in the days), many people still use some flavor of DOS e.g. in supermarkets and post offices. I believe there is a lot of old hardware that is only compatible with DOS still in use.

In 2006 I worked at a dry-cleaner/laundromat that had its computer system all running on DOS. I remember when the computer died one day, my boss went to the local thrift store and found a computer old enough to just move the drive over and keep things running. I thought it was odd, but it worked great! Kept us from using it to play games :)

Re: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

#57

Post by rnd0 »

scruffyherder wrote: post #44

It's MIT licensed too! https://github.com/Microsoft/MS-DOS/blob/master/LICENSE.md I was kind of surprised about that!

It is pretty suprising, all things being equal. I'd suggest keeping a close eye on this issue: https://github.com/Microsoft/MS-DOS/issues/2

Re: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

#58

Post by cyberferret »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #31
gerdesj wrote: post #9

Well it has a place, I suppose. For me: I wasted a lot of time and effort farting around with config.sys and autoexec.bat getting drivers to load etc. Could I sue for lifetime wasted?

I'd name "Farting around with config.sys and autoexec.bat" among the things I enjoyed the most in my life. That's a pity you can't find a job to be paid for this nowadays...

Same here. Tweaking FILES= and BUFFERS= etc. in CONFIG.SYS and discovering DEVICE=ANSI.SYS enabled me to create custom DOS prompts with positioning and colours was a game changer and really what started me on the road to programming decades ago!

I loved tweaking AUTOEXEC.BAT so much that I created a front end menu shell which could be end user customised that at one stage became the de-facto program launcher for an entire state government here in Australia for a couple of years in the '80s.

Re: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

#59

Post by ndnxhs »

theamk wrote: post #53

Interesting, all sources of MS-DOS 1.25 is just 12K lines of code, including comments. Today, this seems like a pretty small project, and most commercial apps are significantly bigger.

My beta web app probably has more source code than that..

That has me thinking though. I have always wanted to try OS dev but all the stuff I have read says it will take years to get a system that can print hello world but surely it can't take that long to write 12k lines.

Re: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0

#60

Post by pjmlp »

hakfoo wrote: post #30
milpool wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd prefer 3.0 - because it was the baseline to DOS applications, it seems. EverythingTM runs on DOS 3.0. (I'm using MS-DOS 5.0 on my 386, though.)

3.3 seemed to be a common base for a long time, and a lot of people skipped 4.0. The big feature it brought to market was support for >32Mb disc partitions, but at the cost of using enough conventional memory that you needed bootdiscs to turn off "superfluous" stuff like mouse drivers to play some games. 5.0 brought the ability to load a bunch of stuff high, so you could finally have your cake and eat it too.

During those days, I used to carry around a 1.44 floppy with MS-DOS 3.3, Turbo Pascal and a few other utilities.
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