Open Sourcing DOS 4 (hanselman.com)
- Reference: 0173643506
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/04/25/2253254/open-sourcing-dos-4
- Source link: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/open-sourcing-dos-4
> Ten years ago, Microsoft released the source for MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 to the Computer History Museum, and then later republished them for reference purposes. This code holds an important place in history and is a fascinating read of an operating system that was written entirely in 8086 assembly code nearly 45 years ago.
>
> Today, in partnership with IBM and in the spirit of open innovation, we're [2]releasing the source code to MS-DOS 4.00 under the MIT license. There's a somewhat complex and fascinating history behind the 4.0 versions of DOS, as Microsoft partnered with IBM for portions of the code but also created a branch of DOS called Multitasking DOS that did not see a wide release.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~stikves
[2] https://www.hanselman.com/blog/open-sourcing-dos-4
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
"one of the most popular versions of MS-DOS " - I don't think so. As I remember it is was avoided like the plague until version 5 came along.
Re: (Score:2)
Came here to say this.
I'd guess that DOS 3.3 was the most popular, followed by 6.22
Dos 4 was considered an oddball between-useful-releases release.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'd guess that DOS 3.3 was the most popular, followed by 6.22. Dos 4 was considered an oddball between-useful-releases release.
That was a long time ago, but IIRC my first computer - a Christmas gift from the boss - came with DOS 4.0. I "upgraded" it to Compaq DOS 3.31 - AFAIK Compaq was the only source for a '3.31' version. I only used 4.0 briefly - I remember not liking it but I don't remember why. It was generally treated with disdain by the programmers and other serious computer users I knew.
At that time I worked on analog hardware, so a computer was still a novelty and a toy for me. Then I got into CAD - no more drafting board
Re: (Score:2)
This is the super rare Multitasking (M/T) DOS 4.0 that wasn't available retail. The opposite of "most popular" to me.
Re: (Score:1)
> This is the super rare Multitasking (M/T) DOS 4.0 that wasn't available retail. The opposite of "most popular" to me.
There was no official multitasking DOS. There was a company that did do some form of multi tasking DOS like environment I think it as termed PC-MOS/386 not DOS..
Re: (Score:1)
IBM used their "right" under their license to do the rewrite that created DOS 4 and it left so little free memory that many programs couldn't run on it due to bloat. I stayed on DOS 3.3 till DOS 5 came out and reversed the bloat as did many others.
not quite (Score:2)
DOS 3.3 had a maximum partition size of 32MB. If you had an older computer which had a small hard drive or no hard drive, ok but even the IBM AT released in 1984 had a 20 megabyte hard drive. DOS 4.01 was sorely needed when it came out, though if you already had a DOS 3.3 install there was no reason to upgrade to 4.01.
Though I am shocked that they open sourced 4.00 which was notoriously buggy. 4.01 was the release that quickly followed that everyone had. MS-DOS 5 was marketed as an upgrade for existing user
Most Popular (Score:4, Insightful)
DOS 4.0 was, by far, the worst release of DOS. Buggy as all getout, and broke compatibility with a bunch of apps. Most people stuck with DOS 3.3 until DOS 5 came out.
Ummm. (Score:1)
Sir, this is a PC. There were no "apps" back then. We ran programs.
Re: (Score:2)
> Don't be a pedantic douche. "App" is short for application, which is synonymous with program. There is nothing special about "app," regardless of the fact that phones and "stores" refer that term.
He's not being pedantic, but rather historically accurate. They were called programs back then. Referring to them as "applications" was rare, and the term "apps" was even less common, if it was used at all.
Re: (Score:3)
And I note that they have *not* open-sourced the widely-popular 3. 1, 2 and now 4. They're taking care to pick the ones that even most people who still want a DOS would not want.
Re: (Score:1)
I would speculate that DOS 3 probably has some consultant code in it that they haven't got the all clear to release yet, that, or they lost the source code, lol.
Out of curiosity what systems do you run that require such an earlier version of DOS, is freeDOS not a sufficient replacement?
Re: (Score:2)
I remember my first computer came with MS-DOS 4.01. I heard the stories of 4 being awful, but never experienced any issues myself.
I think it's one of those cases where the first release was bad, but very quickly got fixed. But bug fix updates didn't spread as easily back then.
MS-DOS 3.30 (Score:3)
My memory is that DOS 3.30 was the one to have. A quick check shows that 3.30 was sufficient for Windows 3.11. It was after that that things like DR-DOS came out and tried to offer some competition, but nothing really came of it (in part due to Microsoft shenanigans with Windows rejecting it). I also remember DR-DOS with transparent compression causing me to lose a hard drive.
Re: (Score:2)
There were also shells created for that time period that extended the capabilities of DOS. I had 4DOS, which allowed long filenames before NTFS was a thing (I think).
Re: (Score:2)
> There were also shells created for that time period that extended the capabilities of DOS. I had 4DOS, which allowed long filenames before NTFS was a thing (I think).
I still use the descendant of the 4DOS to this day on every machine I work on regularly. JPSoft's TCC. Mostly just the (now discontinued) TCCLE free version, but there are still some handy features not present in modern-day Windows command prompts. Things like... oh... typing a few characters then up-arrow and it goes through previous commands with that starting string, instead of brainlessly going through the commands in order they were executed.
Real Progress would have been CBM... (Score:1)
Releasing the source code for their kernel. :-)
I Will Wait For 6.2. (Score:3)
Maybe in 15 years.
Re: (Score:1)
Try using their disk compression on a modern hard drive.
DOS is cool! (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember, when I was a bit younger, I went through a phase where I wanted to write my own operating system and that led to me researching DOS, and I do remember finding a compatible, very bare bones DOS like operating system that one could easily recompile and boot off, it was a fun little experiment and a great learning experience overall, ultimately nothing ever came of it, but it was a good way to learn about sector formatting on Floppy Disks, and how Command dot com works, the release of MS DOS source code has been a great treat this morning, as I'm currently working on a project which has a port to dos, I'm currently looking at 865-8X8.ASM trying to get an idea of how the character set is rendered in DOS and to satisfy some curiosities.
There are also several other projects out there about building your own 8088 compatible computers, so I think we will see an expansion into this hobby in the coming years, much like there are kits available to build your own apple 1...
It's a great time to be into hobbyist retro computing! :)
Dinosaur sightings (Score:3)
[1]Here [techrepublic.com] are some screenshots of what installing MS-DOS 4.0 was like.
[1] https://www.techrepublic.com/pictures/dinosaur-sightings-installing-ms-dos-4/
surprisngly easy to compile (Score:1)
github screws up some formatted text, but yeah I have it up and running in no time!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How many floppy discs do you need?
Re: (Score:1)
the binaries fit on a single 3 1/2" HD disk
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, open sourcing DOS will sure help in the development of the product since so many people can now chip in and contribute!
Re: (Score:2)
I bought a [1]Book 8088 [hackaday.com] earlier this year. So perhaps the time is ripe for me to chip into a DOS fork.
[1] https://hackaday.com/2024/02/22/the-book8088-gets-a-post-hype-review/