ms-dos
from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
MS-DOS
/M.S.dos/, n.
[MicroSoft Disk Operating System] A {clone} of {CP/M} for the 8088
crufted together in 6 weeks by hacker Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer
Products, who called the original QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating
System) and is said to have regretted it ever since. Microsoft
licensed QDOS in order to have something to demo for IBM on time, and
the rest is history. Numerous features, including vaguely Unix-like
but rather broken support for subdirectories, I/O redirection, and
pipelines, were hacked into Microsoft's 2.0 and subsequent versions;
as a result, there are two or more incompatible versions of many
system calls, and MS-DOS programmers can never agree on basic things
like what character to use as an option switch or whether to be
case-sensitive. The resulting appalling mess is now the
highest-unit-volume OS in history. Often known simply as DOS, which
annoys people familiar with other similarly abbreviated operating
systems (the name goes back to the mid-1960s, when it was attached to
IBM's first disk operating system for the 360). The name further
annoys those who know what the term {operating system} does (or ought
to) connote; DOS is more properly a set of relatively simple interrupt
services. Some people like to pronounce DOS like "dose", as in "I
don't work on dose, man!", or to compare it to a dose of
brain-damaging drugs (a slogan button in wide circulation among
hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say No!"). See {mess-dos}.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Microsoft Disk Operating System
Microsoft DOS
MS-DOS
<operating system> /M S doss/ (Or "MS-DOS", "PC-DOS",
"{MS-DOG}", "{mess-dos}") {Microsoft Corporation}'s {clone} of
the {CP/M} {disk operating system} for the {8088} {crufted}
together in 6 weeks by {hacker} {Tim Paterson}, who is said to
have regretted it ever since.
MS-DOS is a single user {operating system} that runs one
program at a time and is limited to working with one megabyte
of memory, 640 kilobytes of which is usable for the
{application program}. Special add-on {EMS} memory boards
allow EMS-compliant software to exceed the 1 MB limit.
Add-ons to DOS, such as {Microsoft Windows} and {DESQview},
take advantage of EMS and allow the user to have multiple
applications loaded at once and switch between them.
Numerous features, including vaguely {Unix}-like but rather
broken support for subdirectories, {I/O redirection} and
{pipelines}, were hacked into MS-DOS 2.0 and subsequent
versions; as a result, there are two or more incompatible
versions of many system calls, and MS-DOS programmers can
never agree on basic things like what character to use as an
option switch ("-" or "/"). The resulting mess became the
highest-unit-volume {operating system} in history. It was
used on many {Intel} 16 and 32 bit {microprocessors} and {IBM
PC} compatibles.
Many of the original DOS functions were calls to {BASIC} (in
{ROM} on the original {IBM PC}), e.g. Format and Mode. People
with non-IBM PCs had to buy {MS-Basic} (later called
{GWBasic}). Most version of DOS came with some version of
BASIC.
Also know as PC-DOS or simply DOS, ignoring the fact that
there were many other OSes with that name, starting in the
mid-1960s with {IBM}'s first disk operating system for the
{IBM 360}.
[{Jargon File}]
(2007-05-21)
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