Microsoft turns 50 today, and it made me think about MS-DOS 5.0

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Ok linux forum but without microsoft and DOS would we have linux …

So what is your entry point for MS DOS ?

Mine would be version 2.0 in 1983, but had been using a disk operating system from datapoint from 1981. Then moved to CPM in 1984 and CCPM shortly afterwards.

As for linux ?
Ubuntu 9.10 in 2009 when I was given a free ubuntu disk on a magazine cover to use to replace windows, spent ages using that disk again and again (still have the dvd in my case) before moving to mint.

Anyway happy birthday DOS

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I’ll have to read the Ars Technica article.

Here is what I saw in my browser yesterday.

Some neat memories.

I got started on an Apple II in high school and a Commodore 64 at home. The first version of IBM DOS I used was 3.1 I believe. Close to that anyway. The limit on partitions was 32 MB. Norton’s original utilities were awesome. PKZip was a replacement for earlier versions of zip.

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We would at least have Unix… it preceded DOS

I never got to use it on my own machine . We used CP/M and Unix.
I did use DOS to install FreeBSD, and I remember lots of people ran Dos6/Win3.1 on 286’s… it was dreadfully slow with Win running.

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286 computers were the pits, I set a room up with them but they only lasted the year out then we swapped to 386

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Probably MS-DOS 3.x or something at work - Lotus 123, DBase III and IBM Displaywrite 4 - circa 1989?

First PC was a 286 in 1991, came with DOS 3.3 - it was horrible… Didn’t have MS Windows then… I hated the partitioning on my 40 MB drive (C: = 32 MB, D= 8 MB) - so I figured out how to get it to boot DOS 4 - there was some command like “sys” where you could write a different bootloader to the MBR - then just created C:\DOS and copied the binaries into it… For the money that 80286 cost me - I could have got a 386 - but I knew nothing back then - but I learned fast!

DOS 5 and 6 were the best versions of MS-DOS - I wrote a whole bunch of variations on config.sys to do different high memory configurations (but that was on a 486) depending on what I was going to be running (e.g. Windows 3.11? Doom II? Dune games… Comanche [combat helicopter] - or graphics software like Vistapro [terrain generator]).

I still reckon GNU would have needed a kernel - and I still reckon Linux would have been it - whether there was an MS-DOS or not… RMS started FSF before IBM paid Microsoft to use someone else’s product in their product.

Before using DOS - I had a Tandy TRS80 at home - 1984 - it powered on to a Basic interpreter - I have no idea whose BASIC that was - i.e. was it Microsoft’s?

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I changed jobs at one stage leaving education to go work in the real world on unix boxes, but the company although it sold them (unisis) lacked connections so it was a fight each morning as to who plugged into the system.
They also had 2 pc with gem system on them which I was to us for client training.
Sadly they lacked customers local so I spent more time on the road between clients than doing a computer job.
Good experiance but returned to education after 6 months.

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Agree. GNU never made it on the kernel world.
BSD was ruled out for years by licensing difficulties. That gave Linux the break it needed.

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Especially as Linus was using GCC - it made complete sense…

November / December this year will mark the 30th anniversary of my introduction to Linux - Slackware 3.0 and Kernel 1.2.13… :heart: (there was an article about in Byte Magazine - I think I still have “my” copy of that issue [“my” as in I “borrowed” it from work - nobody else there read it anyway!])…

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Used to enjoy the computer comics every week or month but not seen a printed magazine for years, by the time they reach the press they are out of date

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My first Windows experience was with W95 and then W98 on a Gateway PC and a Pentium3 CPU, until I built my first PC and installed Windows XP Pro!!! I now run W11 and Surf Shark VPN, on my last PC build!!
Got into Linux, briefly, with Ubuntu 6, but opted for W7 upgrade, until W10 arrived!!!
Still use Linux on my older machines but Gentoo is about the only Linux that will run!!!

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I think Byte magazine has been defunct for 20 years or so now…

I used to enjoy reading Robert X. Cringely’s byline… Not so much Jerry Pournelle’s “Chaos Manor”…

It always had great stories about various tech… e.g. UNIX et cetera, but also Windows NT… unlike most PC magazines which seemed to focus on DOS, Windows and games…

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I use W11 on one machine, but it only runs Steam and a few other games. Windows is good as a gaming console, but everything I consider an adult function runs on another machine with Linux.

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That was probably mine as well. Sheesh, had forgotten about Lotus. Where I then worked, we had one PC for intercompany email on DOS and a separate MAC for doing our work, graphics-related, but it looked so cool with its color display of about 8" x 8" LOL. Whereas the big ole CRT monitor just sat there with the blinking cursor in DOS where we used CLI to check email.

Sheesh that was a loooong time ago.

Sheila

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Appears like only yesterday, where did all that time go.

Yes remember my first mac experiance on a SE , we bought a classroom full (8) to replace the cpm office teaching multi user system

Plus a BIG MAC in colour and a 30 gb hard disk

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You probably meant 30Mb.
I did not see any 1Gb disks till about 1990

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You are correct I miss typed

30 mb is correct.

I was really disappointed with apple

They created the s, then the se, then they extended the memory but would not add the X they create instead the SE 30, I thought we may get the SEX … ha ha ha, could not wait to make the order and pass it through the accounts dept, 10 computer SEX…

Childish I know

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