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Types and Versions of DOS
MS-DOS 6.22
Microsoft no longer market a
'Standalone' version of DOS. Last official release was MS-DOS
6.22.
MS-DOS 6.23 ~ 6.25
OEM Special versions produced for Banking and
U.S. Department of Defence
No information is available on these versions other than they were/are
FAT32 enabled for Large Disk Support.
No further information or active link for MS-DOS is available from Microsoft.
MS-DOS 7.0 ~ 7.10
MS-DOS 7.x is only provided as an integral
part of Windows 95 onwards. It is not available from Microsoft on its own.
While Microsoft
no longer support MS-DOS the requirement for a 'Standalone' DOS
has not gone away.
Many users extract the
MS-DOS 7.10 files from Windows 95B onwards (98se is recommended)
to obtain FAT32 Support.
For more details on the MS-DOS 7.10 Project - Visit: http://www.cn-dos.net/msdos71/
IBM PC-DOS 2000 (PC-DOS 7.0 rev 1)
For Information on PC-DOS or PC-DOS
2000 visit:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/rexx/library/rexxdos.html
or for the PC-DOS 7.0 (rev 0) - Y2K Update read:
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/dos/fixes/dos7.0/year2000/readme.txt
You can download Y2K Update for PC-DOS 7.0 (rev 0) from:
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/dos/fixes/dos7.0/year2000/
Why Choose PC DOS 2000 over MS-DOS 6.22?
Interesting article by IBM comparing MS-DOS 6.22 with PC-DOS 2000
The major disanvantage of PC-DOS 2000 is that it has no FAT32 'Large Disk Support'
For a complete rundown of MS-DOS & PC-DOS Versions
View PowerLoad's Microsoft Timeline
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Dr-DOS was first developed by Digital Research, Inc Who invented the first operating system for micro-computers in the seventies ~ CP/M ~ Dr-DOS has had a chequered life, It has had as many name changes as it has had owners. (Digital Research developed Dr-DOS upto version 6.0)
Digital Reseach no longer trades as a software company
The following are versions and support available from v6.0 onwards:
Dr-DOS 6.0 ~ NovellDOS 7.0
Novell no longer market Dr-DOS, Or support it.
Caldera OpenDOS 7.01
Caldera transferred OpenDOS
& DR-DOS to its wholly-owned subsidiary company -
Lineo, Inc.
( FORMERLY KNOWN AS CALDERA THIN CLIENTS,
INC. ) who renamed OpenDOS back to DR-DOS
All support for OpenDOS has been withdrawn by Caldera & Lineo
Lineo (Caldera) DR-DOS 7.02 ~ 7.03
In Early 2000, Lineo had
discontinued development work on DR-DOS in favour of Linux, they
still supported DR-DOS (Registered users only) and provided FTP access to files
All free support for older versions of
DR-DOS has been withdrawn by Lineo
Unofficial OpenDOS ~ DR-DOS support pages/links moved to :
http://stud3.tuwien.ac.at/~e0225895/drdos/drdos.htm
.
.
With effect from 18th November 2002 ~ DR-DOS has yet again new owners!
http://www.drdos.com/ as far as I can tell they no longer make DR-DOS available for free download
However Downloads of versions 7.01,7.02 & 7.03 may still be obtained from the following mirror sites for now anyway:
http://www.drdos.net/download.htm
http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/drdos/
This link can be a little slow at times.
DR-DOS 7.04 ~ 7.05
Originally developed by Caldera for OnTrack & Seagate with FAT32 & NTFS support for Emergency Bootdisks
DR-DOS 8.0
Essentially DR-DOS 8.0 is version 7.03 with FAT32 and large disk/partition built into the DOS kernel. The DR-DOS 8.0 kernel supports CHS and LBA access to hard disks and has a FAT32 file system built-in. It also supports those legacy file systems that were supported in earlier versions.
Only available so far as a commercial licence. For further details visit:
http://www.drdos.com/products/drdos80.htm
The following are other commercial & freeware versions of DOS worth looking at:
DataLight ROM-DOS
A fully 100% compatible
MS-DOS 6.22 Workalike! with every feature tuned for embedded
and mobile systems. (Downloadable BootDisk available)
REAL/32 DOS
For further details about REAL/32 DOS goto:
PTS-DOS 2000
For Information on PTS-DOS or to download a fully funtional (60 second boot delay) copy visit:
http://www.phystechsoft.com/en/ptsdos/
Paragon PTS DOS 2000 Pro
For further details about PTS-DOS 2000 Pro with FAT32 Support goto:
http://www.paragon-gmbh.com/n_dos.htm
SuperDOS
SuperDOS is designed for one purpose: to do business transaction processing.
For further details about SuperDOS goto:
http://www.bluebird.com/SuperDOS.htm
For Information about FreeDOS and the FreeDOS WebRing visit:
http://www.freedos.org or http://www.freedos.org/jhall/
RxDOS 6.2
Not much detail on this project.
QDOS
This site is dedicated to Sinclair QL and compatible computers (Thor 8/20/21/XVI, QXL, emulators) and to QDOS, ARGOS, Minerva, SMS2, SMSQ and SMSQ/E operating systems
http://www.colinfparsons.btinternet.co.uk/twinp/colhome/ql.htm
DOS Enhancments & Shells
4DOS
Not a version of DOS in the true sense, More of a DOS Enhancment! ~ Current versions of 4NT (4.0) and Take Command/32 (3.0) work properly under Windows 2000 (NT5). Current versions of 4DOS (7.0) and Take Command/32 also work properly with Windows Millennium Edition (Me)
Again, Not a version of DOS,
But the best DOS Shell I have ever seen!
Best with DOS 6 upwards
The only thing I can say is - Go and have a look!
http://sealsystem.sourceforge.net/about.php
DESKTOP is a graphical user
interface for DOS, which ones used to be a commercial shell like
MS-Windows 3.0 or GEOSTM. However, due to the dominance of
MS-Windows 95, can now be downloaded as Freeware. Available in
German or English Versions.
DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows 3x and
Norton Commander
http://wwwisg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~fritter/idx-desktop.html
Calmira II Skin for Windows 3.1
This one is a Program Manager Replacement
for all versions of Windows 3.1x. You do however need to load
Windows 3.1 first! Calmira II gives Windows 3.1 the Windows 95
feel, with Desktop and Toolbar Start Menu. Lots of Calmira II
add-ons available from same site.
I will continue for now to make Calmira II available for download here
Let us not forget
that ALL Versions of Microsoft Windows (Excluding Windows NT
& 2000) up to and including Windows Me are only Graphical
User Interfaces (GUI) and depend on MS-DOS to operate..
In a much diminishing degree in later versions agreed, but still
an integral part of the OS ! And are only now called Operating
Systems because of the level of the 16/32bit DOS Integration.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/
For a complete rundown of Microsoft Windows Versions
View PowerLoad's Microsoft Timeline
