MS-DOS Is 30 Years Old Today 433
An anonymous reader writes "Thirty years ago, on July 27 1981, Microsoft bought the rights for QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for $25,000. QDOS, otherwise known as 86-DOS, was designed by SCP to run on the Intel 8086 processor, and was originally thrown together in just two months for a 0.1 release in 1980 (thus the name). Meanwhile, IBM had planned on powering its first Personal Computer with CP/M-86, which had been the standard OS for Intel 8086 and 8080 architectures at the time, but a deal could not be struck with CP/M's developer, Digital Research. IBM then approached Microsoft, which already had a few of years of experience under its belt with M-DOS, BASIC, and other important tools — and as you can probably tell from the landscape of the computer world today, the IBM/Microsoft partnership worked out rather well indeed."
United Way (Score:5, Informative)
IBM then approached Microsoft, which already had a few of years of experience under its belt with M-DOS, BASIC, and other important tools
I think that IBM was 'approached' by MS. Gates' mother had contacts through her role as a high ranking official in the United Way. That got Bill a foot in the door and he made good on the opportunity. Major successes are often a convergence of skill, ambition and blind luck, and the MS fortune is, I think, one of those cases.
Re:Still in use (Score:3, Informative)
Still being developed.... Just search for FreeDOS and then shake your head in disgust.....
Sorry that you aren't as enthusiastic about it as we are.
Yes, we're still working on FreeDOS. In fact, if you visit our web site [freedos.org] you'll see that we are currently working on the FreeDOS 1.1 distribution. We're almost there! After that is out, we'll start the discussion for what FreeDOS "2.0" should be, what a modern DOS should look like in 2011.
So yes, we are still doing some work there.
Half-baked at best, wrong at worst... (Score:4, Informative)
Its audio was trumped by machines such as the Apple IIgs (16 channel wavetable) and the Atari ST (best MIDI software and capabilities.)
Don't know much about the Apple IIGS' audio, but it sounds interesting (no pun intended) (*)
But the Atari ST? Please. The ST became popular for music because it had MIDI ports built-in. (**) Credit to Atari for their foresight, but nothing that the Amiga couldn't do with a dirt-cheap add-on interface. The sound from an expensive synth attached to an Atari ST sounded better than the Amiga's built-in sound? No shit!
Especially ironic given the Amiga's built-in sound *was* damned impressive for the time (***), whereas the ST's own sound chip was an off-the-shelf 3-channel square-wave job [wikipedia.org] dating back to the 8-bit era that was exceptionally poor in comparison.
Its graphics were again trumped by machines like the Apple IIgs (4096 simultaneous colors.)
You're showing your blatant ignorance here.
The Amiga was well-known for its 4096 colour HAM mode. [wikipedia.org]. Pixel constraints limited its usefulness for animation and games, but it was impressive for static graphics.
The Apple IIGS's graphics [wikipedia.org] look good, but are- as far as I can see- essentially 16-colour (320 x 200) and 4-colour (640 x 200) modes with hardware support for palette switching. The Amiga's copper co-processour could comfortably perform the same trick in its regular (non-HAM) flexible 32-colour (320 x 200) (****) and 4-colour (640 x 200) modes with the same or greater flexibility.
The nintendo had better animation capabilities than the Amiga, and they both came out the same year (1985.)
Are you seriously claiming that the original 8-bit NES was more powerful than the Amiga? Mind you, given your apparent ignorance of the Amiga's 4096 colour graphics capability, I wouldn't put too much store in your judgement on this matter.
(*) If I had time, I'd be interested in how the "wavetable" synthesis performed versus the Amiga's "real" 4-channel, 8-bit sound, but I do admit the Apple II seems like it ought to be impressive by the standards of the time.
(**) And possibly because the ST was more affordable early on, until the Amiga 500 came out and its price fell.
(***) Maybe the Apple IIGS was as well, doesn't mean they weren't both impressive.
(****) Actually, there was a "64-colour" mode, but the second 32 colours were "half-brite" versions of the first 32, so I don't really count that.