DOS

Disk Operating System
Released:	1981-08-??
Discontinued:	2001-12-31
Developer:	Microsoft
Type:	Software

Microsoft's DOS (Disk Operating System) was the most popular operating system for the IBM standard PC hardware through the 1980s and early 1990s. It was originally released in 1981, and steadily updated until the last standalone version 6.22 was released in 1994. Subsequent versions of DOS were used merely as a bootstrapping program for Windows 95 and above. Support for DOS was officially discontinued on December 31, 2001, although this was for the Windows XP version of DOS, not the older 6.22 version.

While MS-DOS was by far the most popular disk operating system at the time, similar disk operating systems were also made like IBM's PC-DOS and Digital Research's DR-DOS. However, since all of the OSs are essentially clones of each other when it came to game play, they will not be covered in this Wiki.

Games

• Games released for DOS.

Versions

Released	Version	Box	Notes
1981-08-??	1.14		First official version sold by Microsoft under the name 86-DOS, renamed to MS-DOS in December.
1983-03-??	2.0		UNIX-like file system, many more commands. Supports 5.25" 320 KB floppies, FAT16 hard drives.
1984-03-??	2.11		Popular OEM release sold to over 200 PC manufacturing companies.
1984-08-??	3.0		Supports 5.25" 1.2 MB floppies.
1986-10-??	4.0		Released to OEMs only. Very unstable. Early multi-tasking.
1987-11-??	3.31		Last upgrade to version 3. Supports FAT16B.
1989-??-??	4.5		Editor and QBASIC. Supports 5.25 320 KB" floppies and 3.5" 2.88 MB floppies.
1991-06-11	5.0		Editor and QBASIC. Supports 3.5" 2.88 MB floppies.
1993-03-??	6.0		Includes MemMaker, DoubleSpace, Defrag.
1994-06-??	6.22		Last true version of MS-DOS.

From version 5.0 and up, DOS included QBASIC, a crippled version of its Quick BASIC programming language with a few example programs to help showcase the language. Two of those programs, QBasic Gorillas (DOS) and Nibbles, included simple PC Speaker music. The music of QBasic Gorillas has been recorded, but since Nibbles uses the same music as Gorillas, it won't be recorded.

Music and Sound

Since DOS is a software platform, it does not have any built-in sound capabilities, but it does assume any computer running it has a PC Speaker. However, the majority of third-party sound hardware devices manufactured in the late 1980s and early 1990s supported DOS. Here is a list of some of audio devices:

• Ad Lib, Inc.: AdLib, AdLib Gold 1000
• Covox: Sound Source, Speech Thing, Sound Master, Sound Master Plus, Sound Master II
• Creative: Creative Music System, Game Blaster, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 2, Sound Blaster Pro 2, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE 32, Wave Blaster
• Disney: The Sound Source
• Ensoniq: Soundscape, Soundscape Elite
• Gravis: UltraSound, UltraSound Max
• IBM: PC Music Feature, PS-1 Audio
• Innovation Computer Corporation: SSI 2001
• Logitech: SoundMan Games, SoundMan 16, SoundMan Wave
• Media Vision: Pro AudioSpectrum, Pro AudioSpectrum 16, Pro AudioSpectrum 16 Studio, Thunder Board
• Roland: CM-32L, CM-64, LAPC-I, MT-32, MT-100, RAP-10, SCC-1, Sound Canvas
• Yamaha: FB-01

Platforms

DOS was the primary platform for the PC gaming market in North America for the majority of the life of MS-DOS, and after being localized to many different languages, found life in the foreign market as well. Some of the more popular computer lines that used MS-DOS include:

• IBM PC
• PC AT
• PC XT
• PC-8801
• PC-9801
• PCjr
• Tandy 1000

Links

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_DOS - Wikipedia.