How Far DOS Has Come

Remember DOS, with its black screen and blinking cursor eagerly waiting for your command. The Disk Operation System (DOS) celebrated its 30th anniversary last week. DOS has arguably been the most significant OS of all time and in honor of it turning thirty, I would like to reflect on where it has come from and where it is going.

In 1981 IBM released the PC and the following options for operating systems (OS).

• IBM Personal Computer Disk Operating System – cost at the time: $40
• Digital Research CP/M-86 – cost at the time: $240
• SofTech USCD p-System w/Pascal – cost at the time: $695

DOS was the only one of these three that was on the market right away and was the most economical and therefore became the most popular and commonly used. For a few years the public willingly used the no frills interface of DOS. Then in 1985 Microsoft released Windows, which at that time, was a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that needed DOS as an operating system but allowed for easier access to programs. The first versions of Windows were not very popular but as newer and improved upon versions were released, each one still needed DOS, until 1995.

When MS-Windows 95 was released it do not required DOS but could run completely independent as it had its own built-in OS. However, it did include some portions of the 16-bit DOS code to function. Like a baby bird, Windows hadn’t quite learned to fly without a little bit of help from DOS.

But all things must change and a year later in 1996, Windows-NT was released. It was the first version of Windows that was fully 32-bit with no 16-bit DOS code in it all.  However, DOS did not disappear from our lives.

Many people still use DOS believing its simplicity to be reliable and efficient. They don’t want all the bells and whistles that come with “user friendly” interfaces. For this reason, newer versions of DOS are still being developed and sold. Many computer manufactures still sell computers with DOS as the main operating system. Today we see FreeDOS, ROM-DOS, DR-DOS, and many more on the market. It appears DOS will live on as long as the die-hard fans still demand the straightforward elegance of cmd enter.