Mail Archives: opendos/2000/07/10/12:49:39
On Sun, 9 Jun 2000, Robert W Moss wrote:
> This was followed by a series of multiuser, multitasking systems.
> including DR Multiuser DOS (still very much in use on some nationwide
> computer networks-in1994), Concurrent DOS 386, and Concurrent DOS XM.
> Concurrent DOS provided multitasking on a single computer and is
> the ancestor of the Task Manager.
[I hope this quote is not too long ;-)]
Yes, but Concurrent CP/M (CCP/M) and Concurrent DOS (CDOS) were before
Multiuser DOS.
> The first standard-type, single-user DOS released by Digital Research
> was DR DOS 3.41 in 1988.
Almost, not counting DOS Plus 1.0-2.1, the first DR DOS issue was
3.31, followed by 3.32, 3.33, 3.34, 3.35, and 3.40. However, 3.41
was the first issue widely recognized because it was shipped by
a multitude of major OEMs. (I'm having contradictory info on the
fact if there was a retail product, and I have yet to see DR DOS 3.42,
although according to INTERxx it existed. My assumption is, that
3.42 was never released, and what is available as DR DOS 5.0
"Leopard" BETA 1 at ftp://ftp.lineo.com might actually represent
"3.42", as it has copyright strings from 1990, but still identifies
itself as 3.41...)
> that it could be placed in ROM, so that it was fairly popular on
> portable computers.
I have some indication that even DR DOS 3.31 was ROMable, however,
I'm not sure about this. BTW, the forthcoming INTER61 will have
a quite complete list of all the DOS operating system developed
by Digital Research, Novell, and Caldera, including sub-releases
and some BETAs.
> ViewMAX was dropped as of Novell DOS 7, presumably because the over-
> whelming popularity of MS Windows had made it redundant.
Probably also because of DR DOS "StarTrek", a never-released project
to run the Intel-port of Mac OS 7.1 on DR DOS (utilizing its
Vladivar). Mind, that Digital Research's GEM (from which ViewMAX
was derived) and Apple's Mac OS GUI both had it's origin at Xerox
PARC, that's why they look so similar. DR DOS "Panther" BETA 1 still
came with multi-windowing ViewMAX/3, which is now available under GPL
on www.deltasoft.com.
> These features allow you to load some programs almost entirely outside
> of the DOS - addressable first megabyte of RAM.
That is, DPMS - DOS Protected Mode Services (not to be mixed up with
the Power Saving standard or a medical abbreviation ;-).
> Starting with DR DOS 5 and 6, and now continuing in Novell DOS 7, this
> DOS is probably the most customizable operating system on the
> market, allowing for great flexibility in how you set up and
> organize your system.
Yes, although in some corners the Russian PTS-DOS is even more
configurable. However, it is not as compatible with undocumented
DOS internals as DR-DOS is.
> The built-in batch language contains a collection of commands that
> actually allow you to construct relatively structured code --
> something no other DOS had (has?).
This is possible even in CONFIG.SYS, but the commands differ and
unfortunately the most powerful directives are not documented (except
for my comprehensice NWDOSTIP.TXT (MPDOSTIP.ZIP) in German, and the
IBMBIOA3.ZIP README.TXT in crude English ;-)
> security facilities that enable you to restrict access to drives,
> directories, or files, or even lock up a stand-alone computer so
> nobody can use it without a password.
Yes, but security is limited and can be worked around by experienced
users.
> After Novell DOS 7.xx, Caldera Systems purchased all the Digital Research
> Software from Novell and the name has been changed back and forth from
> Novell Dos to Caldera DOS to Open DOS and back to DR DOS
Almost, from Novell DOS to OpenDOS (7.01 and 7.02 BETAs) to
DR-OpenDOS (only 7.02) to DR-DOS (7.02-7.03) (now for the first
time with a hyphen ;-)
> [...] it might be interesting to read about it, including
> 4DOS,.(like - how much of 4DOS was licensed for use by PC DOS 7
> and MS DOS 6 and 7.)
I don't think JP Software licensed anything to IBM or Microsoft.
They probably just borrowed some of the ideas as they did with
DR-DOS features before... (However, especially newer issues of
DR-DOS also borrowed some good ideas from other OSes - for
convenience and for compatiblity).
Matthias
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