X86 DOS Comparison
Comparison of various DOS operating systems for the x86/PC family
Brief DOS History
1973: Gary Kildall writes a simple operating system which he calls CP/M
April 1980: Tim Paterson begins writing an operating system for use with Seattle Computer Products ' 8086-based computer, due to delays by Digital Research in releasing their CP/M-86 operating system.
August 1980: QDOS 0.10 (Quick and Dirty Operating System) is shipped by Seattle Computer Products.
October 1980: Microsoft pays less than US$100,000 for the right to sell SCP's DOS to an unnamed client (IBM ).
December 1980: Microsoft buys non-exclusive rights to market 86-DOS .
December 1980: Digital Research releases CP/M-86
July 1981: Microsoft buys all rights to QDOS from Seattle Computer Products, and the name MS-DOS is adopted.
August 1981: IBM announces the IBM 5150 PC Personal Computer, featuring a 4.77-MHz Intel 8088 CPU, 64KB RAM, 40KB ROM, one 5.25-inch floppy drive, and PC-DOS 1.0
May 1982: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 1.1
March 1983: MS-DOS 2.0 for PCs is announced.
October 1983: IBM introduces PC-DOS 2.1
March 1984: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 2.1
August 1984: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 3.0. It adds support for 1.2 MB floppy disks, and bigger than 10 MB hard disks.
November 1984: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 3.1
January 1986: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 3.2. It adds support for 3.5-inch 720 KB floppy disk drives.
August 1987: Microsoft ships MS-DOS 3.3.
November 1987: Compaq ships Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 with support for hard disk partitions over 32 MB.
January 1988: Digital Research transforms CP/M into DR-DOS .
May 1988: Digital research releases DR-DOS 3.31, supporting hard disk partitions up to 512 MB.
June 1988: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 4.0, including a graphical/mouse interface.
July 1988: IBM ships PC-DOS 4.0. It adds a shell menu interface and support for hard disk partitions over 32 MB.
1989: ROM-DOS introduced by Datalight.
May 1990: Digital Research releases DR-DOS 5.0.
June 1991: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 5.0. Edlin is replaced with a full-screen editor. It adds undelete and unformat utilities, and task swapping. GW-BASIC is replaced with Qbasic .
September 1991: Digital Research releases DR-DOS 6.0 with Superstore disk compression.
March 1993: Microsoft introduces MS-DOS 6.0, including DoubleSpace disk compression.
April 1993: Novell acquires Digital Research
November 1993: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 6.2.
December 1993: Novell releases Novell DOS 7.0.
February 1994: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 6.21, removing DoubleSpace disk compression.
April 1994: IBM releases PC-DOS 6.3.
June 1994: Microsoft releases MS-DOS 6.22, bringing back disk compression under the name DriveSpace .
June 1994: PD-DOS , the open-source project later known as FreeDOS , is announced.
April 1995: IBM releases PC-DOS 7, with integrated data compression from Stac Electronics (Stacker ).
July 1995: PTS-DOS 7.0 is released.
January 1997: Novell sells Novell DOS to Caldera Systems , who release it as open-source OpenDOS 7.01
December 1997: Caldera releases OpenDOS 7.02 as closed-source software.
April 1998: IBM releases PC-DOS 7.1 (aka PC-DOS 2000), which is Y2K compliant.
June 1999: Caldera Systems sells OpenDOS to Lineo , who release it as DR-DOS 7.03.
September 1999: PTS-DOS 2000 is released.
December 1999: Lineo releases an OEM-only version of DR-DOS 7.04.
January 2000: Lineo releases DR-DOS 7.05 beta but soon drops development on it.
July 2002: Udo Kuhnt starts the DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project , based on the opensource OpenDos 7.01.
October 2002: Lineo sells DR-DOS to DeviceLogics .
March 2004: DeviceLogics releases DR-DOS 8.0
November 2004: FreeDOS beta 0.9 is released.
Basic general information about the DOS packages: creator/company, file systems supported, etc.
Name
Creator
Current code owner/maintainer
License
First public release date
Max Hard Drive partition size
File systems supported natively
3.5" Floppy capacities supported natively
5.25" Floppy capacities supported natively
Long File Names supported natively?
MS-DOS 1.1
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary
1982
n/a
FAT12
n/a
360kB
No
MS-DOS 3.0
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 1984
32MB
FAT12
n/a
360kB, 1.2MB
No
MS-DOS 3.2
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 1986
32MB
FAT12
720kB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
MS-DOS 3.3
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 1987
32MB
FAT12
720kB, 1.44MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
MS-DOS 4.0
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 1988
2GB
FAT12, FAT16
720kB, 1.44MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
MS-DOS 6.22
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 1994
2GB
FAT12, FAT16
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
MS-DOS 7.0 (Windows 95A)
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 1995
2GB
FAT12, FAT16
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
MS-DOS 7.1x (Windows 95B/OSR2, 95C/OSR2.5, 98, and 98SE)
Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 1996
124.55GB (with FAT32)3 FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
MS-DOS 8.0 (Windows ME)2 Microsoft
No longer supported
Proprietary1 2000
124.55GB (with FAT32)3 FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
DR-DOS 6.0
Digital Research
No longer supported
Proprietary
1991
2GB
FAT12, FAT16
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
DR-DOS 7.03
Lineo
DeviceLogics
Proprietary
1999
2GB
FAT12, FAT16
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
DR-DOS 8.0
DeviceLogics
DeviceLogics
Proprietary
2004
?
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
FreeDOS beta 0.9
Bernd Blaau
Bernd Blaau
Open Source
?
?
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
Novell DOS 7.0
Novell
No longer supported
Proprietary
1993
2GB
FAT12, FAT16
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
OpenDOS 7.01
Caldera Systems
Udo Kuhnt ?
Open Source
1997
2GB
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
No
PC-DOS 1.0
IBM
No longer supported
Proprietary
1981
n/a
FAT12
n/a
360kB
No
PC-DOS 7.x / 2000
IBM
IBM
Proprietary
1995
2GB
FAT12, FAT16
720kB, 1.44MB,XDF ), 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB, No
PTS-DOS 32
PhysTechSoft
PhysTechSoft
Proprietary
?
?
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
PTS-DOS 2000
PhysTechSoft
PhysTechSoft
Proprietary
?
?
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
PTS-DOS 2000 PRO
PhysTechSoft
PhysTechSoft
Proprietary
?
?
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
ROM-DOS
Datalight
Datalight
Proprietary
?
?
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32
720kB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
360kB, 1.2MB
Yes
Notes Current understanding has it that if one has a license to run a Windows version, one can also legally install any MS-DOS version up to the level of that Windows' version.
Note 2 :
Note 3 : Microsoft's KB article 184006 . Other DOS versions supporting FAT32 may allow a larger partition size closer to the theoretical ~2TB maximum suggested by FAT32's specifications.
See also
