Unlock the full InfoQ experience by logging in! Stay updated with your favorite authors and topics, engage with content, and download exclusive resources. Cory Benfield discusses the evolution of ...

It's no joke. Microsoft and IBM have joined forces to open-source the 1988 operating system MS-DOS 4.0 under the MIT License. Why? Well, why not? That got Hanselman and Wilcox digging into the ...

30 years ago today, Microsoft bought the rights to the Quick and Dirty OS, re-branded it as MS-DOS, struck a deal with IBM, and made history. Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on X ...

Microsoft has open-sourced another bit of computing history this week: The company teamed up with IBM to release the source code of 1988’s MS-DOS 4.00, a version better known for its unpopularity, ...

That screenshot seems to be MS-DOS 5.0 or later. How many end users had hard drives when 4.0 was released? Click to expand... We had a 20MB hard drive in a PC-XT clone made by Sanyo which was running ...

Microsoft earlier today, in collaboration with IBM, announced that it is open-sourcing the MS-DOS 4.00 source code. The company has explained what was special about it and how to run it. Recently, we ...

Ever wonder what made MS-DOS tick? Soon, interested geeks will be able to root around inside the original source code for MS-DOS 1.1 and 2.0, as well as Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1, as a part of a ...

Tony Smith puns it up, with “Kudos to QDOS”: On 27 July 1981, Microsoft gave the name MS-DOS to the…operating system it acquired on that day from Seattle Computer Products (SCP). … The company had ...

Editor’s note: After this article was published, Microsoft issued a statement clarifying that cmd.exe will not be going away after all. Read Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols’ follow-up column. My very first ...

In context: Back in 1980, Tim Paterson was creating a new operating system he called QDOS or Quick and Dirty Operating System. The system was later renamed 86-DOS, as it was being designed to run on ...