Microsoft Open-Sources 'Earliest DOS Source Code Discovered To Date' (arstechnica.com) 9
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Several times in the last couple of decades, Microsoft has released source code for the original MS-DOS operating system that kicked off its decades-long dominance of consumer PCs. This week, the company has reached further back than ever, releasing "the earliest DOS source code discovered to date" along with other documentation and notes from its developer.
Today's source release is so old that it predates the MS-DOS branding, and it includes "sources to the 86-DOS 1.00 kernel, several development snapshots of the PC-DOS 1.00 kernel, and some well-known utilities such as CHKDSK," write Microsoft's Stacey Haffner and Scott Hanselman in their co-authored post about the release. [...] This source code is old enough that it hadn't been stored digitally. "A dedicated team of historians and preservationists led by Yufeng Gao and Rich Cini," calling itself the "DOS Disassembly Group," painstakingly transcribed and scanned in code from paper printouts provided by Paterson. This process was made even more difficult because modern OCR software struggled with the quality of the decades-old printout.
Today's source release is so old that it predates the MS-DOS branding, and it includes "sources to the 86-DOS 1.00 kernel, several development snapshots of the PC-DOS 1.00 kernel, and some well-known utilities such as CHKDSK," write Microsoft's Stacey Haffner and Scott Hanselman in their co-authored post about the release. [...] This source code is old enough that it hadn't been stored digitally. "A dedicated team of historians and preservationists led by Yufeng Gao and Rich Cini," calling itself the "DOS Disassembly Group," painstakingly transcribed and scanned in code from paper printouts provided by Paterson. This process was made even more difficult because modern OCR software struggled with the quality of the decades-old printout.
OCR struggled? (Score:2)
I'm amazed we can OCR in Egyptian scrolls on papyrus, but struggle with 30 year old green-bar printouts?
Re: (Score:2)
It's so old... (Score:2)
... that all internal self-references say "86-DOS", and it displays "Seattle Computer Products" on the boot screen.
But yeah, let's pretend Microsoft created it.
Re: (Score:3)
Well;, it's well known that after IBM failed to get an NDA with Digital Research for CP/M-86, they went to Microsoft and asked if they could supply the operating system. Bill Gates agreed and then they purchased a full license of 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products.
They mildly patched it to get it working on the IBM PC (it was originally designed for SCP's 8086-based computer).
Note the source code actually existed - the Computer History Museum actually has it as a digital artifact. The only problem was it
Denial of service? (Score:2)
And here I thought we were getting the code for the oldest denial of service attack known. I'm not sure anyone really cares about old versions of DOS.
Re: (Score:2)
And here I thought we were getting the code for the oldest denial of service attack known. I'm not sure anyone really cares about old versions of DOS.
I thought the exact same thing. Neither of us were entirely wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
yufeng Gao and Ric Cini (Score:2)
This isn't the Kernighan and Ritchie we're looking for; move along
Whoa (Score:2)
Does this signal a change in Microsoft's strategy of releasing bad operating systems?
They were going to open source (Score:2)