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Dr. DOS Still 'Doing It' At 8.0

Posted by simoniker on from the the-doctor-is-in dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Believe it or not, DOS -- DR-DOS, no less -- is still alive and kicking after all these years! Devicelogics, a company founded by former executives of Caldera and Lineo in Utah, says it has begun shipping version 8.0 of DR-DOS today. The company says the most significant enhancement in the latest version of this long-lived (and 'stable') operating system is support for FAT32 large partitions, enabling DR-DOS 'to keep up with market demand for DOS-based embedded solutions built on FAT32 platforms.'"

14 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. I still use dos by slothman32 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know DOS is archaic but I still use it. It's useful for apps when you want limited stuff in memory. Linux and windows can't compete with 100k kernal. Plus I use it whenever I want a new os. I just format in DOS mode then install from there. PC-DOS released version 8, yeah I know different, along time ago. I wonder what the actual differences are between PC 8 and DR 8. Does anyone call DR-DOS "doctor-dos?" I always do. Of course I don't call MS-DOS, "missz. dos," like a possibly-married female.

    --
    Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
  2. I noticed this earlier today by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I downloaded some utilities for a Western Digital HD. It make a boodisk with - to my surprize - DrDOS as the base. First thing I thought was "Hey wow, haven't see that in awhile!"

    It makes sense, though. DOS will run on just about any x86 based machine out there, insuring a very wide compatability, it's something most people are used to (ie: DOS, as opposed to a linux based bootloader, which fewer people are accustomed to) and I'm sure the licensing is a mere fraction of MSDOS - or at least it would be if MS still supported it.

    Makes you wonder about things like FreeDOS... maybe it's still a bit unrefined for these uses? Maybe buyers actually do want a "real company" behind the products they use?
    =Smidge=

    1. Re:I noticed this earlier today by MountainLogic · · Score: 3, Funny

      FreeDOS is another altrnative depending on your requirements.

    2. Re:I noticed this earlier today by cgenman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dos is not dead, it's just gone embedded. My camera ships with a version of DOS as an internal OS, but you wouldn't know it from use.

      Hidden, Dos plots it's revenge.

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      The ______ Agenda
  3. So... by fm6 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What's the point of linking a story that simply repeats, word for word, the Slashdot story?

    And you might have mentioned, for those who think that the only OSs are Windows, Linux, and MacOS, that DR-DOS is the current incarnation of CP/M -- the OS that would have been the OS if the folks at Digital Research hadn't been so paranoid about NDAs.

    1. Re:So... by Endive4Ever · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, the 'current' incarnation of CP/M would be CP/M-86, which still has some enthusiasts involved in it's use and continuing development. It has patches that allow it to (wow!) access hard drive partitions larger than 4 MB, which wasn't possible with the Stock CP/M-86 that I have in a boxed set on my shelf.

      DR-DOS was a derivative product from Digital Research.

      And Digital Research's problem with signing NDAs came out of the hippy culture the company grew up in. That never really changed enough for the company to survive.

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  4. No single user license pricing? by CaptKilljoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interesting, the buy icon at the bottom has only a 5-licence pack for $200. The previous version is $29 for a single user licence.

    (I must say the site isn't very professional. It lists DPMI/DPMS in two bullet points and multi-tasking in three.)

  5. Fat32 Support by Goo.cc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wouldn't they have to pay a royalty to Microsoft due to the patents on Fat32 in embedded devices?

  6. DR-DOS still going strong by Ianoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... and they say that BSD is dying! ;)

  7. Re:ahh the memories... by Endive4Ever · · Score: 3, Informative

    this is dos we are talking about so any form of multitasking is going to be a kludge.

    How so? Since DOS is such a simple collection of services, it runs great in little virtual 86 compartments. In fact, the whole protected-mode scheme from Intel was designed in a way that DOS would be able to run in 'virtual 8086 machines'. DOS applications run on a multitasking environment like NT or OS/2 quite well, and quite well in 'emulation' (really not emulation') with the Free Software dosemu package.

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  8. ASUS ships FreeDOS by dan_bethe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    FYI, when you buy an ASUS motherboard, its utility cdrom boots FreeDOS.

    1. Re:ASUS ships FreeDOS by shamino0 · · Score: 3, Informative
      FYI, when you buy an ASUS motherboard, its utility cdrom boots FreeDOS.

      Well, a stripped-down version with a broken installer. The FreeDOS people warn against using this CD for anything other than flashing a corrupted BIOS. Those who try to install FreeDOS from this CD may end up with a trashed boot sector.

  9. Re:ahh the memories... by grotgrot · · Score: 4, Interesting
    actually didnt ms skip the number 4 in version numbers for dos?

    Nope, they shipped version 4.0 twice. The second version of 4.0 didn't really offer anything over 3.3 (and was really buggy), so most people just skipped from 3.3 to 5.0 (I still have the manuals :-)

    You can see the timeline at the bottom of http://www.maxframe.com/HISZMSD.HTM. There is also a timeline at http://www.nukesoft.co.uk/msdos/dosversions.htm

    Since we are playing nostalgia, I should also mention that I used MS-Windows 1.0 once. I was really impressed that it had a Paint program, and went to save my work of art. In those days, standard file dialogs didn't exist (you had to wait till Windows 3.1 for them). It brought up a dialog with a textfield asking for the filename. I started typing, and then wondered how long a name it would let me enter. The answer is that it let me enter a really really long name - I mashed the keyboard until I got bored. I click OK, and the screen froze and the hard disk light blinked every 5 seconds or so. I eventually rebooted the machine to discover most of the root directory entries had gone. Ah, the joys of buffer overflows! A quick session with Norton Disk Doctor got them back. I didn't touch Windows 1 again, but was an avid user of Windows 286, and then 3.0 and onwards once Windows became more mainstream.

  10. Interesting use of Linux technology by Voivod · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've talked to the DrDOS guys a few times... they're pretty cool and are very pro-Linux. They were pushing their Drlx product that lets you use Linux device drivers in a DOS environment to get things like USB support which is nice.

    Anyone who thinks DOS is dead does not work anywhere near the embedded world. It's very much alive and kicking in little boxes all around you and new products are still being developed based on it. Problem is that nobody is putting out device drivers for "new" technology like USB for DOS so unless they find a way to utilize existing drivers they're in trouble as older standards like ISA fade. Linux to the rescue. :-)