47
votes
Why were there so many OSes that had the name "DOS" in them?
Regarding the three in your question specifically, the similar naming is intentional. PC DOS and MS-DOS are largely the same; PC DOS is the IBM version, MS-DOS is the Microsoft version. DR DOS is ...
- 127k
42
votes
Why did early ASCII have ← and ↑ but not ↓ or →?
It's All In The 1963 Proposal
Note that those early versions (i.e., all before 1968) were proposals for the upcoming standard (*1) - not prior standard or preliminary versions. The earliest form only ...
- 232k
31
votes
Why were there so many OSes that had the name "DOS" in them?
You mean beside the point that they all are foremost about being an OS made to handle Disk storage? I guess that's the crux of engineers using a meaningful name, so people know what's about instead of ...
- 232k
16
votes
What was the main implementation programming language of old 16-bit Windows versions (Windows 1 - Windows 3.11)?
Like Windows 95, Windows 1.x - 3.x were written in Microsoft C, with some assembly in the kernel. Program Manager, for example, is written in C.
Windows 95 is derived from Windows 3; while Windows 95 ...
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13
votes
Accepted
What was the main implementation programming language of old 16-bit Windows versions (Windows 1 - Windows 3.11)?
The “core” operating system in Windows 1.0 to 3.11 consists of three modules: GDI, KERNEL, and USER. Add some fonts and a few device drivers (keyboard, mouse, video, and “system” mostly), and you can ...
- 127k
8
votes
Why were there so many OSes that had the name "DOS" in them?
In the early days of microcomputers, almost all forms of I/O not involving a disk were either sufficiently simple that they could be accomplished using code in a ROM, or sufficiently application-...
- 38.1k
7
votes
Why were there so many OSes that had the name "DOS" in them?
Descriptive simplicity. DOS = Disk Operating System. It's an obvious thing to name an operating system that allows a user to interact with their computer's disk drives.
But I think the main reason ...
- 1,164
4
votes
Why were there so many OSes that had the name "DOS" in them?
The similarity in naming has been addressed by others. You will find that a lot of OSes were not named DOS, like CP/M, VMS, OS/360, and so on. But you may find another group of names that share a ...
- 520
2
votes
Why were there so many OSes that had the name "DOS" in them?
DOS stands for Disk Operating system, probably because IBM called its mainframe operating system OS. When Microsoft wrote its operating system for the IBM PC the day of the Personal computer was born. ...
- 21
2
votes
Who invented file extensions in file names?
A supplement for answers of Walter Mitty and Raffzahn. Multics filenames also use suffixes (or called 'last component') started with a dot, such as .fortran, .pl1 and .runoff.
I don't know whether ...
- 41
2
votes
What is the first computer architecture that knew code from data?
Z22 Marks Code
The Z22 did use a single 38 bit memory (*1) for code and data. All instructions start with a leading '10' (*2), making them essentially very high negative numbers, turning the majority ...
- 232k
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