DR-DOS
DR- DOS [ di ː ɑ ː ɹ dɑ ː s] is a MS -DOS compatible DOS operating system, which has been marketed since 2002 by DRDoS, Inc. ( DeviceLogics ). It was developed as DR DOS ( Digital Research Disk Operating System, without the hyphen ) from the same company Digital Research from the CP/M-86 operating system, and stood in the 1980s and 1990s in direct competition to the then dominant PC operating system MS- DOS Microsoft.
History
Under Digital Research ( to 1993 )
In the late 1970s, the operating system CP / M from Digital Research had established as the standard operating system for the then popular 8 -bit machine. IBM had viewed the development of the personal computer for a long time as a project without perspective and consequently neglected and left to market other vendors. Beginning of the 80s, however, it was decided to have a private personal computer to contact the IBM - PC on the market. In contrast to the established systems, but it was not an 8 -bit system based on the Zilog Z80, but a 16 -bit system based on the new x86 processor family from Intel. For contractual reasons IBM unlicensed, adjusted for the new processor generation CP/M-86 from Digital Research, but the bought up by Microsoft and PC-DOS (also: IBM -DOS) SCP renamed 86- DOS. 86- DOS was in turn largely a copy of CP / M for the x86 processors that was used before CP/M-86 was available. Although Digital Research could reach that optionally CP/M-86 could be ordered with the IBM PC in order for the triumph of Microsoft was initiated. PC-DOS was later also sold separately by Microsoft as MS -DOS and licensed and bundled as such with IBM - compatible PCs from other manufacturers.
Due to the new competitive situation and the usual naming of the PC operating system CP/M-86 was finally developed first in Concurrent CP/M-86, then in Concurrent DOS, DOS Plus, and later in DR DOS or renamed. While these different versions was gradually DR DOS from the similar, but MS-DOS incompatible CP/M-86, which was designed for compatibility with MS- DOS and CP / M programs could not be executed.
Digital Research was now in the position of having to bring its operating system mainly direct to the consumer, often although he had already acquired an operating system with his computer, because due to the restrictive licensing policy for MS- DOS supplied only a few OEM their computers with DR DOS in Germany was mainly for Vobis known.
In order to survive under these circumstances, was not only by name usually preceded by a version number DR DOS the same time sold MS -DOS version, but also contained techniques that until much later, or never received entry into MS- DOS: Already DR DOS 3:31, which was sold in parallel with MS -DOS 3.3, for example, offered support for hard drives larger than 32 MB, and a help function for built-in commands and programs. DR DOS 5.0 contained the graphical interface ViewMAX and advanced help features. With DR DOS 6.0 Digital Research brought a disk compression, which promised twice the usable capacity of the disk, as well as the complete manual as a hypertext online help. In addition, DR DOS could manage the scarce time main memory more efficiently and keep clear as more of the precious memory in the first 640 kB for programs.
Despite these properties, DR DOS could never enforce final; not least Microsoft had a significant share of failure: for example, customers were irritated by Microsoft in its criticism of DR DOS 6.0 pointed out the dangers of disk compression, although this technique then with Double Space (later Drive Space) in MS- DOS 6 been. x also introduced. In Windows 3.1, Microsoft built a functions that unnecessarily complicated to operate under DR DOS and thus also potential buyers from buying were holding (→ AARD code), although already got DR DOS update is available at the launch of Windows 3.1 the required. The claim by Microsoft that Windows 95 supposedly can not run on alternative versions of DOS, did the rest.
Under Novell (1993-1996)
Novell, which had already bought Digital Research during the time of DR DOS 6, even developed a version of Novell DOS 7, true multitasking, among which was even possible to run Windows 3.x, and network capability contained, the end of DR DOS but the level unstoppable. Novell eventually sold all rights to DR DOS and CP / M to Caldera.
Under Caldera (1997-1999)
Caldera sales for private use free versions Caldera OpenDOS 7:01, but did not contain any major new developments and partly lagged behind even the state of Novell DOS 7 with the latest updates. In the versions is 7.02 and 7:03, which again were called DR-DOS (but not hyphenated ) were integrated these updates again or re-implemented.
Caldera published with OpenDOS 7:01 also the source code of the kernel under a private only usable license. In addition, Caldera put the source code on GEM under the GPL, through the fan project " The Unofficial CP / M Web site" are the sources of CP / M now available under a free license.
Remarkable at the Caldera DR -DOS era, however, is the dispute, the Caldera had brought against Microsoft: Since Caldera had all the rights acquired, you could file a suit regarding the events surrounding Windows 3.x and Windows 95 from the time of Digital Research and Novell. Caldera succeeded allegedly to bring through minimal changes Windows 95 and DR- DOS to run. According to publications, the use of Windows 95 in other DOS operating systems is possible only through a special TSR; this program should soon for DR- DOS users then. For unexplained reasons, this phenomenon did not occur. Caldera therefore proved, however, that Windows 95 7.00 ( 7:10 later ) and Windows 4.0 consisted of two independent products, MS -DOS, so that the forced bundling constituted a restraint of competition from other DOS provider. The legal battle ended in a settlement. In this comparison, Microsoft paid early in 2000 ( eight years later ) reportedly $ 275 million to Caldera.
Under Lineo / DeviceLogics / DRDoS, Inc. (from 1999 )
DR- DOS then went to the resulting from Caldera Thin Clients company Lineo, coincided with Lineo eventually return to the Canopy Group and was founded in 2002 by DeviceLogics ( DRDoS, Inc.) acquired. Under Lineo and DeviceLogics DR- DOS was not given for free, but sold as a set of embedded systems and the like. In March 2004, the version 8 of DR- DOS was released, brought the limited support for FAT32. Published by DRDoS Inc. in September 2005, Version 8.1 was due to copyright issues ( it foreign programs were included, amongst others, the FreeDOS project, and contained stolen code from Udo Kuhnts Enhanced DR- DOS) taken off the market. Later, DR- DOS 8.0 disappeared since then is available on the side of DRDoS Inc. has more DR- DOS 7:03.
A role played DR- DOS version 7 mainly on recovery diskettes and CD -ROMs of various data recovery and backup programs, such as Norton Ghost, Drive Image, Partition Magic and other programs that needed a boot disk. However, due to insufficient support of current hard disk controller ( SATA, SoftRAID, ..) it loses again in favor of Windows PE or Linux importance.
Enhanced DR- DOS (since July 2002)
To have a private fan project is (in short: EDR -DOS) at the " DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project", or " Enhanced DR- DOS". The author, Udo Kuhnt, developed the open source OpenDOS 7:01 since 2003. He wrote LBA and FAT32 support for hard drives larger than 8 GiB capacity and other bug fixes and enhancements. However, the updates are restricted almost exclusively to the kernel ( IBMBIO.COM, IBMDOS.COM and COMMAND.COM ), while referring for utilities increasingly turning to the modern ( and partially adapted for EDR -DOS) versions of FreeDOS. Therefore Enhanced DR- DOS may not be regarded as a full DOS operating system, but rather as an alternative kernel for an existing OpenDOS / DR -DOS or FreeDOS.
Revision history
DR DOS was written to and including version 6.0 without a hyphen. After the sale of the operating system of Digital Research to Novell the "DR" disappears from the name until it is published by Caldera re than OpenDOS / DR -DOS 7.02 this time with hyphen. All versions of DR-DOS OpenDOS 7:01 to 7:03 were freely available ( freeware ). In addition, the OEM versions of DR- DOS and DR- DOS 7:04 7:05, which came as boot disks of various data rescue and disk utilities to use exist. The unofficial enhancements by Udo Kuhnt - see Enhanced DR- DOS - are based solely on the kernel and use that as the basis of the published Caldera sources ( open source) of OpenDOS 7:01.
For a summary version of the kernel, including its parentage ( CP / M), see → BDOS.
A clear timeline can be found on the sides of the FreeDOS project.