On Mon, Jul 29, 2024 at 6:21 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jul 2024, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > > I had not realized that 43 yrs. ago Microsoft purchased 86-DOS for > $50,000 > > – US not Cdn. money. With this purchase the PC industry, IBM’s version > > thereof, began. I remember using it to do amazing things, moreso than > what > > 8-bit machines could do! > > Ah, but there is so much more to the story, which deserves an entire > chapter in the history. > > More than you wanted to know? : (but even more details available if you > really want them) > ... > Initially MS-DOS and PC-DOS differed only in name and trivial items, such > as "IO.SYS" and "MSDOS.SYS" being renamed "IBMBIO.COM" and "IBMDOS.COM" > When changes were made, Microsoft's and IBM's version numbers were > separated. > Thus 1.00 was the same for both > IBM released PC-DOS 1.10, and Microsoft released MS-DOS 1.25 > 2.00 was the same for both > The DEC Rainbow had initially a 2.01 and later 2.05 version. > 2.10 VS 2.11 (IBM needed trivial changes to 2.00 to deal with the > excessively slow Qumetrak 142 disk drives in the PC-Junior and "portable" > And then upgraded to 2.11 quickly when it was available... > 3.00 was the same > 3.10, adding network support and the "network redirector for CD-ROMs > Later, there was 3.10 (from Ford, semi-bootleg) and then 3.10a and 3.10b (from suitable solutions).... and not 3.11 and 3.12 like I'd half expected... > 3.20 VS 3.21, adding "720K" 3.5" drive support > Yea, I had to write IMPDRIVE because I could get 3.5" drives for no money, but not SS iDrive at the time to get this... > 3.30 VS 3.31, BUT 3.31 was the first to support larger than 32Mebibyte > drives! > I'd wished that there would have been a 3.30 Rainbow port for bigger disks, but no joy... But the native controllers maxed out at 67MB and the 'modded' controllers with one more bit for I think heads (using the next version of the WD chip) could do 134MB.... But it was all too little too late (I've seen 2 Rainbows with this mod, not my own alas)... This side trip down memory lane brought to you by one motor, two disks RX-50... Warner
