What is DOS (Disk Operating

System)
DOS is the abbreviation of Disk Operating System. It is an operating system in personal
computer. From 1981 to 1995, DOS played an important role in the market of IBM
compatible PC. And, if all Microsoft Windows editions including Windows 95, Windows 98
and Windows ME based on DOS are accumulated, the commercial lifespan of DOS is
2000 years at least.
--Source from http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/data-recovery/dos.html
Basic Situation of DOS
DOS
clan
includes MS-DOS,
PC-DOS,
DR-DOS,
FreeDOS,
PTS-DOS,
ROM-DOS,JM-OS and so on, among them MS-DOS is the most famous. Although these
systems are called DOS for short, there is no system simply named DOS (except the
irrelevant main frame operating system of IBM in 1960s). Besides, names of several
disk operating systems that are based on non-x86 microcomputer system also contain
characters "DOS". And these systems( for example, AmigaDOS, AMSDOS, ANDOS,
Apple DOS, Atari DOS, Commodore DOS, CSI-DOS, ProDOS, TRS-DOS and so on)
are simply called "DOS" in the dedicated symposia of these machines. But these
operating systems are irrelevant to DOS and they are not compatible with DOS EXE file
and MS-DOS API.
Detailed Annotation of DOS
Dos is mainly disk-oriented system software. Simply speaking, DOS is a bridge between
human and computer. It is a "shell" of machine hardware. With DOS, user needs not to
know hardware structure in depth and cram up the boring machine commands. Most
usual operations can be accomplished by using DOS commands which are similar to
natural language. In addition, DOS can efficiently manage various kinds of software and
hardware resources and schedul them reasonably. Under the control of DOS, all
softwares and hardwares work orderly.
Along with the development of computer technology, network is rapidly spreading and
developing. When users enjoy the convenient brought by network, they are also attacked
by hackers. Among all attacks, the attack named DoS (Denial of Service) is a common
and efficient network attack technology. It takes advantage of treaty or system defects,
adopts a fraudulent and simulates strategy to attack network, and eventually makes the
system paralyzed because of resources exhaustion or failure in response, then the
legitimate users can not be provided with normal service. DoS looks unromantic, but its
attacks is in wide range, covert and simple and efficient, which make it a strong attack
technology in network. And it tremendously affects the effective service of network and
host machine system. And DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is most famous for its
larger scale, higher disguised and it is more difficult to defend

Components of DOS
The rudimentary DOS system is composed of bootstrap based on MBR and three file
modules which are IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM. In addition, Microsoft
also adds several standard external programs (external commands) to DOS system
package retailed. Together with internal commands (commands executed by
COMMAND.COM), they build a relative completed HCI (human-computer interaction)
environment in the era of disk operation. List of DOS commands is referrence for related
DOS commands
Development History of DOS
DOS1.0: In July,1981, the copyright of 86-DOSQDOSis bought by Microsoft, and it
became the first operating system in IBM PC history. Meanwhile, Microsoft developed an
exclusive edition PC-DOS for IBM PC. Except for system file names and partial kernels
designed for IBM machines and external commands and utility programs, the other mobile
codes in DOS and PC-DOS have small difference.
DOS 1.25: In July, 1982, it began to support double-sided floppy and correct mistakes. Not
only IBM, but OEM also applied it widely.
DOS 2.0: In March, 1983, UNIX type of dendriform file system and hard disk support are
added,. Seen from a lower level, it is the first significant revision of DOS. DOS 2.11: In
March, 1984, the errors of edition 2.01 were amended for primary OEM edition, and
international support for Non-English language and file format was added.
MS-DOS 2.25: In October, 1985, additional expanded character sets (Japanese and
Korean) were added and the error of the old edition was amended.
MS-DOS 3.0: In August, 1984, PC/AT supporting for floppy of 1.2MB was introduced and
hard disk of larger capacity was added.
MS-DOS 3.1: In November, 1984, support for Microsoft network was added.
MS-DOS 3.2: In January, 1986, enhanced support for floppy was added, and the
hardware EMS can be applied through driver.
MS-DOS 3.3: In August, 1987, partial internal errors were amended, external commands
related to file handle were added and it began to support floppy. DOS 3.3 was the most
stable and salable edition. It was the second significant revision of DOS. And the 4.0
edition released one year later was not as popular as 3.3 edition.
MS-DOS 4.0: In July, 1988, MS-DOS 4.0 was based on Code Base of IBM rather than that
of Microsoft itself.
MS-DOS 4.01: In September, 1988, it amended a series of errors of the old edition.
MS-DOS 5.0: In June, 1991, it was the third revision of DOS; maybe it was the most
significant one in DOS history.
MS-DOS 6.0: In March, 1993, many gaudy external commands were added.
MS-DOS 6.2: In November, 1993, DoubleSpace was renamed as DrvSpace.
MS-DOS 6.22: In June, 1994, it was the last sale edition. KC got the authorities of
Microsoft and IBM and it released its own DOS 7.0 collocated with KC Chinese System.
MS-DOS 7.0: In August, 1995, it is a version built in Windows 95, and it supported long file
name.
MS-DOS 7.1: In August, 1996, supports for large hard disk and FAT32 partition were

added.
MS-DOS 8.0: In September, 2000, it is the last edition of DOS. Partial functions were
canceled. For example, it did not support SYS commands and printer operation.
Software Running in DOS
DOS is the main platform of compatible PC. There are many well-known soft ware
designed for DOS. However, when Windows operating system can not started, most
users chose DOS system to detect and solve the problems. The following softwares are
included.
Lotus 1-2-3: a trial table software applied widely in enterprise market, thought to be the
main factor for IBM PC success.
MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable CD: a professional partition magic can recover
partitions when Windows operating system can not be started normally.
WordPerfect: a edit-plus base on Windows platform
dBase: one of the earliest data base software
Telix: modulator-demodulator communication soft ware
Arachne: internet explorer of DOS edition
DJGPP: DOS transplantation version of GCC
4DOS: a software replacing the original command line interface
IDE (integrated development environment) of Borland includes Turbo Pascal, Turbo
BASIC, Turbo C, and Turbo Assembler
Dial-up bulletin board system (BBS)
Site-built software: RemoteAccess, Spitfire, Maximus, McBBS and TAG
BASIC language tool program: BASICA and GW-BASIC
Many FPS( first person shooting ) games: the 3D Wolfenstein developed jointly by Id
Software and Apogee Software,;Doom and Quake of Id Software; Duke Nukem 3D,
Shadow Warrior and Rise of the Triad of 3D Realms. All of these 3 games developed by
3D Realms apply Build Engine of DOS. And the designer of Build Engine is Ken Silverman,
so it is also used in the game Ken's Labyrinth of Silverman