Microsoft open sources MS-DOS 4.0

psvrh , 2 months ago

This isn’t the weird multitasking variant, is it?

gaael , 2 months ago

According to the Tom’s hardware article from another post, it looks like it is.

MS-DOS 4.00 is quite an interesting version of this command-line-driven OS, as it was written in partnership with IBM and formed a branch of DOS called Multitasking DOS (or MT-DOS), that only had a limited release.

the_crotch , 1 month ago

The source code Microsoft released this week is not for that multitasking version of DOS 4.00, and Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office was “unable to find the full source code” for MT-DOS when it went to look.

arstechnica.com/…/microsoft-and-ibm-release-sourc…

autotldr Bot , 2 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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More open source surprises for you today, coming from Microsoft too which is always interesting to see as they’ve now open sourced MS-DOS 4.0.

Added into their existing MS-DOS repository on GitHub which already had MS-DOS v1.25 and v2.0, they’ve now expanded it to include MS-DOS v4.0 which was jointly developed by IBM and Microsoft.

This is all available under the permissive MIT license.

The MS-DOS v1.25 and v2.0 files were originally shared at the Computer History Museum on March 25th, 2014 and are being (re)published in this repo to make them easier to find, reference-to in external writing and works, and to allow exploration and experimentation for those interested in early PC Operating Systems.

They’re doing this for “historical reference and will be kept static” so they’re not accepting pull requests, but that doesn’t stop someone forking them and doing pretty much whatever they want now it’s all under the MIT license.

Great news for preservation.

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The original article contains 193 words, the summary contains 154 words. Saved 20%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!