Microsoft has, over the past decade, delved into its history and released as open source some of the company's most important early products.
Previously, the giant has released as open source, among others, MS-DOS 4, released in 1988 and developed in cooperation with IBM, as well as the company's very first product, Altair BASIC.
Now the company has released a version of its DOS operating system that offers a glimpse into the events that ultimately led to the creation of the MS-DOS operating system, which grew into Microsoft's empire.
Microsoft, at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, was still a relatively small technology company. However, it had managed to secure a deal with the gigantic IBM to supply an operating system for IBM's soon-to-be-released, entirely new Personal Computer concept, which would use the 8086 processor.
Microsoft simply didn't have such an operating system in existence.
But another software company did: Tim Paterson had developed the 86-DOS operating system (formerly known as QDOS), which already ran on the 8086 processor, albeit in a different configuration than what IBM would later release.
Microsoft entered into a licensing agreement for the operating system and hired Paterson to Microsoft to further develop the operating system for IBM.
From that operating system eventually came PC-DOS for IBM's use, which was released concurrently with the launch of the IBM PC 5150 computer. Microsoft retained the right to sell the same operating system to other manufacturers, but under a different name: which was, of course, MS-DOS.
And it is precisely to this turning point that the pages of history released by Microsoft as open source this time are connected.
Development versions of 86-DOS worked on by Tim Paterson, as well as the PC-DOS v1.00 kernel, have been released on GitHub under the open source MIT license. Also included is an early version of the CHKDSK program - this program is still included with Windows 11 and is used to verify and repair hard drive integrity.
The files now released no longer existed in any digital form; instead, they were found as printouts, which were then scanned and read through image recognition back into digital format. These printouts are also available in PDF format among the files.
Those interested can delve into history here:
"Paterson Listings" on GitHub
Now the company has released a version of its DOS operating system that offers a glimpse into the events that ultimately led to the creation of the MS-DOS operating system, which grew into Microsoft's empire.
Microsoft, at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, was still a relatively small technology company. However, it had managed to secure a deal with the gigantic IBM to supply an operating system for IBM's soon-to-be-released, entirely new Personal Computer concept, which would use the 8086 processor.
Microsoft simply didn't have such an operating system in existence.
But another software company did: Tim Paterson had developed the 86-DOS operating system (formerly known as QDOS), which already ran on the 8086 processor, albeit in a different configuration than what IBM would later release.
Microsoft entered into a licensing agreement for the operating system and hired Paterson to Microsoft to further develop the operating system for IBM.
From that operating system eventually came PC-DOS for IBM's use, which was released concurrently with the launch of the IBM PC 5150 computer. Microsoft retained the right to sell the same operating system to other manufacturers, but under a different name: which was, of course, MS-DOS.
And it is precisely to this turning point that the pages of history released by Microsoft as open source this time are connected.
Development versions of 86-DOS worked on by Tim Paterson, as well as the PC-DOS v1.00 kernel, have been released on GitHub under the open source MIT license. Also included is an early version of the CHKDSK program - this program is still included with Windows 11 and is used to verify and repair hard drive integrity.
The files now released no longer existed in any digital form; instead, they were found as printouts, which were then scanned and read through image recognition back into digital format. These printouts are also available in PDF format among the files.
Those interested can delve into history here:
"Paterson Listings" on GitHub
