CSI-DOS is an operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

, created in Samara

Samara, Russia

Samara , is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers. Samara is the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Population: . The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast...

, for the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 Elektronika BK-0011M

Elektronika BK

The Elektronika BK was a series of 16-bit PDP-11-compatible Soviet home computers developed by NPO Scientific Center, the leading Soviet microcomputer design team at the time. It was also responsible for the more powerful UKNC and DVK micros...

 and Elektronika BK-0011

Elektronika BK

The Elektronika BK was a series of 16-bit PDP-11-compatible Soviet home computers developed by NPO Scientific Center, the leading Soviet microcomputer design team at the time. It was also responsible for the more powerful UKNC and DVK micros...

 microcomputer

Microcomputer

A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...

s. CSI-DOS did not support the earlier BK-0010. CSI-DOS used its own unique file system

File system

A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...

 and only supported a color graphics video mode. The system supported both hard and floppy drives as well as RAM disk

RAM disk

A RAM disk or RAM drive is a block of RAM that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive...

s in the computer's memory. It also included software to work with the AY-3-8910 and AY-3-8912 music co-processors, and the Covox Speech Thing

Covox Speech Thing

The Covox Speech Thing was an external audio device attached to the computer to output digital sound. It was composed of the most primitive 8-bit DAC using a resistor ladder and an analogue signal output, and plugged in to the printer port of the PC.The circuit was marketed around 1986 by Covox,...

. There are a number of games and demos designed specially for the system.

The system also included a Turbo Vision

Turbo Vision

Turbo Vision is a DOS-based character-mode text user interface framework developed around 1992 by Borland for Pascal, and C++. Later it was deprecated in favor of Object Windows Library for the then-increasingly important Win16 API....

-like application programming interface

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

(API) allowing simpler design of user applications, and a graphical file manager called X-Shell.

External links

• [ftp://univ.uniyar.ac.ru/home/webadm/museum_files/RussianComputers/BK0010/Disks/CSIDemo.zip CSI-DOS 3.21 disk image]
• CSI-DOS 3.32 disk image
• Article, contains description of some advantages of CSI-DOS for gaming over other OSs (Russian)