DR-DOS
Encyclopedia
DR-DOS is an MS-DOS
-compatible operating system
for IBM PC
-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research
and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86
. As ownership changed, various later versions were produced as Novell DOS, Caldera OpenDOS, etc.
for the 8-bit Intel 8080
and Z-80
based systems spawned numerous spin-off versions, most notably CP/M-86
for the Intel 8086
/8088
family of processors. Although CP/M had dominated the market, and was shipped with the vast majority of non-proprietary-architecture personal computers, the IBM PC in 1981 brought the beginning of what was eventually to be a massive change.
IBM
originally approached Digital Research, seeking an x86 version of CP/M. However, there were disagreements over the contract, and IBM withdrew. Instead, a deal was struck with Microsoft
, who purchased another operating system, 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. This became Microsoft MS-DOS
and IBM PC DOS. 86-DOS' command structure and application programming interface imitated that of CP/M. Digital Research threatened legal action, claiming PC DOS/MS-DOS to be too similar to CP/M. IBM settled by agreeing to sell their x86 version of CP/M, CP/M-86
, alongside PC DOS. However, PC DOS sold for $40, while CP/M-86 had a $240 price tag. The proportion of PC buyers prepared to spend four times as much to buy CP/M-86 was very small, and the availability of compatible application software, at first decisively in Digital Research's favor, was only temporary.
Digital Research fought a long losing battle to promote CP/M-86 and its multi-tasking multi-user successor Concurrent CP/M-86, and eventually decided that they could not beat the Microsoft-IBM lead in application software availability, so they modified Concurrent CP/M-86 to allow it to run the same applications as MS-DOS and PC DOS.
This was shown publically in December 1983 and shipped in March 1984 as Concurrent DOS 3.1 (aka CDOS with BDOS 3.1) to hardware vendors. While Concurrent DOS continued to evolve in various flavours over the years to eventually become Multiuser DOS
, it was not specifically tailored for the desktop market and too expensive for single-user applications. Therefore, over time two attempts were made to sideline the product.
Initially, Digital Research developed DOS Plus 1.2 to 2.1, a stripped-down and modified single-user derivative of Concurrent DOS 4.1 and 5.0, which ran applications for both platforms. It did not perform well, and Digital Research made another attempt, this time a native DOS system. This new disk operating system was launched in 1988 as DR DOS.
Although DRI was based in Pacific Grove
and later in Monterey
, California, USA, the work on DOS Plus started in Newbury
, Berkshire, UK, where Digital Research Europe had its OEM Support Group (51.40612°N 1.326374°W) located since 1983. Since 1986, most of the operating system work on Concurrent DOS 386 and XM, Multiuser DOS, DR DOS and PalmDOS was done in Digital Research's European Development Centre (EDC) (51.414478°N 1.512946°W and 51.420339°N 1.515223°W) in Hungerford, Berkshire, UK.
Although DR DOS offered some extended command line tools with command line help, verbose error messages, sophisticated command line history and editing (HISTORY directive) as well as support for file and directory passwords built right into the kernel, DR DOS was cheaper to license than MS-DOS. Also, DR DOS was ROMable right from the start. As a result, DRI was approached by a number of PC manufacturers who were interested in a third-party DOS, and this prompted several updates to the system.
At this time, MS-DOS was only available to OEMs bundled with hardware. Consequently, DR DOS achieved some immediate success when it became possible for consumers to buy it through normal retail channels since 3.4x.
Known versions are DR DOS 3.31 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-06, OEM only), 3.32 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-08-17, OEM only), 3.33 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-09-01, OEM only), 3.34 (OEM only), 3.35 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-10-21, OEM only), 3.40, 3.41 (BDOS 6.3, 1989-06, OEM and retail), most of them existed in several flavors for different OEMs. While most OEMs just kept the DR DOS name designation, one OEM version is known to be called EZ-DOS 3.41.
, a GEM
based GUI
file management shell, the patented BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
power management system, bundled disk-caching software, and also offers vastly improved memory management. For compatibility purposes, the DR DOS 5.0 system files were now named IBMBIO.COM (for the DOS-BIOS) and IBMDOS.COM (for the BDOS kernel), and the OEM label in boot sectors was changed to "IBM 3.3".
First, the DR DOS kernel and structures such as disk buffers can be located in the High Memory Area (HMA), the first 64 KB of extended memory which are accessible in real mode
due to an incomplete compatibility of the 80286 with earlier processors. This freed up the equivalent amount of critical "base" or conventional memory
, the first 640 KB of the PC's RAM – the area in which all MS-DOS applications run.
Additionally, on Intel 80386
machines, DR DOS's EMS memory manager allowed the OS to load DOS device drivers into upper memory blocks, further freeing base memory. For more information on this, see the article on the Upper Memory Area
(UMA).
DR DOS 5.0 was the first DOS to integrate such functionality into the base OS (loading device drivers into upper memory blocks was possible using third-party software like QEMM
). As such, on a 386 system, it could offer vastly more free conventional memory than any other DOS. Once drivers for a mouse, multimedia hardware and a network stack were loaded, an MS-DOS machine typically might only have 300 to 400 KB of free conventional memory – too little to run most late-1980s software. DR DOS 5.0, with a small amount of manual tweaking, could load all this and still keep all of its conventional memory free – allowing for some necessary DOS data structures, as much as 620 KB out of the 640 KB.
Because DR DOS left so much conventional memory available, some old programs utilizing certain address wrapping techniques failed to run properly as they were now loaded unexpectedly (or, under MS-DOS, "impossibly") low in memory – inside the first 64 KB segment (known as "low memory"). Therefore, DR DOS 5.0's new MEMMAX -L command worked around this by pre-allocating a chunk of memory at the start of the memory map in order for programs to load above this barrier (but with less usable conventional memory then). By default, MEMMAX was configured for +L, so that applications could take advantage of the extra memory.
responded with an announcement of a yet-to-be released MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This would be released in June 1991 and include similar advanced features to those of DR DOS. It included matches of the DR's enhancements in memory management.
Almost immediately in September 1991, Digital Research responded with DR DOS 6.0, code-named "Buxton". DR DOS 6.0, while already at BDOS level 6.7 internally, would still report itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31" to normal DOS applications for compatibility purposes.
This bundled in SuperStor on-the-fly disk compression, to maximize available hard disk space, and file deletion tracking and undelete functionality by Roger Gross.
DR DOS 6.0 also includes a task-switcher named TASKMAX, supporting the industry standard task-switching API to run multiple applications at the same time. In contrast to Digital Research's Multiuser DOS (successor of Concurrent DOS in the multi-user products line), which would run DOS applications in pre-emptively multitasked virtual DOS machines, the DR DOS 6.0 task switcher would freeze background applications until brought back into the foreground. While it runs on x86-machines, it is able to swap to XMS memory on 286+ machines. TASKMAX did support some Copy & Paste facility between applications.
Via the task-switcher API graphical user interfaces such as ViewMAX
or PC/GEOS could register as task manager menu and thereby replace the TASKMAX text mode menu, so that users could switch between tasks from within a GUI.
Microsoft responded with MS-DOS 6.0, which again matched some features of DR DOS 6.0.
Since December 1991 a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was designed to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. This check came to be known as the AARD code
. With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1
PalmDOS was the first operating system in the family to sport the new BDOS 7.0 kernel with native DOS compatible internal data structures instead of emulations thereof. Replacing the DOS emulation on top of a CP/M kernel by a true DOS compatible kernel helped a lot in improving compatibility with some applications using some of DOS' internal data structures and also was the key in reducing the resident size of the kernel code even further - a particular requirement for the PDA market. On the other hand, introducing a genuine Current Directory Structure (CDS) imposed a limit on the depth of working directories down to 66 characters (as in MS-DOS/PC DOS), whereas previous issues of DR DOS had no such limitation due to their internal organization of directories as relative links to parent directories instead of as absolute paths. PalmDOS still reported itself as "PC DOS 3.31" to applications in order to keep the kernel small and not run into compatibility problems with Windows, which would expect the DOSMGR API to be implemented for any DOS version since 5.0.
As well as a ROM-executing kernel, PalmDOS had palmtop-type support for features such as PCMCIA PC Cards (with DPMS
support), Power Management (BatteryMAX
and the $IDLE$ device driver with its patented dynamic idle detection by Roger Gross and John Constant), MINIMAX task switcher support for PIM (Personal Information Modules) applications stored and executed from ROM via XIP (Execute In-Place), etc.
The PCMCIA stack for PalmDOS was partially written by Ian Cullimore
.
had bought Digital Research with a view to using DR's product line as a lever in their comprehensive strategy to break the Microsoft monopoly. (This was part of a massive and ultimately disastrous spending spree for Novell: they bought WordPerfect
Corporation at about the same time, some of Borland
's products, and invested heavily in Unix
as well.) The planned DR DOS 7.0, internally named "Panther", intended to trump Microsoft's troubled MS-DOS 6.0, was repeatedly delayed, while Novell was working on a Unix-like multi-user security extension (compatible with its Multiuser DOS) and two new graphical user interfaces (ViewMAX/3, a derivative of GEM, and "Star Trek
", a true port of Apple's Mac OS
7.1 to run under the new DR DOS multitasker named "Vladivar").
When DR DOS eventually arrived in December 1993 (with localized versions released in March 1994), renamed Novell DOS 7 (aka "NWDOS"), and without these three components, it was a disappointment to some. It was larger and introduced many new bugs, and the main functional addition was Novell's second attempt at a peer-to-peer networking system, Personal NetWare (PNW). This worked and was better than its predecessor, NetWare Lite (NWL), but it was incompatible with Microsoft's networking system, now growing popular with support in Windows for Workgroups, OS/2
and Windows NT
. A considerable amount of manual configuration was needed to get both to co-exist on the same PC, and Personal NetWare never achieved much success.
Since Novell DOS 7 implemented the DOSMGR API and internal data structures had been updated, its BDOS 7.2 kernel could report with a DOS version of 6.0 and OEM ID "IBM" without risking compatibility problems with Windows. Most tools would report this as "PC DOS 6.1", because IBM PC DOS 6.1 also reported as DOS 6.0 to applications.
Novell DOS 7 introduced much advanced memory management including new support for DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface
) and DPMS (DOS Protected Mode Services
) as well as more flexible loadhigh options. It also introduced support for "true" pre-emptive multitasking of multiple DOS applications in virtual DOS machines (VDM), similar to Multiuser DOS, but now on the basis of a natively DOS compatible environment, similar to Windows 386 Enhanced Mode without GUI. By default, the bundled TASKMGR would behave similar to the former DR DOS 6.0 TASKMAX. However, if EMM386 was loaded with the option /MULTI, EMM386 would load a natively 32-bit 386 Protected Mode operating system core providing API support for pre-emptive multitasking, multi-threading, hardware virtualization and domain management of virtual DOS machines. This API could be used by DR DOS-aware applications. If TASKMGR was run later on, it would use these APIs to instance the current 16-bit DOS system environment, create virtual DOS machines and run applications in them instead of using its own Real Mode task-switcher support. The multitasker was compatible with Windows, so that tasks started before launching Windows could be seen as tasks under Windows as well.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare 1.0 also shipped with NetWars
, a network-enabled 3D arcade game.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare required several bug-fix releases and were not completely stable when the next development occurred. With beta versions of Microsoft's "Chicago" (what would later become Windows 95) in sight, Novell wound down further development on Novell DOS 7 in September 1994 and stopped maintenance in January 1996 after more than 15 updates.
approached Novell looking for a DOS operating system to bundle with their OpenLinux distribution, Novell sold the product line off to Caldera on 23 July 1996, by which time it was of little commercial value to them.
Between the now-Caldera owned DR-DOS and competition from IBM's PC DOS 6.3, Microsoft moved to make it impossible to use or buy the subsequent Windows version, Windows 95
, with any DOS product other than their own. Claimed by them to be a purely technical change, this was later to be the subject of a major lawsuit brought in Salt Lake City by Caldera with the help of the Canopy Group
. Microsoft lawyers tried repeatedly to have the case thrown out but without success. Immediately after the completion of the pre-trial deposition stage (where the parties list the evidence they intend to present), there was an out-of-court settlement on 7 January 2000 for an undisclosed sum. This was revealed in November 2009 to be 280 million US dollars.
In August 1996, the US-based Caldera, Inc. was approached by Roger Gross, one of the original DR-DOS engineers, with a proposal to restart DR-DOS development and to make Windows 95 run on DR-DOS which would help the court case. Following a meeting in September 1996 in Lindon
, Utah, between Gross, Ransom Love
, Bryan Sparks and Ray Noorda, Gross was hired and tasked to set up a new subsidiary in the UK. On 10 September 1996, Caldera announced the coming release of OpenDOS and their intent to also release the source code to the system, and Caldera UK Ltd. (51.20531°N 1.478786°W) was incorporated on 20 September 1996. Gross hired some of the original developers of the operating system from the Novell EDC as well as some new talents to continue work on the operating system in a converted barn (51.188306°N 1.487498°W) at the periphery of Andover
, Hampshire, UK, nearby the former Digital Research and Novell EDC. Besides other improvements and enhancements all over the system, a string of new key features were added subsequently over the course of the next two years, including a TCP/IP stack (derived from NetWare Mobile / LAN Workplace for DOS), a graphical 32-bit DOS Protected Mode HTML 3.2 web-browser DR-WebSpyder (originally based on source code from the Arachne
web browser by Michal Polák) with LAN and modem dialup, a POSIX
Pthreads extension to the multi-tasker by Andy Wightman, long filename
(LONGNAME) support by Edward Hill as well as LBA
and FAT32 support (DRFAT32) by Matthias Paul. Gross also hired Andrew Schulman (who had been, with Geoff Chappell, instrumental in identifying the AARD code
in 1992) to work as a consultant and, in Andover, join Paul in his work on "WinGlue", a secret project to create a version of DR-DOS compatible with Windows 95, 98 and 98 SE and replace its MS-DOS 7.xx component. This was demonstrated at CeBIT
in March 1998, and later, in a small team, developed into "WinBolt", both versions of DR-DOS, which remained unreleased , but played an important role in the court case.
Caldera UK officially released Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 in February 1997, but this version was just Novell DOS 7 update 10 (as of December 1994) with a new name, missing a year's worth of patches which had been developed for the Novell DOS updates 11 (January 1995) to 15.2 (January 1996). This was due to parts of the Novell DOS sources having been lost at Novell meanwhile. Consequently, this version still reported an internal BDOS version of 7.2, identical to Novell DOS 7. The new suite also lacked the SETFIFO command, which had been added with one of the Novell DOS updates, as well as Fifth Generation's Search&Destroy virus scanner and Fast-Backup utility, which previously came bundled with Novell DOS. Instead it brought an advanced version of NetWars.
Parts of OpenDOS 7.01 were released as open source
in form of the M.R.S. kit (for Machine Readable Sources) in May 1997, but with licence terms mostly incompatible with existing open source licences. The source was then closed again as Gross felt this would undermine the commercial aspirations of the system.
After beta releases in September and November 1997, the next official release came in December 1997, with the name changed to Caldera DR-OpenDOS 7.02, soon followed by a further release in March 1998, when the DR-DOS name returned as Caldera DR-DOS 7.02, now for the first time written with a hyphen. Version 7.02 (now reporting itself as BDOS 7.3) incorporated improved BIOS and BDOS issues, developed by Paul, adding many new boot and configuration options, integrating many compatibility enhancements, bug-fixes and optimizations for size and speed, and re-implementing all fixes of the missing Novell DOS updates. The BIOS improved the coexistence of DR-DOS with Windows 9x and its support for third-party disk compression drivers such as Microsoft's DriveSpace. It introduced a diagnostics mode (activated by Scrollock), integrated debugger support (with DEBUG=ON and a debugger loaded before or from within CONFIG.SYS) and more flexible CONFIG.SYS tracing capabilities via the F5/F6/F7/F8 hotkeys and the TRACE and TIMEOUT commands, thereby also improving the integration of alternative command line shells such as 4DOS
. Together with LOADER, SYS /DR:ext and the CHAIN directive, it brought enhanced multi-configuration support for DR/D/CONFIG.ext files and came with enhancements to the BASIC-like CONFIG.SYS language for more powerful boot menus, convenient user interaction and programmatical acting upon conditions (CPU386), return codes and error levels (ERROR, ONERROR). It also allowed to change the SCROLLOCK, CAPSLOCK, INSERT and VERIFY settings as well as the SWITCHAR, YESCHAR, NOCHAR and RESUMECHAR characters. Various behavioural details could be controlled with new parameters /Q, /L, /Y and /S for SWITCHES. Further, it provided optional support for a LPT4: device and allowed to configure the built-in COMx: and LPTx: devices as well as to change the PRN: and AUX: defaults. The handling of environment variables in CONFIG.SYS was improved and new load-high facilities included such as the HIFILES/FILESHIGH and HIFCBS/FCBSHIGH options to relocate file handles and FCB structures into UMBs, which typically gave between 1 and 4 KB (and up to 15 KB) more free conventional memory compared to previous versions, or the HISHELL/SHELLHIGH SIZE directive to control the pre-allocation of HMA memory for COMMAND.COM, which helped to avoid memory fragmentation and thereby typically gave between 5 to 8 KB more continuous HMA memory for HMA-capable third-party drivers to work with in conjunction with third-party command line shells, which could not load into the HMA as COMMAND.COM with its /MH option. At a reduced memory footprint version 7.02 also brought an enhanced NLS 4.xx sub-system by Paul to allow multiple, distributed and possibly user-configured COUNTRY.SYS files to be used by the system at the same time in a hierarchical model. This also gave dynamic parser support for MS-DOS/PC DOS COUNTRY.SYS file formats in addition to DR-DOS' own COUNTRY.SYS formats, and it introduced support for the ISO 8601
international date format (including automatic detection) and the then-new Euro currency. DR-DOS 7.02 was fully Year 2000
compliant and provided special support to work with buggy system BIOSes. It also came with an updated FDISK, which could partition and format FAT32 volumes (but not yet work with LBA). The sources of the Novell patches for the external tools and drivers had meanwhile been found in Germany and could thus be retro-fitted into the system as well, so that DR-DOS 7.02 finally not only caught up with Novell DOS 7, but was a true step forward. The release was followed by various updates in June, August and September 1998.
The updated internal BDOS version number introduced the problem, that some legacy third-party applications with special support for Novell DOS stopped working, and updates to these programs could not be expected. SETVER already allowed to fake DOS versions by file name and globally, and specifying a magic sub-version of 255, it would even disable its own internal BDOS version check in order to cope with programs specifically probing for "DR-DOS". The modified kernel and SETVER driver by Paul would, in an hierarchical model, also support load paths in order to distinguish between multiple executables of the same file name, and it introduced an extended mode, in which SETVER could not only fake DOS versions, but also BDOS kernel versions. Sub-versions of 128 to 255 would be reported as DOS sub-versions 0 to 127 to applications, but with the BDOS version check disabled, while sub-versions 100 to 127 could be used to fake different BDOS versions, whereas the DOS revision number (typically set to 0 in a static, pre-boot patchable data structure) would be taken as the reported sub-version instead, so that SETVER /G /X 6.114 would allow versions of DR-DOS since 7.02 to still report themselves as a "DOS 6.0" and with a faked BDOS version 7.2 (114 decimal = 72 hexadecimal), thereby masquerading as Novell DOS 7 / OpenDOS 7.01.
While otherwise beneficial, the new HIFILES triggered a compatibility problem in the DOS-UP feature of the third-party memory manager QEMM 8, which was hard-wired to expect a chunk of five handle structures in conventional memory under DR-DOS (as with previous versions up to 7.01), whereas version 7.02 by design left eight handles in low memory when loading high files in order to maintain full compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx. Compatibility with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 had not been affected by this. A maintenance fix was devised to patch a single byte in IBMBIO.COM in order to switch the behaviour and optionally re-invoke the old chunking. This would free some 150 bytes of conventional memory and enable full compatibility with DOS-UP, but at the same time broke compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx when using the HIFILES feature, and vice-versa. The patch named IBMBIO85.SCR continued to work with newer versions of DR-DOS.
In August 1998, the US-based Caldera, Inc. created two new subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. for the Linux business, and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. for the embedded and thin-client market.
Another version, DR-DOS 7.03 (still with BDOS 7.3 and reporting itself to applications as "PC DOS 6.0" for compatibility purposes), was pre-released at Christmas 1998 and then officially released on 6 January 1999 by Caldera UK. It came with significantly improved memory managers (in particular enhanced DPMI support in conjunction with the multitasker) and other enhancements, such as added added DEVLOAD and DRMOUSE utilities. It would become the last version of DR-DOS also tailored for desktop use.
Caldera, Inc. wanted to relocate the DR-DOS business into the US and closed the successful UK operation in February 1999 after Gross resigned and joined Citrix UK in Cambridge. Development was then moved into the US (which never worked out due to a total lack of expertise in this field) and the DR-DOS line fell to its branch company, Caldera Thin Clients, which was renamed Lineo
, Inc. on 20 July 1999. DR-WebSpyder was renamed EmBrowser and was said to be ported to Linux. Lineo would re-release DR-DOS 7.03 in June and September 1999, still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS" and without any changes, but otherwise focus on Linux
for embedded systems, based on a stripped down version of OpenLinux named Embedix.
Among the latest and independently developed versions of DR-DOS were OEM DR-DOS 7.04 (as of 19 August 1999) and 7.05 (as of 30 November 1999), still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS". These were variants of the system consisting only of the kernel and command shell. With a specialized native implementation of FAT32 and large hard disk support they could be found bundled with Ontrack
's Easy Recovery 5 in 2000, replacing the dynamically loadable DRFAT32 redirector driver, which still came with Easy Recovery 4. They were also used for Seagate Technology
's SeaTools
and the CD imaging software Nero Burning ROM
. While still reporting a BDOS 7.3 internally, these were the first versions to report themselves as "PC DOS 7.10" to applications in order to indicate integrated FAT32 support. Designed to be mostly backwards compatible, the DR-DOS 7.04/7.05 IBMBIO.COM could be combined with the DR-DOS 7.03 IBMDOS.COM in order to give the desktop-approved DR-DOS 7.03 kernel LBA capabilities and work with drives larger than 8 GB. For specific OEM requirements, DR-DOS 7.06 by Wightman combined the kernel files into a single binary executable, so that, similar to IO.SYS of Windows 98, it could be booted by MS-DOS 7.10 boot sector
s (but no longer by DR-DOS boot sectors). DR-DOS 7.07 (with BDOS 7.4/7.7) by Paul introduced new bootstrap
loaders and updated disk tools in order to combine support for CHS
and LBA disk access, the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and the differing bootstrapping conventions of DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, REAL/32 and LOADER into a single MBR and boot sector, so that the code would continue to load any version of DR-DOS down to 3.31 (and since DR-DOS 7.04 also with FAT32 support), but could also be used to launch the PC DOS or MS-DOS system files, including those of Windows 9x and PC DOS 7.10. At the same time the kernel could not only be booted by the new sectors, but also by any previously DR-DOS formatted disks, as well as off disks with existing PC DOS or MS-DOS boot sectors and a variety of other boot-loaders, thereby easing the coexistence and setup of multi-boot scenarios in conjunction with other operating systems.
. They have continued to sell DR-DOS for use in embedded systems. DR-DOS 8.0 was released on 30 March 2004 featuring FAT32 and large disk support, the ability to boot from ROM or Flash, multitasking and a DPMI memory manager. This version was based on the kernel from version 7.03. The company then split into Devicelogics Inc. and DRDOS Inc, which released DR-DOS 8.1 (with better FAT32 support) in autumn 2005. This version was not based upon version 8.0, but was a complete rewrite. Both 8.0 and 8.1 were withdrawn because of the issues outlined below, and replaced with Caldera DR-DOS 7.03.
Aside from selling copies of the operating system, the DR DOS Inc. website lists a buyout option for DR-DOS; the asking price is $25,000.
The OpenDOS 7.01 source code was a base for The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project, set up in July 2002 in an attempt to bring the functionality of DR-DOS up to parity with modern PC non-Windows operating systems. The project's added native support for large disks (LBA
) and the FAT32
file system, and several other enhancements, including improved memory management and support for the new FAT+
file system extension which allows files of up to 256 GB in size on normal FAT
partitions. DR-DOS 7.01.08 was released on 21 July 2011.
and other sources and that the kernel was an outdated version of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel. DR DOS Inc. failed to comply with the GNU General Public License
(GPL) by not crediting the FreeDOS utilities to their authors and including the source code. After complaints from FreeDOS developers (including the suggestion to provide the source code, and hence comply with the GPL), DR DOS Inc. instead withdrew version 8.1, and also the unaffected 8.0, from their website.
DR-DOS (DR DOS, without hyphen up to including v6.0) is an MS-DOS
-compatible operating system
for IBM PC
-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research
and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86
. As ownership changed, various later versions were produced as Novell DOS, Caldera OpenDOS, etc.
for the 8-bit Intel 8080
and Z-80
based systems spawned numerous spin-off versions, most notably CP/M-86
for the Intel 8086
/8088
family of processors. Although CP/M had dominated the market, and was shipped with the vast majority of non-proprietary-architecture personal computers, the IBM PC in 1981 brought the beginning of what was eventually to be a massive change.
IBM
originally approached Digital Research, seeking an x86 version of CP/M. However, there were disagreements over the contract, and IBM withdrew. Instead, a deal was struck with Microsoft
, who purchased another operating system, 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. This became Microsoft MS-DOS
and IBM PC DOS. 86-DOS' command structure and application programming interface imitated that of CP/M. Digital Research threatened legal action, claiming PC DOS/MS-DOS to be too similar to CP/M. IBM settled by agreeing to sell their x86 version of CP/M, CP/M-86
, alongside PC DOS. However, PC DOS sold for $40, while CP/M-86 had a $240 price tag. The proportion of PC buyers prepared to spend four times as much to buy CP/M-86 was very small, and the availability of compatible application software, at first decisively in Digital Research's favor, was only temporary.
Digital Research fought a long losing battle to promote CP/M-86 and its multi-tasking multi-user successor Concurrent CP/M-86, and eventually decided that they could not beat the Microsoft-IBM lead in application software availability, so they modified Concurrent CP/M-86 to allow it to run the same applications as MS-DOS and PC DOS.
This was shown publically in December 1983 and shipped in March 1984 as Concurrent DOS 3.1 (aka CDOS with BDOS 3.1) to hardware vendors. While Concurrent DOS continued to evolve in various flavours over the years to eventually become Multiuser DOS
, it was not specifically tailored for the desktop market and too expensive for single-user applications. Therefore, over time two attempts were made to sideline the product.
Initially, Digital Research developed DOS Plus 1.2 to 2.1, a stripped-down and modified single-user derivative of Concurrent DOS 4.1 and 5.0, which ran applications for both platforms. It did not perform well, and Digital Research made another attempt, this time a native DOS system. This new disk operating system was launched in 1988 as DR DOS.
Although DRI was based in Pacific Grove
and later in Monterey
, California, USA, the work on DOS Plus started in Newbury
, Berkshire, UK, where Digital Research Europe had its OEM Support Group (51.40612°N 1.326374°W) located since 1983. Since 1986, most of the operating system work on Concurrent DOS 386 and XM, Multiuser DOS, DR DOS and PalmDOS was done in Digital Research's European Development Centre (EDC) (51.414478°N 1.512946°W and 51.420339°N 1.515223°W) in Hungerford, Berkshire, UK.
Although DR DOS offered some extended command line tools with command line help, verbose error messages, sophisticated command line history and editing (HISTORY directive) as well as support for file and directory passwords built right into the kernel, DR DOS was cheaper to license than MS-DOS. Also, DR DOS was ROMable right from the start. As a result, DRI was approached by a number of PC manufacturers who were interested in a third-party DOS, and this prompted several updates to the system.
At this time, MS-DOS was only available to OEMs bundled with hardware. Consequently, DR DOS achieved some immediate success when it became possible for consumers to buy it through normal retail channels since 3.4x.
Known versions are DR DOS 3.31 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-06, OEM only), 3.32 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-08-17, OEM only), 3.33 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-09-01, OEM only), 3.34 (OEM only), 3.35 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-10-21, OEM only), 3.40, 3.41 (BDOS 6.3, 1989-06, OEM and retail), most of them existed in several flavors for different OEMs. While most OEMs just kept the DR DOS name designation, one OEM version is known to be called EZ-DOS 3.41.
, a GEM
based GUI
file management shell, the patented BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
power management system, bundled disk-caching software, and also offers vastly improved memory management. For compatibility purposes, the DR DOS 5.0 system files were now named IBMBIO.COM (for the DOS-BIOS) and IBMDOS.COM (for the BDOS kernel), and the OEM label in boot sectors was changed to "IBM 3.3".
First, the DR DOS kernel and structures such as disk buffers can be located in the High Memory Area (HMA), the first 64 KB of extended memory which are accessible in real mode
due to an incomplete compatibility of the 80286 with earlier processors. This freed up the equivalent amount of critical "base" or conventional memory
, the first 640 KB of the PC's RAM – the area in which all MS-DOS applications run.
Additionally, on Intel 80386
machines, DR DOS's EMS memory manager allowed the OS to load DOS device drivers into upper memory blocks, further freeing base memory. For more information on this, see the article on the Upper Memory Area
(UMA).
DR DOS 5.0 was the first DOS to integrate such functionality into the base OS (loading device drivers into upper memory blocks was possible using third-party software like QEMM
). As such, on a 386 system, it could offer vastly more free conventional memory than any other DOS. Once drivers for a mouse, multimedia hardware and a network stack were loaded, an MS-DOS machine typically might only have 300 to 400 KB of free conventional memory – too little to run most late-1980s software. DR DOS 5.0, with a small amount of manual tweaking, could load all this and still keep all of its conventional memory free – allowing for some necessary DOS data structures, as much as 620 KB out of the 640 KB.
Because DR DOS left so much conventional memory available, some old programs utilizing certain address wrapping techniques failed to run properly as they were now loaded unexpectedly (or, under MS-DOS, "impossibly") low in memory – inside the first 64 KB segment (known as "low memory"). Therefore, DR DOS 5.0's new MEMMAX -L command worked around this by pre-allocating a chunk of memory at the start of the memory map in order for programs to load above this barrier (but with less usable conventional memory then). By default, MEMMAX was configured for +L, so that applications could take advantage of the extra memory.
responded with an announcement of a yet-to-be released MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This would be released in June 1991 and include similar advanced features to those of DR DOS. It included matches of the DR's enhancements in memory management.
Almost immediately in September 1991, Digital Research responded with DR DOS 6.0, code-named "Buxton". DR DOS 6.0, while already at BDOS level 6.7 internally, would still report itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31" to normal DOS applications for compatibility purposes.
This bundled in SuperStor on-the-fly disk compression, to maximize available hard disk space, and file deletion tracking and undelete functionality by Roger Gross.
DR DOS 6.0 also includes a task-switcher named TASKMAX, supporting the industry standard task-switching API to run multiple applications at the same time. In contrast to Digital Research's Multiuser DOS (successor of Concurrent DOS in the multi-user products line), which would run DOS applications in pre-emptively multitasked virtual DOS machines, the DR DOS 6.0 task switcher would freeze background applications until brought back into the foreground. While it runs on x86-machines, it is able to swap to XMS memory on 286+ machines. TASKMAX did support some Copy & Paste facility between applications.
Via the task-switcher API graphical user interfaces such as ViewMAX
or PC/GEOS could register as task manager menu and thereby replace the TASKMAX text mode menu, so that users could switch between tasks from within a GUI.
Microsoft responded with MS-DOS 6.0, which again matched some features of DR DOS 6.0.
Since December 1991 a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was designed to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. This check came to be known as the AARD code
. With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1
PalmDOS was the first operating system in the family to sport the new BDOS 7.0 kernel with native DOS compatible internal data structures instead of emulations thereof. Replacing the DOS emulation on top of a CP/M kernel by a true DOS compatible kernel helped a lot in improving compatibility with some applications using some of DOS' internal data structures and also was the key in reducing the resident size of the kernel code even further - a particular requirement for the PDA market. On the other hand, introducing a genuine Current Directory Structure (CDS) imposed a limit on the depth of working directories down to 66 characters (as in MS-DOS/PC DOS), whereas previous issues of DR DOS had no such limitation due to their internal organization of directories as relative links to parent directories instead of as absolute paths. PalmDOS still reported itself as "PC DOS 3.31" to applications in order to keep the kernel small and not run into compatibility problems with Windows, which would expect the DOSMGR API to be implemented for any DOS version since 5.0.
As well as a ROM-executing kernel, PalmDOS had palmtop-type support for features such as PCMCIA PC Cards (with DPMS
support), Power Management (BatteryMAX
and the $IDLE$ device driver with its patented dynamic idle detection by Roger Gross and John Constant), MINIMAX task switcher support for PIM (Personal Information Modules) applications stored and executed from ROM via XIP (Execute In-Place), etc.
The PCMCIA stack for PalmDOS was partially written by Ian Cullimore
.
had bought Digital Research with a view to using DR's product line as a lever in their comprehensive strategy to break the Microsoft monopoly. (This was part of a massive and ultimately disastrous spending spree for Novell: they bought WordPerfect
Corporation at about the same time, some of Borland
's products, and invested heavily in Unix
as well.) The planned DR DOS 7.0, internally named "Panther", intended to trump Microsoft's troubled MS-DOS 6.0, was repeatedly delayed, while Novell was working on a Unix-like multi-user security extension (compatible with its Multiuser DOS) and two new graphical user interfaces (ViewMAX/3, a derivative of GEM, and "Star Trek
", a true port of Apple's Mac OS
7.1 to run under the new DR DOS multitasker named "Vladivar").
When DR DOS eventually arrived in December 1993 (with localized versions released in March 1994), renamed Novell DOS 7 (aka "NWDOS"), and without these three components, it was a disappointment to some. It was larger and introduced many new bugs, and the main functional addition was Novell's second attempt at a peer-to-peer networking system, Personal NetWare (PNW). This worked and was better than its predecessor, NetWare Lite (NWL), but it was incompatible with Microsoft's networking system, now growing popular with support in Windows for Workgroups, OS/2
and Windows NT
. A considerable amount of manual configuration was needed to get both to co-exist on the same PC, and Personal NetWare never achieved much success.
Since Novell DOS 7 implemented the DOSMGR API and internal data structures had been updated, its BDOS 7.2 kernel could report with a DOS version of 6.0 and OEM ID "IBM" without risking compatibility problems with Windows. Most tools would report this as "PC DOS 6.1", because IBM PC DOS 6.1 also reported as DOS 6.0 to applications.
Novell DOS 7 introduced much advanced memory management including new support for DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface
) and DPMS (DOS Protected Mode Services
) as well as more flexible loadhigh options. It also introduced support for "true" pre-emptive multitasking of multiple DOS applications in virtual DOS machines (VDM), similar to Multiuser DOS, but now on the basis of a natively DOS compatible environment, similar to Windows 386 Enhanced Mode without GUI. By default, the bundled TASKMGR would behave similar to the former DR DOS 6.0 TASKMAX. However, if EMM386 was loaded with the option /MULTI, EMM386 would load a natively 32-bit 386 Protected Mode operating system core providing API support for pre-emptive multitasking, multi-threading, hardware virtualization and domain management of virtual DOS machines. This API could be used by DR DOS-aware applications. If TASKMGR was run later on, it would use these APIs to instance the current 16-bit DOS system environment, create virtual DOS machines and run applications in them instead of using its own Real Mode task-switcher support. The multitasker was compatible with Windows, so that tasks started before launching Windows could be seen as tasks under Windows as well.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare 1.0 also shipped with NetWars
, a network-enabled 3D arcade game.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare required several bug-fix releases and were not completely stable when the next development occurred. With beta versions of Microsoft's "Chicago" (what would later become Windows 95) in sight, Novell wound down further development on Novell DOS 7 in September 1994 and stopped maintenance in January 1996 after more than 15 updates.
approached Novell looking for a DOS operating system to bundle with their OpenLinux distribution, Novell sold the product line off to Caldera on 23 July 1996, by which time it was of little commercial value to them.
Between the now-Caldera owned DR-DOS and competition from IBM's PC DOS 6.3, Microsoft moved to make it impossible to use or buy the subsequent Windows version, Windows 95
, with any DOS product other than their own. Claimed by them to be a purely technical change, this was later to be the subject of a major lawsuit brought in Salt Lake City by Caldera with the help of the Canopy Group
. Microsoft lawyers tried repeatedly to have the case thrown out but without success. Immediately after the completion of the pre-trial deposition stage (where the parties list the evidence they intend to present), there was an out-of-court settlement on 7 January 2000 for an undisclosed sum. This was revealed in November 2009 to be 280 million US dollars.
In August 1996, the US-based Caldera, Inc. was approached by Roger Gross, one of the original DR-DOS engineers, with a proposal to restart DR-DOS development and to make Windows 95 run on DR-DOS which would help the court case. Following a meeting in September 1996 in Lindon
, Utah, between Gross, Ransom Love
, Bryan Sparks and Ray Noorda, Gross was hired and tasked to set up a new subsidiary in the UK. On 10 September 1996, Caldera announced the coming release of OpenDOS and their intent to also release the source code to the system, and Caldera UK Ltd. (51.20531°N 1.478786°W) was incorporated on 20 September 1996. Gross hired some of the original developers of the operating system from the Novell EDC as well as some new talents to continue work on the operating system in a converted barn (51.188306°N 1.487498°W) at the periphery of Andover
, Hampshire, UK, nearby the former Digital Research and Novell EDC. Besides other improvements and enhancements all over the system, a string of new key features were added subsequently over the course of the next two years, including a TCP/IP stack (derived from NetWare Mobile / LAN Workplace for DOS), a graphical 32-bit DOS Protected Mode HTML 3.2 web-browser DR-WebSpyder (originally based on source code from the Arachne
web browser by Michal Polák) with LAN and modem dialup, a POSIX
Pthreads extension to the multi-tasker by Andy Wightman, long filename
(LONGNAME) support by Edward Hill as well as LBA
and FAT32 support (DRFAT32) by Matthias Paul. Gross also hired Andrew Schulman (who had been, with Geoff Chappell, instrumental in identifying the AARD code
in 1992) to work as a consultant and, in Andover, join Paul in his work on "WinGlue", a secret project to create a version of DR-DOS compatible with Windows 95, 98 and 98 SE and replace its MS-DOS 7.xx component. This was demonstrated at CeBIT
in March 1998, and later, in a small team, developed into "WinBolt", both versions of DR-DOS, which remained unreleased , but played an important role in the court case.
Caldera UK officially released Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 in February 1997, but this version was just Novell DOS 7 update 10 (as of December 1994) with a new name, missing a year's worth of patches which had been developed for the Novell DOS updates 11 (January 1995) to 15.2 (January 1996). This was due to parts of the Novell DOS sources having been lost at Novell meanwhile. Consequently, this version still reported an internal BDOS version of 7.2, identical to Novell DOS 7. The new suite also lacked the SETFIFO command, which had been added with one of the Novell DOS updates, as well as Fifth Generation's Search&Destroy virus scanner and Fast-Backup utility, which previously came bundled with Novell DOS. Instead it brought an advanced version of NetWars.
Parts of OpenDOS 7.01 were released as open source
in form of the M.R.S. kit (for Machine Readable Sources) in May 1997, but with licence terms mostly incompatible with existing open source licences. The source was then closed again as Gross felt this would undermine the commercial aspirations of the system.
After beta releases in September and November 1997, the next official release came in December 1997, with the name changed to Caldera DR-OpenDOS 7.02, soon followed by a further release in March 1998, when the DR-DOS name returned as Caldera DR-DOS 7.02, now for the first time written with a hyphen. Version 7.02 (now reporting itself as BDOS 7.3) incorporated improved BIOS and BDOS issues, developed by Paul, adding many new boot and configuration options, integrating many compatibility enhancements, bug-fixes and optimizations for size and speed, and re-implementing all fixes of the missing Novell DOS updates. The BIOS improved the coexistence of DR-DOS with Windows 9x and its support for third-party disk compression drivers such as Microsoft's DriveSpace. It introduced a diagnostics mode (activated by Scrollock), integrated debugger support (with DEBUG=ON and a debugger loaded before or from within CONFIG.SYS) and more flexible CONFIG.SYS tracing capabilities via the F5/F6/F7/F8 hotkeys and the TRACE and TIMEOUT commands, thereby also improving the integration of alternative command line shells such as 4DOS
. Together with LOADER, SYS /DR:ext and the CHAIN directive, it brought enhanced multi-configuration support for DR/D/CONFIG.ext files and came with enhancements to the BASIC-like CONFIG.SYS language for more powerful boot menus, convenient user interaction and programmatical acting upon conditions (CPU386), return codes and error levels (ERROR, ONERROR). It also allowed to change the SCROLLOCK, CAPSLOCK, INSERT and VERIFY settings as well as the SWITCHAR, YESCHAR, NOCHAR and RESUMECHAR characters. Various behavioural details could be controlled with new parameters /Q, /L, /Y and /S for SWITCHES. Further, it provided optional support for a LPT4: device and allowed to configure the built-in COMx: and LPTx: devices as well as to change the PRN: and AUX: defaults. The handling of environment variables in CONFIG.SYS was improved and new load-high facilities included such as the HIFILES/FILESHIGH and HIFCBS/FCBSHIGH options to relocate file handles and FCB structures into UMBs, which typically gave between 1 and 4 KB (and up to 15 KB) more free conventional memory compared to previous versions, or the HISHELL/SHELLHIGH SIZE directive to control the pre-allocation of HMA memory for COMMAND.COM, which helped to avoid memory fragmentation and thereby typically gave between 5 to 8 KB more continuous HMA memory for HMA-capable third-party drivers to work with in conjunction with third-party command line shells, which could not load into the HMA as COMMAND.COM with its /MH option. At a reduced memory footprint version 7.02 also brought an enhanced NLS 4.xx sub-system by Paul to allow multiple, distributed and possibly user-configured COUNTRY.SYS files to be used by the system at the same time in a hierarchical model. This also gave dynamic parser support for MS-DOS/PC DOS COUNTRY.SYS file formats in addition to DR-DOS' own COUNTRY.SYS formats, and it introduced support for the ISO 8601
international date format (including automatic detection) and the then-new Euro currency. DR-DOS 7.02 was fully Year 2000
compliant and provided special support to work with buggy system BIOSes. It also came with an updated FDISK, which could partition and format FAT32 volumes (but not yet work with LBA). The sources of the Novell patches for the external tools and drivers had meanwhile been found in Germany and could thus be retro-fitted into the system as well, so that DR-DOS 7.02 finally not only caught up with Novell DOS 7, but was a true step forward. The release was followed by various updates in June, August and September 1998.
The updated internal BDOS version number introduced the problem, that some legacy third-party applications with special support for Novell DOS stopped working, and updates to these programs could not be expected. SETVER already allowed to fake DOS versions by file name and globally, and specifying a magic sub-version of 255, it would even disable its own internal BDOS version check in order to cope with programs specifically probing for "DR-DOS". The modified kernel and SETVER driver by Paul would, in an hierarchical model, also support load paths in order to distinguish between multiple executables of the same file name, and it introduced an extended mode, in which SETVER could not only fake DOS versions, but also BDOS kernel versions. Sub-versions of 128 to 255 would be reported as DOS sub-versions 0 to 127 to applications, but with the BDOS version check disabled, while sub-versions 100 to 127 could be used to fake different BDOS versions, whereas the DOS revision number (typically set to 0 in a static, pre-boot patchable data structure) would be taken as the reported sub-version instead, so that SETVER /G /X 6.114 would allow versions of DR-DOS since 7.02 to still report themselves as a "DOS 6.0" and with a faked BDOS version 7.2 (114 decimal = 72 hexadecimal), thereby masquerading as Novell DOS 7 / OpenDOS 7.01.
While otherwise beneficial, the new HIFILES triggered a compatibility problem in the DOS-UP feature of the third-party memory manager QEMM 8, which was hard-wired to expect a chunk of five handle structures in conventional memory under DR-DOS (as with previous versions up to 7.01), whereas version 7.02 by design left eight handles in low memory when loading high files in order to maintain full compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx. Compatibility with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 had not been affected by this. A maintenance fix was devised to patch a single byte in IBMBIO.COM in order to switch the behaviour and optionally re-invoke the old chunking. This would free some 150 bytes of conventional memory and enable full compatibility with DOS-UP, but at the same time broke compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx when using the HIFILES feature, and vice-versa. The patch named IBMBIO85.SCR continued to work with newer versions of DR-DOS.
In August 1998, the US-based Caldera, Inc. created two new subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. for the Linux business, and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. for the embedded and thin-client market.
Another version, DR-DOS 7.03 (still with BDOS 7.3 and reporting itself to applications as "PC DOS 6.0" for compatibility purposes), was pre-released at Christmas 1998 and then officially released on 6 January 1999 by Caldera UK. It came with significantly improved memory managers (in particular enhanced DPMI support in conjunction with the multitasker) and other enhancements, such as added added DEVLOAD and DRMOUSE utilities. It would become the last version of DR-DOS also tailored for desktop use.
Caldera, Inc. wanted to relocate the DR-DOS business into the US and closed the successful UK operation in February 1999 after Gross resigned and joined Citrix UK in Cambridge. Development was then moved into the US (which never worked out due to a total lack of expertise in this field) and the DR-DOS line fell to its branch company, Caldera Thin Clients, which was renamed Lineo
, Inc. on 20 July 1999. DR-WebSpyder was renamed EmBrowser and was said to be ported to Linux. Lineo would re-release DR-DOS 7.03 in June and September 1999, still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS" and without any changes, but otherwise focus on Linux
for embedded systems, based on a stripped down version of OpenLinux named Embedix.
Among the latest and independently developed versions of DR-DOS were OEM DR-DOS 7.04 (as of 19 August 1999) and 7.05 (as of 30 November 1999), still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS". These were variants of the system consisting only of the kernel and command shell. With a specialized native implementation of FAT32 and large hard disk support they could be found bundled with Ontrack
's Easy Recovery 5 in 2000, replacing the dynamically loadable DRFAT32 redirector driver, which still came with Easy Recovery 4. They were also used for Seagate Technology
's SeaTools
and the CD imaging software Nero Burning ROM
. While still reporting a BDOS 7.3 internally, these were the first versions to report themselves as "PC DOS 7.10" to applications in order to indicate integrated FAT32 support. Designed to be mostly backwards compatible, the DR-DOS 7.04/7.05 IBMBIO.COM could be combined with the DR-DOS 7.03 IBMDOS.COM in order to give the desktop-approved DR-DOS 7.03 kernel LBA capabilities and work with drives larger than 8 GB. For specific OEM requirements, DR-DOS 7.06 by Wightman combined the kernel files into a single binary executable, so that, similar to IO.SYS of Windows 98, it could be booted by MS-DOS 7.10 boot sector
s (but no longer by DR-DOS boot sectors). DR-DOS 7.07 (with BDOS 7.4/7.7) by Paul introduced new bootstrap
loaders and updated disk tools in order to combine support for CHS
and LBA disk access, the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and the differing bootstrapping conventions of DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, REAL/32 and LOADER into a single MBR and boot sector, so that the code would continue to load any version of DR-DOS down to 3.31 (and since DR-DOS 7.04 also with FAT32 support), but could also be used to launch the PC DOS or MS-DOS system files, including those of Windows 9x and PC DOS 7.10. At the same time the kernel could not only be booted by the new sectors, but also by any previously DR-DOS formatted disks, as well as off disks with existing PC DOS or MS-DOS boot sectors and a variety of other boot-loaders, thereby easing the coexistence and setup of multi-boot scenarios in conjunction with other operating systems.
. They have continued to sell DR-DOS for use in embedded systems. DR-DOS 8.0 was released on 30 March 2004 featuring FAT32 and large disk support, the ability to boot from ROM or Flash, multitasking and a DPMI memory manager. This version was based on the kernel from version 7.03. The company then split into Devicelogics Inc. and DRDOS Inc, which released DR-DOS 8.1 (with better FAT32 support) in autumn 2005. This version was not based upon version 8.0, but was a complete rewrite. Both 8.0 and 8.1 were withdrawn because of the issues outlined below, and replaced with Caldera DR-DOS 7.03.
Aside from selling copies of the operating system, the DR DOS Inc. website lists a buyout option for DR-DOS; the asking price is $25,000.
The OpenDOS 7.01 source code was a base for The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project, set up in July 2002 in an attempt to bring the functionality of DR-DOS up to parity with modern PC non-Windows operating systems. The project's added native support for large disks (LBA
) and the FAT32
file system, and several other enhancements, including improved memory management and support for the new FAT+
file system extension which allows files of up to 256 GB in size on normal FAT
partitions. DR-DOS 7.01.08 was released on 21 July 2011.
and other sources and that the kernel was an outdated version of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel. DR DOS Inc. failed to comply with the GNU General Public License
(GPL) by not crediting the FreeDOS utilities to their authors and including the source code. After complaints from FreeDOS developers (including the suggestion to provide the source code, and hence comply with the GPL), DR DOS Inc. instead withdrew version 8.1, and also the unaffected 8.0, from their website.
DR-DOS (DR DOS, without hyphen up to including v6.0) is an MS-DOS
-compatible operating system
for IBM PC
-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research
and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86
. As ownership changed, various later versions were produced as Novell DOS, Caldera OpenDOS, etc.
for the 8-bit Intel 8080
and Z-80
based systems spawned numerous spin-off versions, most notably CP/M-86
for the Intel 8086
/8088
family of processors. Although CP/M had dominated the market, and was shipped with the vast majority of non-proprietary-architecture personal computers, the IBM PC in 1981 brought the beginning of what was eventually to be a massive change.
IBM
originally approached Digital Research, seeking an x86 version of CP/M. However, there were disagreements over the contract, and IBM withdrew. Instead, a deal was struck with Microsoft
, who purchased another operating system, 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. This became Microsoft MS-DOS
and IBM PC DOS. 86-DOS' command structure and application programming interface imitated that of CP/M. Digital Research threatened legal action, claiming PC DOS/MS-DOS to be too similar to CP/M. IBM settled by agreeing to sell their x86 version of CP/M, CP/M-86
, alongside PC DOS. However, PC DOS sold for $40, while CP/M-86 had a $240 price tag. The proportion of PC buyers prepared to spend four times as much to buy CP/M-86 was very small, and the availability of compatible application software, at first decisively in Digital Research's favor, was only temporary.
Digital Research fought a long losing battle to promote CP/M-86 and its multi-tasking multi-user successor Concurrent CP/M-86, and eventually decided that they could not beat the Microsoft-IBM lead in application software availability, so they modified Concurrent CP/M-86 to allow it to run the same applications as MS-DOS and PC DOS.
This was shown publically in December 1983 and shipped in March 1984 as Concurrent DOS 3.1 (aka CDOS with BDOS 3.1) to hardware vendors. While Concurrent DOS continued to evolve in various flavours over the years to eventually become Multiuser DOS
, it was not specifically tailored for the desktop market and too expensive for single-user applications. Therefore, over time two attempts were made to sideline the product.
Initially, Digital Research developed DOS Plus 1.2 to 2.1, a stripped-down and modified single-user derivative of Concurrent DOS 4.1 and 5.0, which ran applications for both platforms. It did not perform well, and Digital Research made another attempt, this time a native DOS system. This new disk operating system was launched in 1988 as DR DOS.
Although DRI was based in Pacific Grove
and later in Monterey
, California, USA, the work on DOS Plus started in Newbury
, Berkshire, UK, where Digital Research Europe had its OEM Support Group (51.40612°N 1.326374°W) located since 1983. Since 1986, most of the operating system work on Concurrent DOS 386 and XM, Multiuser DOS, DR DOS and PalmDOS was done in Digital Research's European Development Centre (EDC) (51.414478°N 1.512946°W and 51.420339°N 1.515223°W) in Hungerford, Berkshire, UK.
Although DR DOS offered some extended command line tools with command line help, verbose error messages, sophisticated command line history and editing (HISTORY directive) as well as support for file and directory passwords built right into the kernel, DR DOS was cheaper to license than MS-DOS. Also, DR DOS was ROMable right from the start. As a result, DRI was approached by a number of PC manufacturers who were interested in a third-party DOS, and this prompted several updates to the system.
At this time, MS-DOS was only available to OEMs bundled with hardware. Consequently, DR DOS achieved some immediate success when it became possible for consumers to buy it through normal retail channels since 3.4x.
Known versions are DR DOS 3.31 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-06, OEM only), 3.32 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-08-17, OEM only), 3.33 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-09-01, OEM only), 3.34 (OEM only), 3.35 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-10-21, OEM only), 3.40, 3.41 (BDOS 6.3, 1989-06, OEM and retail), most of them existed in several flavors for different OEMs. While most OEMs just kept the DR DOS name designation, one OEM version is known to be called EZ-DOS 3.41.
, a GEM
based GUI
file management shell, the patented BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
power management system, bundled disk-caching software, and also offers vastly improved memory management. For compatibility purposes, the DR DOS 5.0 system files were now named IBMBIO.COM (for the DOS-BIOS) and IBMDOS.COM (for the BDOS kernel), and the OEM label in boot sectors was changed to "IBM 3.3".
First, the DR DOS kernel and structures such as disk buffers can be located in the High Memory Area (HMA), the first 64 KB of extended memory which are accessible in real mode
due to an incomplete compatibility of the 80286 with earlier processors. This freed up the equivalent amount of critical "base" or conventional memory
, the first 640 KB of the PC's RAM – the area in which all MS-DOS applications run.
Additionally, on Intel 80386
machines, DR DOS's EMS memory manager allowed the OS to load DOS device drivers into upper memory blocks, further freeing base memory. For more information on this, see the article on the Upper Memory Area
(UMA).
DR DOS 5.0 was the first DOS to integrate such functionality into the base OS (loading device drivers into upper memory blocks was possible using third-party software like QEMM
). As such, on a 386 system, it could offer vastly more free conventional memory than any other DOS. Once drivers for a mouse, multimedia hardware and a network stack were loaded, an MS-DOS machine typically might only have 300 to 400 KB of free conventional memory – too little to run most late-1980s software. DR DOS 5.0, with a small amount of manual tweaking, could load all this and still keep all of its conventional memory free – allowing for some necessary DOS data structures, as much as 620 KB out of the 640 KB.
Because DR DOS left so much conventional memory available, some old programs utilizing certain address wrapping techniques failed to run properly as they were now loaded unexpectedly (or, under MS-DOS, "impossibly") low in memory – inside the first 64 KB segment (known as "low memory"). Therefore, DR DOS 5.0's new MEMMAX -L command worked around this by pre-allocating a chunk of memory at the start of the memory map in order for programs to load above this barrier (but with less usable conventional memory then). By default, MEMMAX was configured for +L, so that applications could take advantage of the extra memory.
responded with an announcement of a yet-to-be released MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This would be released in June 1991 and include similar advanced features to those of DR DOS. It included matches of the DR's enhancements in memory management.
Almost immediately in September 1991, Digital Research responded with DR DOS 6.0, code-named "Buxton". DR DOS 6.0, while already at BDOS level 6.7 internally, would still report itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31" to normal DOS applications for compatibility purposes.
This bundled in SuperStor on-the-fly disk compression, to maximize available hard disk space, and file deletion tracking and undelete functionality by Roger Gross.
DR DOS 6.0 also includes a task-switcher named TASKMAX, supporting the industry standard task-switching API to run multiple applications at the same time. In contrast to Digital Research's Multiuser DOS (successor of Concurrent DOS in the multi-user products line), which would run DOS applications in pre-emptively multitasked virtual DOS machines, the DR DOS 6.0 task switcher would freeze background applications until brought back into the foreground. While it runs on x86-machines, it is able to swap to XMS memory on 286+ machines. TASKMAX did support some Copy & Paste facility between applications.
Via the task-switcher API graphical user interfaces such as ViewMAX
or PC/GEOS could register as task manager menu and thereby replace the TASKMAX text mode menu, so that users could switch between tasks from within a GUI.
Microsoft responded with MS-DOS 6.0, which again matched some features of DR DOS 6.0.
Since December 1991 a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was designed to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. This check came to be known as the AARD code
. With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1
PalmDOS was the first operating system in the family to sport the new BDOS 7.0 kernel with native DOS compatible internal data structures instead of emulations thereof. Replacing the DOS emulation on top of a CP/M kernel by a true DOS compatible kernel helped a lot in improving compatibility with some applications using some of DOS' internal data structures and also was the key in reducing the resident size of the kernel code even further - a particular requirement for the PDA market. On the other hand, introducing a genuine Current Directory Structure (CDS) imposed a limit on the depth of working directories down to 66 characters (as in MS-DOS/PC DOS), whereas previous issues of DR DOS had no such limitation due to their internal organization of directories as relative links to parent directories instead of as absolute paths. PalmDOS still reported itself as "PC DOS 3.31" to applications in order to keep the kernel small and not run into compatibility problems with Windows, which would expect the DOSMGR API to be implemented for any DOS version since 5.0.
As well as a ROM-executing kernel, PalmDOS had palmtop-type support for features such as PCMCIA PC Cards (with DPMS
support), Power Management (BatteryMAX
and the $IDLE$ device driver with its patented dynamic idle detection by Roger Gross and John Constant), MINIMAX task switcher support for PIM (Personal Information Modules) applications stored and executed from ROM via XIP (Execute In-Place), etc.
The PCMCIA stack for PalmDOS was partially written by Ian Cullimore
.
had bought Digital Research with a view to using DR's product line as a lever in their comprehensive strategy to break the Microsoft monopoly. (This was part of a massive and ultimately disastrous spending spree for Novell: they bought WordPerfect
Corporation at about the same time, some of Borland
's products, and invested heavily in Unix
as well.) The planned DR DOS 7.0, internally named "Panther", intended to trump Microsoft's troubled MS-DOS 6.0, was repeatedly delayed, while Novell was working on a Unix-like multi-user security extension (compatible with its Multiuser DOS) and two new graphical user interfaces (ViewMAX/3, a derivative of GEM, and "Star Trek
", a true port of Apple's Mac OS
7.1 to run under the new DR DOS multitasker named "Vladivar").
When DR DOS eventually arrived in December 1993 (with localized versions released in March 1994), renamed Novell DOS 7 (aka "NWDOS"), and without these three components, it was a disappointment to some. It was larger and introduced many new bugs, and the main functional addition was Novell's second attempt at a peer-to-peer networking system, Personal NetWare (PNW). This worked and was better than its predecessor, NetWare Lite (NWL), but it was incompatible with Microsoft's networking system, now growing popular with support in Windows for Workgroups, OS/2
and Windows NT
. A considerable amount of manual configuration was needed to get both to co-exist on the same PC, and Personal NetWare never achieved much success.
Since Novell DOS 7 implemented the DOSMGR API and internal data structures had been updated, its BDOS 7.2 kernel could report with a DOS version of 6.0 and OEM ID "IBM" without risking compatibility problems with Windows. Most tools would report this as "PC DOS 6.1", because IBM PC DOS 6.1 also reported as DOS 6.0 to applications.
Novell DOS 7 introduced much advanced memory management including new support for DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface
) and DPMS (DOS Protected Mode Services
) as well as more flexible loadhigh options. It also introduced support for "true" pre-emptive multitasking of multiple DOS applications in virtual DOS machines (VDM), similar to Multiuser DOS, but now on the basis of a natively DOS compatible environment, similar to Windows 386 Enhanced Mode without GUI. By default, the bundled TASKMGR would behave similar to the former DR DOS 6.0 TASKMAX. However, if EMM386 was loaded with the option /MULTI, EMM386 would load a natively 32-bit 386 Protected Mode operating system core providing API support for pre-emptive multitasking, multi-threading, hardware virtualization and domain management of virtual DOS machines. This API could be used by DR DOS-aware applications. If TASKMGR was run later on, it would use these APIs to instance the current 16-bit DOS system environment, create virtual DOS machines and run applications in them instead of using its own Real Mode task-switcher support. The multitasker was compatible with Windows, so that tasks started before launching Windows could be seen as tasks under Windows as well.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare 1.0 also shipped with NetWars
, a network-enabled 3D arcade game.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare required several bug-fix releases and were not completely stable when the next development occurred. With beta versions of Microsoft's "Chicago" (what would later become Windows 95) in sight, Novell wound down further development on Novell DOS 7 in September 1994 and stopped maintenance in January 1996 after more than 15 updates.
approached Novell looking for a DOS operating system to bundle with their OpenLinux distribution, Novell sold the product line off to Caldera on 23 July 1996, by which time it was of little commercial value to them.
Between the now-Caldera owned DR-DOS and competition from IBM's PC DOS 6.3, Microsoft moved to make it impossible to use or buy the subsequent Windows version, Windows 95
, with any DOS product other than their own. Claimed by them to be a purely technical change, this was later to be the subject of a major lawsuit brought in Salt Lake City by Caldera with the help of the Canopy Group
. Microsoft lawyers tried repeatedly to have the case thrown out but without success. Immediately after the completion of the pre-trial deposition stage (where the parties list the evidence they intend to present), there was an out-of-court settlement on 7 January 2000 for an undisclosed sum. This was revealed in November 2009 to be 280 million US dollars.
In August 1996, the US-based Caldera, Inc. was approached by Roger Gross, one of the original DR-DOS engineers, with a proposal to restart DR-DOS development and to make Windows 95 run on DR-DOS which would help the court case. Following a meeting in September 1996 in Lindon
, Utah, between Gross, Ransom Love
, Bryan Sparks and Ray Noorda, Gross was hired and tasked to set up a new subsidiary in the UK. On 10 September 1996, Caldera announced the coming release of OpenDOS and their intent to also release the source code to the system, and Caldera UK Ltd. (51.20531°N 1.478786°W) was incorporated on 20 September 1996. Gross hired some of the original developers of the operating system from the Novell EDC as well as some new talents to continue work on the operating system in a converted barn (51.188306°N 1.487498°W) at the periphery of Andover
, Hampshire, UK, nearby the former Digital Research and Novell EDC. Besides other improvements and enhancements all over the system, a string of new key features were added subsequently over the course of the next two years, including a TCP/IP stack (derived from NetWare Mobile / LAN Workplace for DOS), a graphical 32-bit DOS Protected Mode HTML 3.2 web-browser DR-WebSpyder (originally based on source code from the Arachne
web browser by Michal Polák) with LAN and modem dialup, a POSIX
Pthreads extension to the multi-tasker by Andy Wightman, long filename
(LONGNAME) support by Edward Hill as well as LBA
and FAT32 support (DRFAT32) by Matthias Paul. Gross also hired Andrew Schulman (who had been, with Geoff Chappell, instrumental in identifying the AARD code
in 1992) to work as a consultant and, in Andover, join Paul in his work on "WinGlue", a secret project to create a version of DR-DOS compatible with Windows 95, 98 and 98 SE and replace its MS-DOS 7.xx component. This was demonstrated at CeBIT
in March 1998, and later, in a small team, developed into "WinBolt", both versions of DR-DOS, which remained unreleased , but played an important role in the court case.
Caldera UK officially released Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 in February 1997, but this version was just Novell DOS 7 update 10 (as of December 1994) with a new name, missing a year's worth of patches which had been developed for the Novell DOS updates 11 (January 1995) to 15.2 (January 1996). This was due to parts of the Novell DOS sources having been lost at Novell meanwhile. Consequently, this version still reported an internal BDOS version of 7.2, identical to Novell DOS 7. The new suite also lacked the SETFIFO command, which had been added with one of the Novell DOS updates, as well as Fifth Generation's Search&Destroy virus scanner and Fast-Backup utility, which previously came bundled with Novell DOS. Instead it brought an advanced version of NetWars.
Parts of OpenDOS 7.01 were released as open source
in form of the M.R.S. kit (for Machine Readable Sources) in May 1997, but with licence terms mostly incompatible with existing open source licences. The source was then closed again as Gross felt this would undermine the commercial aspirations of the system.
After beta releases in September and November 1997, the next official release came in December 1997, with the name changed to Caldera DR-OpenDOS 7.02, soon followed by a further release in March 1998, when the DR-DOS name returned as Caldera DR-DOS 7.02, now for the first time written with a hyphen. Version 7.02 (now reporting itself as BDOS 7.3) incorporated improved BIOS and BDOS issues, developed by Paul, adding many new boot and configuration options, integrating many compatibility enhancements, bug-fixes and optimizations for size and speed, and re-implementing all fixes of the missing Novell DOS updates. The BIOS improved the coexistence of DR-DOS with Windows 9x and its support for third-party disk compression drivers such as Microsoft's DriveSpace. It introduced a diagnostics mode (activated by Scrollock), integrated debugger support (with DEBUG=ON and a debugger loaded before or from within CONFIG.SYS) and more flexible CONFIG.SYS tracing capabilities via the F5/F6/F7/F8 hotkeys and the TRACE and TIMEOUT commands, thereby also improving the integration of alternative command line shells such as 4DOS
. Together with LOADER, SYS /DR:ext and the CHAIN directive, it brought enhanced multi-configuration support for DR/D/CONFIG.ext files and came with enhancements to the BASIC-like CONFIG.SYS language for more powerful boot menus, convenient user interaction and programmatical acting upon conditions (CPU386), return codes and error levels (ERROR, ONERROR). It also allowed to change the SCROLLOCK, CAPSLOCK, INSERT and VERIFY settings as well as the SWITCHAR, YESCHAR, NOCHAR and RESUMECHAR characters. Various behavioural details could be controlled with new parameters /Q, /L, /Y and /S for SWITCHES. Further, it provided optional support for a LPT4: device and allowed to configure the built-in COMx: and LPTx: devices as well as to change the PRN: and AUX: defaults. The handling of environment variables in CONFIG.SYS was improved and new load-high facilities included such as the HIFILES/FILESHIGH and HIFCBS/FCBSHIGH options to relocate file handles and FCB structures into UMBs, which typically gave between 1 and 4 KB (and up to 15 KB) more free conventional memory compared to previous versions, or the HISHELL/SHELLHIGH SIZE directive to control the pre-allocation of HMA memory for COMMAND.COM, which helped to avoid memory fragmentation and thereby typically gave between 5 to 8 KB more continuous HMA memory for HMA-capable third-party drivers to work with in conjunction with third-party command line shells, which could not load into the HMA as COMMAND.COM with its /MH option. At a reduced memory footprint version 7.02 also brought an enhanced NLS 4.xx sub-system by Paul to allow multiple, distributed and possibly user-configured COUNTRY.SYS files to be used by the system at the same time in a hierarchical model. This also gave dynamic parser support for MS-DOS/PC DOS COUNTRY.SYS file formats in addition to DR-DOS' own COUNTRY.SYS formats, and it introduced support for the ISO 8601
international date format (including automatic detection) and the then-new Euro currency. DR-DOS 7.02 was fully Year 2000
compliant and provided special support to work with buggy system BIOSes. It also came with an updated FDISK, which could partition and format FAT32 volumes (but not yet work with LBA). The sources of the Novell patches for the external tools and drivers had meanwhile been found in Germany and could thus be retro-fitted into the system as well, so that DR-DOS 7.02 finally not only caught up with Novell DOS 7, but was a true step forward. The release was followed by various updates in June, August and September 1998.
The updated internal BDOS version number introduced the problem, that some legacy third-party applications with special support for Novell DOS stopped working, and updates to these programs could not be expected. SETVER already allowed to fake DOS versions by file name and globally, and specifying a magic sub-version of 255, it would even disable its own internal BDOS version check in order to cope with programs specifically probing for "DR-DOS". The modified kernel and SETVER driver by Paul would, in an hierarchical model, also support load paths in order to distinguish between multiple executables of the same file name, and it introduced an extended mode, in which SETVER could not only fake DOS versions, but also BDOS kernel versions. Sub-versions of 128 to 255 would be reported as DOS sub-versions 0 to 127 to applications, but with the BDOS version check disabled, while sub-versions 100 to 127 could be used to fake different BDOS versions, whereas the DOS revision number (typically set to 0 in a static, pre-boot patchable data structure) would be taken as the reported sub-version instead, so that SETVER /G /X 6.114 would allow versions of DR-DOS since 7.02 to still report themselves as a "DOS 6.0" and with a faked BDOS version 7.2 (114 decimal = 72 hexadecimal), thereby masquerading as Novell DOS 7 / OpenDOS 7.01.
While otherwise beneficial, the new HIFILES triggered a compatibility problem in the DOS-UP feature of the third-party memory manager QEMM 8, which was hard-wired to expect a chunk of five handle structures in conventional memory under DR-DOS (as with previous versions up to 7.01), whereas version 7.02 by design left eight handles in low memory when loading high files in order to maintain full compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx. Compatibility with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 had not been affected by this. A maintenance fix was devised to patch a single byte in IBMBIO.COM in order to switch the behaviour and optionally re-invoke the old chunking. This would free some 150 bytes of conventional memory and enable full compatibility with DOS-UP, but at the same time broke compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx when using the HIFILES feature, and vice-versa. The patch named IBMBIO85.SCR continued to work with newer versions of DR-DOS.
In August 1998, the US-based Caldera, Inc. created two new subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. for the Linux business, and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. for the embedded and thin-client market.
Another version, DR-DOS 7.03 (still with BDOS 7.3 and reporting itself to applications as "PC DOS 6.0" for compatibility purposes), was pre-released at Christmas 1998 and then officially released on 6 January 1999 by Caldera UK. It came with significantly improved memory managers (in particular enhanced DPMI support in conjunction with the multitasker) and other enhancements, such as added added DEVLOAD and DRMOUSE utilities. It would become the last version of DR-DOS also tailored for desktop use.
Caldera, Inc. wanted to relocate the DR-DOS business into the US and closed the successful UK operation in February 1999 after Gross resigned and joined Citrix UK in Cambridge. Development was then moved into the US (which never worked out due to a total lack of expertise in this field) and the DR-DOS line fell to its branch company, Caldera Thin Clients, which was renamed Lineo
, Inc. on 20 July 1999. DR-WebSpyder was renamed EmBrowser and was said to be ported to Linux. Lineo would re-release DR-DOS 7.03 in June and September 1999, still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS" and without any changes, but otherwise focus on Linux
for embedded systems, based on a stripped down version of OpenLinux named Embedix.
Among the latest and independently developed versions of DR-DOS were OEM DR-DOS 7.04 (as of 19 August 1999) and 7.05 (as of 30 November 1999), still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS". These were variants of the system consisting only of the kernel and command shell. With a specialized native implementation of FAT32 and large hard disk support they could be found bundled with Ontrack
's Easy Recovery 5 in 2000, replacing the dynamically loadable DRFAT32 redirector driver, which still came with Easy Recovery 4. They were also used for Seagate Technology
's SeaTools
and the CD imaging software Nero Burning ROM
. While still reporting a BDOS 7.3 internally, these were the first versions to report themselves as "PC DOS 7.10" to applications in order to indicate integrated FAT32 support. Designed to be mostly backwards compatible, the DR-DOS 7.04/7.05 IBMBIO.COM could be combined with the DR-DOS 7.03 IBMDOS.COM in order to give the desktop-approved DR-DOS 7.03 kernel LBA capabilities and work with drives larger than 8 GB. For specific OEM requirements, DR-DOS 7.06 by Wightman combined the kernel files into a single binary executable, so that, similar to IO.SYS of Windows 98, it could be booted by MS-DOS 7.10 boot sector
s (but no longer by DR-DOS boot sectors). DR-DOS 7.07 (with BDOS 7.4/7.7) by Paul introduced new bootstrap
loaders and updated disk tools in order to combine support for CHS
and LBA disk access, the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and the differing bootstrapping conventions of DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, REAL/32 and LOADER into a single MBR and boot sector, so that the code would continue to load any version of DR-DOS down to 3.31 (and since DR-DOS 7.04 also with FAT32 support), but could also be used to launch the PC DOS or MS-DOS system files, including those of Windows 9x and PC DOS 7.10. At the same time the kernel could not only be booted by the new sectors, but also by any previously DR-DOS formatted disks, as well as off disks with existing PC DOS or MS-DOS boot sectors and a variety of other boot-loaders, thereby easing the coexistence and setup of multi-boot scenarios in conjunction with other operating systems.
. They have continued to sell DR-DOS for use in embedded systems. DR-DOS 8.0 was released on 30 March 2004 featuring FAT32 and large disk support, the ability to boot from ROM or Flash, multitasking and a DPMI memory manager. This version was based on the kernel from version 7.03. The company then split into Devicelogics Inc. and DRDOS Inc, which released DR-DOS 8.1 (with better FAT32 support) in autumn 2005. This version was not based upon version 8.0, but was a complete rewrite. Both 8.0 and 8.1 were withdrawn because of the issues outlined below, and replaced with Caldera DR-DOS 7.03.
Aside from selling copies of the operating system, the DR DOS Inc. website lists a buyout option for DR-DOS; the asking price is $25,000.
The OpenDOS 7.01 source code was a base for The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project, set up in July 2002 in an attempt to bring the functionality of DR-DOS up to parity with modern PC non-Windows operating systems. The project's added native support for large disks (LBA
) and the FAT32
file system, and several other enhancements, including improved memory management and support for the new FAT+
file system extension which allows files of up to 256 GB in size on normal FAT
partitions. DR-DOS 7.01.08 was released on 21 July 2011.
and other sources and that the kernel was an outdated version of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel. DR DOS Inc. failed to comply with the GNU General Public License
(GPL) by not crediting the FreeDOS utilities to their authors and including the source code. After complaints from FreeDOS developers (including the suggestion to provide the source code, and hence comply with the GPL), DR DOS Inc. instead withdrew version 8.1, and also the unaffected 8.0, from their website.
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
-compatible 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...
for IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research
Digital Research
Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
. As ownership changed, various later versions were produced as Novell DOS, Caldera OpenDOS, etc.
Origins in CP/M
Digital Research's original CP/MCP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
for the 8-bit Intel 8080
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility...
and Z-80
Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
based systems spawned numerous spin-off versions, most notably CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
for the Intel 8086
Intel 8086
The 8086 is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and mid-1978, when it was released. The 8086 gave rise to the x86 architecture of Intel's future processors...
/8088
Intel 8088
The Intel 8088 microprocessor was a variant of the Intel 8086 and was introduced on July 1, 1979. It had an 8-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and the one megabyte address range were unchanged, however...
family of processors. Although CP/M had dominated the market, and was shipped with the vast majority of non-proprietary-architecture personal computers, the IBM PC in 1981 brought the beginning of what was eventually to be a massive change.
IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
originally approached Digital Research, seeking an x86 version of CP/M. However, there were disagreements over the contract, and IBM withdrew. Instead, a deal was struck with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, who purchased another operating system, 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. This became Microsoft MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
and IBM PC DOS. 86-DOS' command structure and application programming interface imitated that of CP/M. Digital Research threatened legal action, claiming PC DOS/MS-DOS to be too similar to CP/M. IBM settled by agreeing to sell their x86 version of CP/M, CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
, alongside PC DOS. However, PC DOS sold for $40, while CP/M-86 had a $240 price tag. The proportion of PC buyers prepared to spend four times as much to buy CP/M-86 was very small, and the availability of compatible application software, at first decisively in Digital Research's favor, was only temporary.
Digital Research fought a long losing battle to promote CP/M-86 and its multi-tasking multi-user successor Concurrent CP/M-86, and eventually decided that they could not beat the Microsoft-IBM lead in application software availability, so they modified Concurrent CP/M-86 to allow it to run the same applications as MS-DOS and PC DOS.
This was shown publically in December 1983 and shipped in March 1984 as Concurrent DOS 3.1 (aka CDOS with BDOS 3.1) to hardware vendors. While Concurrent DOS continued to evolve in various flavours over the years to eventually become Multiuser DOS
Multiuser DOS
Multiuser DOS is a soft real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86 and Concurrent DOS operating systems, it was originally developed by Digital Research and later further developed by Novell...
, it was not specifically tailored for the desktop market and too expensive for single-user applications. Therefore, over time two attempts were made to sideline the product.
Initially, Digital Research developed DOS Plus 1.2 to 2.1, a stripped-down and modified single-user derivative of Concurrent DOS 4.1 and 5.0, which ran applications for both platforms. It did not perform well, and Digital Research made another attempt, this time a native DOS system. This new disk operating system was launched in 1988 as DR DOS.
Although DRI was based in Pacific Grove
Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...
and later in Monterey
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
, California, USA, the work on DOS Plus started in Newbury
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
, Berkshire, UK, where Digital Research Europe had its OEM Support Group (51.40612°N 1.326374°W) located since 1983. Since 1986, most of the operating system work on Concurrent DOS 386 and XM, Multiuser DOS, DR DOS and PalmDOS was done in Digital Research's European Development Centre (EDC) (51.414478°N 1.512946°W and 51.420339°N 1.515223°W) in Hungerford, Berkshire, UK.
First DR DOS version
As requested by several OEMs Digital Research started to plan develop a new DOS operating system addressing the shortcomings left by MS-DOS in 1987. The first DR DOS version was released on 28 May 1988. Version numbers were chosen to reflect features relative to MS-DOS; the first version promoted to the public was DR DOS 3.31, which offered features comparable to Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 with large disk support (FAT16B aka "BIGDOS"). DR DOS 3.31 reported itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31", while the internal BDOS (Basic Disk Operating System) kernel version was reported as 6.0, single-user nature, reflecting its origin as derivative of Concurrent DOS 6.0 with the multitasking and multiuser capabilities as well as CP/M API support stripped out and the XIOS replaced by an IBM-compatible DOS-BIOS. The system files were named DRBIOS.SYS (for the DOS-BIOS) and DRBDOS.SYS (for the BDOS kernel), the disk OEM label used was "DIGITAL ".Although DR DOS offered some extended command line tools with command line help, verbose error messages, sophisticated command line history and editing (HISTORY directive) as well as support for file and directory passwords built right into the kernel, DR DOS was cheaper to license than MS-DOS. Also, DR DOS was ROMable right from the start. As a result, DRI was approached by a number of PC manufacturers who were interested in a third-party DOS, and this prompted several updates to the system.
At this time, MS-DOS was only available to OEMs bundled with hardware. Consequently, DR DOS achieved some immediate success when it became possible for consumers to buy it through normal retail channels since 3.4x.
Known versions are DR DOS 3.31 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-06, OEM only), 3.32 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-08-17, OEM only), 3.33 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-09-01, OEM only), 3.34 (OEM only), 3.35 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-10-21, OEM only), 3.40, 3.41 (BDOS 6.3, 1989-06, OEM and retail), most of them existed in several flavors for different OEMs. While most OEMs just kept the DR DOS name designation, one OEM version is known to be called EZ-DOS 3.41.
Version 5.0
DR DOS version 5.0 (code-named "Leopard") was released in May 1990, still reporting itself as "PC DOS 3.31" for compatibility purposes, but internally indicating a single-user BDOS 6.4 kernel. (Version 4 was skipped to avoid being associated with the relatively unpopular MS-DOS 4.0.) This introduced ViewMAXViewMAX
ViewMAX is the file manager supplied with DR DOS versions 5.0 and 6.0. It is based on a cut-down version of the GEM GUI.-Versions:ViewMAX/1 was distributed with DR DOS 5.0. It had a very similar appearance to previous GEM desktops – two fixed-size windows...
, a GEM
Graphical Environment Manager
GEM was a windowing system created by Digital Research, Inc. for use with the CP/M operating system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors...
based GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
file management shell, the patented BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax is an Idle Detection System used for computer power management developed at Digital Research, Inc.'s European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK. It was invented by British borne engineers Roger Gross and John Constant in August 1989 and was first released with...
power management system, bundled disk-caching software, and also offers vastly improved memory management. For compatibility purposes, the DR DOS 5.0 system files were now named IBMBIO.COM (for the DOS-BIOS) and IBMDOS.COM (for the BDOS kernel), and the OEM label in boot sectors was changed to "IBM 3.3".
First, the DR DOS kernel and structures such as disk buffers can be located in the High Memory Area (HMA), the first 64 KB of extended memory which are accessible in real mode
Real mode
Real mode, also called real address mode, is an operating mode of 80286 and later x86-compatible CPUs. Real mode is characterized by a 20 bit segmented memory address space and unlimited direct software access to all memory, I/O addresses and peripheral hardware...
due to an incomplete compatibility of the 80286 with earlier processors. This freed up the equivalent amount of critical "base" or conventional memory
Conventional memory
In DOS memory management, conventional memory, also called base memory, is the first 640 kilobytes of the memory on IBM PC or compatible systems. It is the read-write memory usable by the operating system and application programs...
, the first 640 KB of the PC's RAM – the area in which all MS-DOS applications run.
Additionally, on Intel 80386
Intel 80386
The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...
machines, DR DOS's EMS memory manager allowed the OS to load DOS device drivers into upper memory blocks, further freeing base memory. For more information on this, see the article on the Upper Memory Area
Upper Memory Area
In DOS memory management, the upper memory area refers to memory between the addresses of 640 KB and 1024 KB in an IBM PC or compatible. IBM reserved the uppermost 384 KB of the 8088 CPU's 1024 KB address space for ROM, RAM on peripherals, and memory-mapped input/output...
(UMA).
DR DOS 5.0 was the first DOS to integrate such functionality into the base OS (loading device drivers into upper memory blocks was possible using third-party software like QEMM
QEMM
Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager , was a memory manager produced by Quarterdeck Office Systems in the late 1980s through late 1990s. It was the most popular memory manager for the MS-DOS and other DOS operating systems.-QEMM product ranges:QRAM: A memory manager for 286 or higher CPU. It...
). As such, on a 386 system, it could offer vastly more free conventional memory than any other DOS. Once drivers for a mouse, multimedia hardware and a network stack were loaded, an MS-DOS machine typically might only have 300 to 400 KB of free conventional memory – too little to run most late-1980s software. DR DOS 5.0, with a small amount of manual tweaking, could load all this and still keep all of its conventional memory free – allowing for some necessary DOS data structures, as much as 620 KB out of the 640 KB.
Because DR DOS left so much conventional memory available, some old programs utilizing certain address wrapping techniques failed to run properly as they were now loaded unexpectedly (or, under MS-DOS, "impossibly") low in memory – inside the first 64 KB segment (known as "low memory"). Therefore, DR DOS 5.0's new MEMMAX -L command worked around this by pre-allocating a chunk of memory at the start of the memory map in order for programs to load above this barrier (but with less usable conventional memory then). By default, MEMMAX was configured for +L, so that applications could take advantage of the extra memory.
Competition from Microsoft
Faced with substantial competition in the DOS arena, MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
responded with an announcement of a yet-to-be released MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This would be released in June 1991 and include similar advanced features to those of DR DOS. It included matches of the DR's enhancements in memory management.
Almost immediately in September 1991, Digital Research responded with DR DOS 6.0, code-named "Buxton". DR DOS 6.0, while already at BDOS level 6.7 internally, would still report itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31" to normal DOS applications for compatibility purposes.
This bundled in SuperStor on-the-fly disk compression, to maximize available hard disk space, and file deletion tracking and undelete functionality by Roger Gross.
DR DOS 6.0 also includes a task-switcher named TASKMAX, supporting the industry standard task-switching API to run multiple applications at the same time. In contrast to Digital Research's Multiuser DOS (successor of Concurrent DOS in the multi-user products line), which would run DOS applications in pre-emptively multitasked virtual DOS machines, the DR DOS 6.0 task switcher would freeze background applications until brought back into the foreground. While it runs on x86-machines, it is able to swap to XMS memory on 286+ machines. TASKMAX did support some Copy & Paste facility between applications.
Via the task-switcher API graphical user interfaces such as ViewMAX
ViewMAX
ViewMAX is the file manager supplied with DR DOS versions 5.0 and 6.0. It is based on a cut-down version of the GEM GUI.-Versions:ViewMAX/1 was distributed with DR DOS 5.0. It had a very similar appearance to previous GEM desktops – two fixed-size windows...
or PC/GEOS could register as task manager menu and thereby replace the TASKMAX text mode menu, so that users could switch between tasks from within a GUI.
Microsoft responded with MS-DOS 6.0, which again matched some features of DR DOS 6.0.
Since December 1991 a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was designed to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. This check came to be known as the AARD code
AARD code
The AARD code was a segment of obfuscated machine code that is included in several executables, including the installer and WIN.COM, in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1. It was a block of code which was XOR encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated, using various undocumented...
. With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1
Patching to counter Microsoft
It was a simple matter for Digital Research to patch DR DOS 6.0 to circumvent the AARD 'authenticity check' in Windows 3.1 beta by rearranging the order to two internal tables in memory (with no changes in functionality), and the patched version was on the streets within six weeks of the release of Windows 3.1. With improved marketing and packaging, very advanced memory management, disk compression and the Super PC-Kwik caching software, DR DOS 6.0 was an outstanding value and easily the most successful version.PalmDOS
In 1992 Digital Research, still under its old name but already bought by Novell in July 1991, also embarked on a spin-off product code-named "Merlin" and later released as NetWare PalmDOS 1, which, as its name implies, was a very resource light DR DOS 6.0 derivative aimed at the emerging Palmtop/PDA market.PalmDOS was the first operating system in the family to sport the new BDOS 7.0 kernel with native DOS compatible internal data structures instead of emulations thereof. Replacing the DOS emulation on top of a CP/M kernel by a true DOS compatible kernel helped a lot in improving compatibility with some applications using some of DOS' internal data structures and also was the key in reducing the resident size of the kernel code even further - a particular requirement for the PDA market. On the other hand, introducing a genuine Current Directory Structure (CDS) imposed a limit on the depth of working directories down to 66 characters (as in MS-DOS/PC DOS), whereas previous issues of DR DOS had no such limitation due to their internal organization of directories as relative links to parent directories instead of as absolute paths. PalmDOS still reported itself as "PC DOS 3.31" to applications in order to keep the kernel small and not run into compatibility problems with Windows, which would expect the DOSMGR API to be implemented for any DOS version since 5.0.
As well as a ROM-executing kernel, PalmDOS had palmtop-type support for features such as PCMCIA PC Cards (with DPMS
DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode....
support), Power Management (BatteryMAX
BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax is an Idle Detection System used for computer power management developed at Digital Research, Inc.'s European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK. It was invented by British borne engineers Roger Gross and John Constant in August 1989 and was first released with...
and the $IDLE$ device driver with its patented dynamic idle detection by Roger Gross and John Constant), MINIMAX task switcher support for PIM (Personal Information Modules) applications stored and executed from ROM via XIP (Execute In-Place), etc.
The PCMCIA stack for PalmDOS was partially written by Ian Cullimore
Ian Cullimore
Ian Cullimore is an English-born mathematician and computer scientist who has been influential in the pocket PC arena.-Biography:Cullimore has a degree in Mathematics from King's College London, and a PhD in Cognitive and Computer Science from the University of Sussex.He was the original founder ...
.
Contribution by Novell
NovellNovell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
had bought Digital Research with a view to using DR's product line as a lever in their comprehensive strategy to break the Microsoft monopoly. (This was part of a massive and ultimately disastrous spending spree for Novell: they bought WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
Corporation at about the same time, some of Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
's products, and invested heavily in Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
as well.) The planned DR DOS 7.0, internally named "Panther", intended to trump Microsoft's troubled MS-DOS 6.0, was repeatedly delayed, while Novell was working on a Unix-like multi-user security extension (compatible with its Multiuser DOS) and two new graphical user interfaces (ViewMAX/3, a derivative of GEM, and "Star Trek
Star Trek project
Star Trek was the code name given to a prototype project at Apple Computer and Novell during 1992 and 1993. The project was named after the Star Trek science fiction franchise with the slogan "To boldly go where no Mac has gone before."...
", a true port of Apple's Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
7.1 to run under the new DR DOS multitasker named "Vladivar").
When DR DOS eventually arrived in December 1993 (with localized versions released in March 1994), renamed Novell DOS 7 (aka "NWDOS"), and without these three components, it was a disappointment to some. It was larger and introduced many new bugs, and the main functional addition was Novell's second attempt at a peer-to-peer networking system, Personal NetWare (PNW). This worked and was better than its predecessor, NetWare Lite (NWL), but it was incompatible with Microsoft's networking system, now growing popular with support in Windows for Workgroups, OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
and Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
. A considerable amount of manual configuration was needed to get both to co-exist on the same PC, and Personal NetWare never achieved much success.
Since Novell DOS 7 implemented the DOSMGR API and internal data structures had been updated, its BDOS 7.2 kernel could report with a DOS version of 6.0 and OEM ID "IBM" without risking compatibility problems with Windows. Most tools would report this as "PC DOS 6.1", because IBM PC DOS 6.1 also reported as DOS 6.0 to applications.
Novell DOS 7 introduced much advanced memory management including new support for DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface
DOS Protected Mode Interface
In computing, the DOS Protected Mode Interface is a specification introduced in 1989 which allows a DOS program to run in protected mode, giving access to many features of the processor not available in real mode...
) and DPMS (DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode....
) as well as more flexible loadhigh options. It also introduced support for "true" pre-emptive multitasking of multiple DOS applications in virtual DOS machines (VDM), similar to Multiuser DOS, but now on the basis of a natively DOS compatible environment, similar to Windows 386 Enhanced Mode without GUI. By default, the bundled TASKMGR would behave similar to the former DR DOS 6.0 TASKMAX. However, if EMM386 was loaded with the option /MULTI, EMM386 would load a natively 32-bit 386 Protected Mode operating system core providing API support for pre-emptive multitasking, multi-threading, hardware virtualization and domain management of virtual DOS machines. This API could be used by DR DOS-aware applications. If TASKMGR was run later on, it would use these APIs to instance the current 16-bit DOS system environment, create virtual DOS machines and run applications in them instead of using its own Real Mode task-switcher support. The multitasker was compatible with Windows, so that tasks started before launching Windows could be seen as tasks under Windows as well.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare 1.0 also shipped with NetWars
NetWars
NetWars was an IPX-based 3D vector-graphics computer game released by Novell in 1993 for DOS to demonstrate NetWare capabilities. It was written by Edward Hill, one of Novell's engineers in its European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK...
, a network-enabled 3D arcade game.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare required several bug-fix releases and were not completely stable when the next development occurred. With beta versions of Microsoft's "Chicago" (what would later become Windows 95) in sight, Novell wound down further development on Novell DOS 7 in September 1994 and stopped maintenance in January 1996 after more than 15 updates.
After Novell
When CalderaCaldera (company)
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.- Caldera :Caldera, Inc...
approached Novell looking for a DOS operating system to bundle with their OpenLinux distribution, Novell sold the product line off to Caldera on 23 July 1996, by which time it was of little commercial value to them.
Between the now-Caldera owned DR-DOS and competition from IBM's PC DOS 6.3, Microsoft moved to make it impossible to use or buy the subsequent Windows version, Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, with any DOS product other than their own. Claimed by them to be a purely technical change, this was later to be the subject of a major lawsuit brought in Salt Lake City by Caldera with the help of the Canopy Group
Canopy Group
The Canopy Group is an investment firm founded by Ray Noorda, headquartered in Lindon, Utah. It serves as the parent company of various technology companies. One of its most well-known members was the SCO Group...
. Microsoft lawyers tried repeatedly to have the case thrown out but without success. Immediately after the completion of the pre-trial deposition stage (where the parties list the evidence they intend to present), there was an out-of-court settlement on 7 January 2000 for an undisclosed sum. This was revealed in November 2009 to be 280 million US dollars.
In August 1996, the US-based Caldera, Inc. was approached by Roger Gross, one of the original DR-DOS engineers, with a proposal to restart DR-DOS development and to make Windows 95 run on DR-DOS which would help the court case. Following a meeting in September 1996 in Lindon
Lindon, Utah
Lindon is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 10,070 at the 2010 census.The western sculptor Grant Speed resides in Lindon.-Geography:...
, Utah, between Gross, Ransom Love
Ransom Love
Ransom Love has been a co-founder of the meanwhile defunct Caldera company in 1994, and was President and Chief Executive Officer of one of its subsidiaries created on 21 August 1998, Caldera Systems, a company, which reorganized in August 2000 to become Caldera International in March 2001. He...
, Bryan Sparks and Ray Noorda, Gross was hired and tasked to set up a new subsidiary in the UK. On 10 September 1996, Caldera announced the coming release of OpenDOS and their intent to also release the source code to the system, and Caldera UK Ltd. (51.20531°N 1.478786°W) was incorporated on 20 September 1996. Gross hired some of the original developers of the operating system from the Novell EDC as well as some new talents to continue work on the operating system in a converted barn (51.188306°N 1.487498°W) at the periphery of Andover
Andover, Hampshire
Andover is a town in the English county of Hampshire. The town is on the River Anton some 18.5 miles west of the town of Basingstoke, 18.5 miles north-west of the city of Winchester and 25 miles north of the city of Southampton...
, Hampshire, UK, nearby the former Digital Research and Novell EDC. Besides other improvements and enhancements all over the system, a string of new key features were added subsequently over the course of the next two years, including a TCP/IP stack (derived from NetWare Mobile / LAN Workplace for DOS), a graphical 32-bit DOS Protected Mode HTML 3.2 web-browser DR-WebSpyder (originally based on source code from the Arachne
Arachne (web browser)
Arachne is a full-screen Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer. It primarily runs on DOS based operating systems, but includes builds for Linux as well, but should not be used with X...
web browser by Michal Polák) with LAN and modem dialup, a POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
Pthreads extension to the multi-tasker by Andy Wightman, long filename
Long filename
Long filenames , are Microsoft's way of implementing filenames longer than the 8.3 filename, or short-filename, naming scheme used in Microsoft DOS in their modern FAT and NTFS filesystems. Because these filenames can be longer than an 8.3 filename, they can be more descriptive...
(LONGNAME) support by Edward Hill as well as LBA
Logical block addressing
Logical block addressing is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disks....
and FAT32 support (DRFAT32) by Matthias Paul. Gross also hired Andrew Schulman (who had been, with Geoff Chappell, instrumental in identifying the AARD code
AARD code
The AARD code was a segment of obfuscated machine code that is included in several executables, including the installer and WIN.COM, in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1. It was a block of code which was XOR encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated, using various undocumented...
in 1992) to work as a consultant and, in Andover, join Paul in his work on "WinGlue", a secret project to create a version of DR-DOS compatible with Windows 95, 98 and 98 SE and replace its MS-DOS 7.xx component. This was demonstrated at CeBIT
CeBIT
CeBIT is the world's largest and most international computer expo. CeBIT is held each year on the world's largest fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology...
in March 1998, and later, in a small team, developed into "WinBolt", both versions of DR-DOS, which remained unreleased , but played an important role in the court case.
Caldera UK officially released Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 in February 1997, but this version was just Novell DOS 7 update 10 (as of December 1994) with a new name, missing a year's worth of patches which had been developed for the Novell DOS updates 11 (January 1995) to 15.2 (January 1996). This was due to parts of the Novell DOS sources having been lost at Novell meanwhile. Consequently, this version still reported an internal BDOS version of 7.2, identical to Novell DOS 7. The new suite also lacked the SETFIFO command, which had been added with one of the Novell DOS updates, as well as Fifth Generation's Search&Destroy virus scanner and Fast-Backup utility, which previously came bundled with Novell DOS. Instead it brought an advanced version of NetWars.
Parts of OpenDOS 7.01 were released as open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
in form of the M.R.S. kit (for Machine Readable Sources) in May 1997, but with licence terms mostly incompatible with existing open source licences. The source was then closed again as Gross felt this would undermine the commercial aspirations of the system.
After beta releases in September and November 1997, the next official release came in December 1997, with the name changed to Caldera DR-OpenDOS 7.02, soon followed by a further release in March 1998, when the DR-DOS name returned as Caldera DR-DOS 7.02, now for the first time written with a hyphen. Version 7.02 (now reporting itself as BDOS 7.3) incorporated improved BIOS and BDOS issues, developed by Paul, adding many new boot and configuration options, integrating many compatibility enhancements, bug-fixes and optimizations for size and speed, and re-implementing all fixes of the missing Novell DOS updates. The BIOS improved the coexistence of DR-DOS with Windows 9x and its support for third-party disk compression drivers such as Microsoft's DriveSpace. It introduced a diagnostics mode (activated by Scrollock), integrated debugger support (with DEBUG=ON and a debugger loaded before or from within CONFIG.SYS) and more flexible CONFIG.SYS tracing capabilities via the F5/F6/F7/F8 hotkeys and the TRACE and TIMEOUT commands, thereby also improving the integration of alternative command line shells such as 4DOS
4DOS
4DOS is a command line interpreter by JP Software, designed to replace the default command interpreter COMMAND.COM in DOS and Windows 95/98/Me. The 4DOS family of programs are meant to replace the default command processor. 4OS2 and 4NT replace CMD.EXE in OS/2 and Windows NT respectively...
. Together with LOADER, SYS /DR:ext and the CHAIN directive, it brought enhanced multi-configuration support for DR/D/CONFIG.ext files and came with enhancements to the BASIC-like CONFIG.SYS language for more powerful boot menus, convenient user interaction and programmatical acting upon conditions (CPU386), return codes and error levels (ERROR, ONERROR). It also allowed to change the SCROLLOCK, CAPSLOCK, INSERT and VERIFY settings as well as the SWITCHAR, YESCHAR, NOCHAR and RESUMECHAR characters. Various behavioural details could be controlled with new parameters /Q, /L, /Y and /S for SWITCHES. Further, it provided optional support for a LPT4: device and allowed to configure the built-in COMx: and LPTx: devices as well as to change the PRN: and AUX: defaults. The handling of environment variables in CONFIG.SYS was improved and new load-high facilities included such as the HIFILES/FILESHIGH and HIFCBS/FCBSHIGH options to relocate file handles and FCB structures into UMBs, which typically gave between 1 and 4 KB (and up to 15 KB) more free conventional memory compared to previous versions, or the HISHELL/SHELLHIGH SIZE directive to control the pre-allocation of HMA memory for COMMAND.COM, which helped to avoid memory fragmentation and thereby typically gave between 5 to 8 KB more continuous HMA memory for HMA-capable third-party drivers to work with in conjunction with third-party command line shells, which could not load into the HMA as COMMAND.COM with its /MH option. At a reduced memory footprint version 7.02 also brought an enhanced NLS 4.xx sub-system by Paul to allow multiple, distributed and possibly user-configured COUNTRY.SYS files to be used by the system at the same time in a hierarchical model. This also gave dynamic parser support for MS-DOS/PC DOS COUNTRY.SYS file formats in addition to DR-DOS' own COUNTRY.SYS formats, and it introduced support for the ISO 8601
ISO 8601
ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times is an international standard covering the exchange of date and time-related data. It was issued by the International Organization for Standardization and was first published in 1988...
international date format (including automatic detection) and the then-new Euro currency. DR-DOS 7.02 was fully Year 2000
Year 2000 problem
The Year 2000 problem was a problem for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits.In computer programs, the practice of representing the year with two...
compliant and provided special support to work with buggy system BIOSes. It also came with an updated FDISK, which could partition and format FAT32 volumes (but not yet work with LBA). The sources of the Novell patches for the external tools and drivers had meanwhile been found in Germany and could thus be retro-fitted into the system as well, so that DR-DOS 7.02 finally not only caught up with Novell DOS 7, but was a true step forward. The release was followed by various updates in June, August and September 1998.
The updated internal BDOS version number introduced the problem, that some legacy third-party applications with special support for Novell DOS stopped working, and updates to these programs could not be expected. SETVER already allowed to fake DOS versions by file name and globally, and specifying a magic sub-version of 255, it would even disable its own internal BDOS version check in order to cope with programs specifically probing for "DR-DOS". The modified kernel and SETVER driver by Paul would, in an hierarchical model, also support load paths in order to distinguish between multiple executables of the same file name, and it introduced an extended mode, in which SETVER could not only fake DOS versions, but also BDOS kernel versions. Sub-versions of 128 to 255 would be reported as DOS sub-versions 0 to 127 to applications, but with the BDOS version check disabled, while sub-versions 100 to 127 could be used to fake different BDOS versions, whereas the DOS revision number (typically set to 0 in a static, pre-boot patchable data structure) would be taken as the reported sub-version instead, so that SETVER /G /X 6.114 would allow versions of DR-DOS since 7.02 to still report themselves as a "DOS 6.0" and with a faked BDOS version 7.2 (114 decimal = 72 hexadecimal), thereby masquerading as Novell DOS 7 / OpenDOS 7.01.
While otherwise beneficial, the new HIFILES triggered a compatibility problem in the DOS-UP feature of the third-party memory manager QEMM 8, which was hard-wired to expect a chunk of five handle structures in conventional memory under DR-DOS (as with previous versions up to 7.01), whereas version 7.02 by design left eight handles in low memory when loading high files in order to maintain full compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx. Compatibility with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 had not been affected by this. A maintenance fix was devised to patch a single byte in IBMBIO.COM in order to switch the behaviour and optionally re-invoke the old chunking. This would free some 150 bytes of conventional memory and enable full compatibility with DOS-UP, but at the same time broke compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx when using the HIFILES feature, and vice-versa. The patch named IBMBIO85.SCR continued to work with newer versions of DR-DOS.
In August 1998, the US-based Caldera, Inc. created two new subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. for the Linux business, and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. for the embedded and thin-client market.
Another version, DR-DOS 7.03 (still with BDOS 7.3 and reporting itself to applications as "PC DOS 6.0" for compatibility purposes), was pre-released at Christmas 1998 and then officially released on 6 January 1999 by Caldera UK. It came with significantly improved memory managers (in particular enhanced DPMI support in conjunction with the multitasker) and other enhancements, such as added added DEVLOAD and DRMOUSE utilities. It would become the last version of DR-DOS also tailored for desktop use.
Caldera, Inc. wanted to relocate the DR-DOS business into the US and closed the successful UK operation in February 1999 after Gross resigned and joined Citrix UK in Cambridge. Development was then moved into the US (which never worked out due to a total lack of expertise in this field) and the DR-DOS line fell to its branch company, Caldera Thin Clients, which was renamed Lineo
Lineo
Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients, on 20 July 1999.Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998...
, Inc. on 20 July 1999. DR-WebSpyder was renamed EmBrowser and was said to be ported to Linux. Lineo would re-release DR-DOS 7.03 in June and September 1999, still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS" and without any changes, but otherwise focus on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
for embedded systems, based on a stripped down version of OpenLinux named Embedix.
Among the latest and independently developed versions of DR-DOS were OEM DR-DOS 7.04 (as of 19 August 1999) and 7.05 (as of 30 November 1999), still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS". These were variants of the system consisting only of the kernel and command shell. With a specialized native implementation of FAT32 and large hard disk support they could be found bundled with Ontrack
OnTrack
OnTrack was a regional rail line that operated in Syracuse, New York from 1994 to 2007. During its operation, Syracuse was the smallest city in the United States to have regional train service. The line ran from Colvin Street on the city's south side via Syracuse University and Armory Square to the...
's Easy Recovery 5 in 2000, replacing the dynamically loadable DRFAT32 redirector driver, which still came with Easy Recovery 4. They were also used for Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...
's SeaTools
SeaTools
SeaTools is a computer hard disk analysis software developed and released by Seagate Technology. It exists as a version for DOS and Microsoft Windows.-Overview:...
and the CD imaging software Nero Burning ROM
Nero Burning ROM
Nero Multimedia Suite is a popular software suite for Microsoft Windows by Nero AG . Version 10 of this product was released in April 2010.- Included products :The following applications are included in Nero 11 :Disc authoring...
. While still reporting a BDOS 7.3 internally, these were the first versions to report themselves as "PC DOS 7.10" to applications in order to indicate integrated FAT32 support. Designed to be mostly backwards compatible, the DR-DOS 7.04/7.05 IBMBIO.COM could be combined with the DR-DOS 7.03 IBMDOS.COM in order to give the desktop-approved DR-DOS 7.03 kernel LBA capabilities and work with drives larger than 8 GB. For specific OEM requirements, DR-DOS 7.06 by Wightman combined the kernel files into a single binary executable, so that, similar to IO.SYS of Windows 98, it could be booted by MS-DOS 7.10 boot sector
Boot sector
A boot sector or boot block is a region of a hard disk, floppy disk, optical disc, or other data storage device that contains machine code to be loaded into random-access memory by a computer system's built-in firmware...
s (but no longer by DR-DOS boot sectors). DR-DOS 7.07 (with BDOS 7.4/7.7) by Paul introduced new bootstrap
Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
loaders and updated disk tools in order to combine support for CHS
Cylinder-head-sector
Cylinder-head-sector, also known as CHS, was an early method for giving addresses to each physical block of data on a hard disk drive. In the case of floppy drives, for which the same exact diskette medium can be truly low-level formatted to different capacities, this is still true.Though CHS...
and LBA disk access, the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and the differing bootstrapping conventions of DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, REAL/32 and LOADER into a single MBR and boot sector, so that the code would continue to load any version of DR-DOS down to 3.31 (and since DR-DOS 7.04 also with FAT32 support), but could also be used to launch the PC DOS or MS-DOS system files, including those of Windows 9x and PC DOS 7.10. At the same time the kernel could not only be booted by the new sectors, but also by any previously DR-DOS formatted disks, as well as off disks with existing PC DOS or MS-DOS boot sectors and a variety of other boot-loaders, thereby easing the coexistence and setup of multi-boot scenarios in conjunction with other operating systems.
Recent versions
In 2002, Lineo was bought out, and some of Lineo's former managers purchased the name and formed a new company, DeviceLogicsDeviceLogics
DeviceLogics is a startup company in Lindon, Utah, United States of America, founded in 2002. Bryan Sparks co-founded DeviceLogics, and acquired DR-DOS from the Canopy Group, a Utah technology venture group...
. They have continued to sell DR-DOS for use in embedded systems. DR-DOS 8.0 was released on 30 March 2004 featuring FAT32 and large disk support, the ability to boot from ROM or Flash, multitasking and a DPMI memory manager. This version was based on the kernel from version 7.03. The company then split into Devicelogics Inc. and DRDOS Inc, which released DR-DOS 8.1 (with better FAT32 support) in autumn 2005. This version was not based upon version 8.0, but was a complete rewrite. Both 8.0 and 8.1 were withdrawn because of the issues outlined below, and replaced with Caldera DR-DOS 7.03.
Aside from selling copies of the operating system, the DR DOS Inc. website lists a buyout option for DR-DOS; the asking price is $25,000.
The OpenDOS 7.01 source code was a base for The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project, set up in July 2002 in an attempt to bring the functionality of DR-DOS up to parity with modern PC non-Windows operating systems. The project's added native support for large disks (LBA
Logical block addressing
Logical block addressing is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disks....
) and the FAT32
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
file system, and several other enhancements, including improved memory management and support for the new FAT+
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
file system extension which allows files of up to 256 GB in size on normal FAT
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
partitions. DR-DOS 7.01.08 was released on 21 July 2011.
Controversies
In October 2005, it was discovered that DR-DOS 8.1 included several utilities from FreeDOSFreeDOS
FreeDOS is an operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. FreeDOS is made up of many different, separate programs that act as "packages" to the overall FreeDOS Project...
and other sources and that the kernel was an outdated version of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel. DR DOS Inc. failed to comply with the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
(GPL) by not crediting the FreeDOS utilities to their authors and including the source code. After complaints from FreeDOS developers (including the suggestion to provide the source code, and hence comply with the GPL), DR DOS Inc. instead withdrew version 8.1, and also the unaffected 8.0, from their website.
See also
- Comparison of x86 DOS operating systemsComparison of x86 DOS operating systems- Historical and licensing information :Originally MS-DOS was designed to be an operating system that could run on any computer with a 8086-family microprocessor. It competed with other Operating Systems written for such computers, such as CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal. Each computer would have its own...
- CP/MCP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
- MP/MMP/MMP/M was a multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each using a separate terminal....
- DOS PlusDOS PlusDOS Plus is an operating system written by Digital Research, first released in 1985. It can be seen as an intermediate step between CP/M-86 and DR-DOS....
- Multiuser DOSMultiuser DOSMultiuser DOS is a soft real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86 and Concurrent DOS operating systems, it was originally developed by Digital Research and later further developed by Novell...
DR-DOS (DR DOS, without hyphen up to including v6.0) is an MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
-compatible 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...
for IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research
Digital Research
Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
. As ownership changed, various later versions were produced as Novell DOS, Caldera OpenDOS, etc.
Origins in CP/M
Digital Research's original CP/MCP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
for the 8-bit Intel 8080
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility...
and Z-80
Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
based systems spawned numerous spin-off versions, most notably CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
for the Intel 8086
Intel 8086
The 8086 is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and mid-1978, when it was released. The 8086 gave rise to the x86 architecture of Intel's future processors...
/8088
Intel 8088
The Intel 8088 microprocessor was a variant of the Intel 8086 and was introduced on July 1, 1979. It had an 8-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and the one megabyte address range were unchanged, however...
family of processors. Although CP/M had dominated the market, and was shipped with the vast majority of non-proprietary-architecture personal computers, the IBM PC in 1981 brought the beginning of what was eventually to be a massive change.
IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
originally approached Digital Research, seeking an x86 version of CP/M. However, there were disagreements over the contract, and IBM withdrew. Instead, a deal was struck with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, who purchased another operating system, 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. This became Microsoft MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
and IBM PC DOS. 86-DOS' command structure and application programming interface imitated that of CP/M. Digital Research threatened legal action, claiming PC DOS/MS-DOS to be too similar to CP/M. IBM settled by agreeing to sell their x86 version of CP/M, CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
, alongside PC DOS. However, PC DOS sold for $40, while CP/M-86 had a $240 price tag. The proportion of PC buyers prepared to spend four times as much to buy CP/M-86 was very small, and the availability of compatible application software, at first decisively in Digital Research's favor, was only temporary.
Digital Research fought a long losing battle to promote CP/M-86 and its multi-tasking multi-user successor Concurrent CP/M-86, and eventually decided that they could not beat the Microsoft-IBM lead in application software availability, so they modified Concurrent CP/M-86 to allow it to run the same applications as MS-DOS and PC DOS.
This was shown publically in December 1983 and shipped in March 1984 as Concurrent DOS 3.1 (aka CDOS with BDOS 3.1) to hardware vendors. While Concurrent DOS continued to evolve in various flavours over the years to eventually become Multiuser DOS
Multiuser DOS
Multiuser DOS is a soft real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86 and Concurrent DOS operating systems, it was originally developed by Digital Research and later further developed by Novell...
, it was not specifically tailored for the desktop market and too expensive for single-user applications. Therefore, over time two attempts were made to sideline the product.
Initially, Digital Research developed DOS Plus 1.2 to 2.1, a stripped-down and modified single-user derivative of Concurrent DOS 4.1 and 5.0, which ran applications for both platforms. It did not perform well, and Digital Research made another attempt, this time a native DOS system. This new disk operating system was launched in 1988 as DR DOS.
Although DRI was based in Pacific Grove
Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...
and later in Monterey
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
, California, USA, the work on DOS Plus started in Newbury
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
, Berkshire, UK, where Digital Research Europe had its OEM Support Group (51.40612°N 1.326374°W) located since 1983. Since 1986, most of the operating system work on Concurrent DOS 386 and XM, Multiuser DOS, DR DOS and PalmDOS was done in Digital Research's European Development Centre (EDC) (51.414478°N 1.512946°W and 51.420339°N 1.515223°W) in Hungerford, Berkshire, UK.
First DR DOS version
As requested by several OEMs Digital Research started to plan develop a new DOS operating system addressing the shortcomings left by MS-DOS in 1987. The first DR DOS version was released on 28 May 1988. Version numbers were chosen to reflect features relative to MS-DOS; the first version promoted to the public was DR DOS 3.31, which offered features comparable to Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 with large disk support (FAT16B aka "BIGDOS"). DR DOS 3.31 reported itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31", while the internal BDOS (Basic Disk Operating System) kernel version was reported as 6.0, single-user nature, reflecting its origin as derivative of Concurrent DOS 6.0 with the multitasking and multiuser capabilities as well as CP/M API support stripped out and the XIOS replaced by an IBM-compatible DOS-BIOS. The system files were named DRBIOS.SYS (for the DOS-BIOS) and DRBDOS.SYS (for the BDOS kernel), the disk OEM label used was "DIGITAL ".Although DR DOS offered some extended command line tools with command line help, verbose error messages, sophisticated command line history and editing (HISTORY directive) as well as support for file and directory passwords built right into the kernel, DR DOS was cheaper to license than MS-DOS. Also, DR DOS was ROMable right from the start. As a result, DRI was approached by a number of PC manufacturers who were interested in a third-party DOS, and this prompted several updates to the system.
At this time, MS-DOS was only available to OEMs bundled with hardware. Consequently, DR DOS achieved some immediate success when it became possible for consumers to buy it through normal retail channels since 3.4x.
Known versions are DR DOS 3.31 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-06, OEM only), 3.32 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-08-17, OEM only), 3.33 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-09-01, OEM only), 3.34 (OEM only), 3.35 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-10-21, OEM only), 3.40, 3.41 (BDOS 6.3, 1989-06, OEM and retail), most of them existed in several flavors for different OEMs. While most OEMs just kept the DR DOS name designation, one OEM version is known to be called EZ-DOS 3.41.
Version 5.0
DR DOS version 5.0 (code-named "Leopard") was released in May 1990, still reporting itself as "PC DOS 3.31" for compatibility purposes, but internally indicating a single-user BDOS 6.4 kernel. (Version 4 was skipped to avoid being associated with the relatively unpopular MS-DOS 4.0.) This introduced ViewMAXViewMAX
ViewMAX is the file manager supplied with DR DOS versions 5.0 and 6.0. It is based on a cut-down version of the GEM GUI.-Versions:ViewMAX/1 was distributed with DR DOS 5.0. It had a very similar appearance to previous GEM desktops – two fixed-size windows...
, a GEM
Graphical Environment Manager
GEM was a windowing system created by Digital Research, Inc. for use with the CP/M operating system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors...
based GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
file management shell, the patented BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax is an Idle Detection System used for computer power management developed at Digital Research, Inc.'s European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK. It was invented by British borne engineers Roger Gross and John Constant in August 1989 and was first released with...
power management system, bundled disk-caching software, and also offers vastly improved memory management. For compatibility purposes, the DR DOS 5.0 system files were now named IBMBIO.COM (for the DOS-BIOS) and IBMDOS.COM (for the BDOS kernel), and the OEM label in boot sectors was changed to "IBM 3.3".
First, the DR DOS kernel and structures such as disk buffers can be located in the High Memory Area (HMA), the first 64 KB of extended memory which are accessible in real mode
Real mode
Real mode, also called real address mode, is an operating mode of 80286 and later x86-compatible CPUs. Real mode is characterized by a 20 bit segmented memory address space and unlimited direct software access to all memory, I/O addresses and peripheral hardware...
due to an incomplete compatibility of the 80286 with earlier processors. This freed up the equivalent amount of critical "base" or conventional memory
Conventional memory
In DOS memory management, conventional memory, also called base memory, is the first 640 kilobytes of the memory on IBM PC or compatible systems. It is the read-write memory usable by the operating system and application programs...
, the first 640 KB of the PC's RAM – the area in which all MS-DOS applications run.
Additionally, on Intel 80386
Intel 80386
The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...
machines, DR DOS's EMS memory manager allowed the OS to load DOS device drivers into upper memory blocks, further freeing base memory. For more information on this, see the article on the Upper Memory Area
Upper Memory Area
In DOS memory management, the upper memory area refers to memory between the addresses of 640 KB and 1024 KB in an IBM PC or compatible. IBM reserved the uppermost 384 KB of the 8088 CPU's 1024 KB address space for ROM, RAM on peripherals, and memory-mapped input/output...
(UMA).
DR DOS 5.0 was the first DOS to integrate such functionality into the base OS (loading device drivers into upper memory blocks was possible using third-party software like QEMM
QEMM
Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager , was a memory manager produced by Quarterdeck Office Systems in the late 1980s through late 1990s. It was the most popular memory manager for the MS-DOS and other DOS operating systems.-QEMM product ranges:QRAM: A memory manager for 286 or higher CPU. It...
). As such, on a 386 system, it could offer vastly more free conventional memory than any other DOS. Once drivers for a mouse, multimedia hardware and a network stack were loaded, an MS-DOS machine typically might only have 300 to 400 KB of free conventional memory – too little to run most late-1980s software. DR DOS 5.0, with a small amount of manual tweaking, could load all this and still keep all of its conventional memory free – allowing for some necessary DOS data structures, as much as 620 KB out of the 640 KB.
Because DR DOS left so much conventional memory available, some old programs utilizing certain address wrapping techniques failed to run properly as they were now loaded unexpectedly (or, under MS-DOS, "impossibly") low in memory – inside the first 64 KB segment (known as "low memory"). Therefore, DR DOS 5.0's new MEMMAX -L command worked around this by pre-allocating a chunk of memory at the start of the memory map in order for programs to load above this barrier (but with less usable conventional memory then). By default, MEMMAX was configured for +L, so that applications could take advantage of the extra memory.
Competition from Microsoft
Faced with substantial competition in the DOS arena, MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
responded with an announcement of a yet-to-be released MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This would be released in June 1991 and include similar advanced features to those of DR DOS. It included matches of the DR's enhancements in memory management.
Almost immediately in September 1991, Digital Research responded with DR DOS 6.0, code-named "Buxton". DR DOS 6.0, while already at BDOS level 6.7 internally, would still report itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31" to normal DOS applications for compatibility purposes.
This bundled in SuperStor on-the-fly disk compression, to maximize available hard disk space, and file deletion tracking and undelete functionality by Roger Gross.
DR DOS 6.0 also includes a task-switcher named TASKMAX, supporting the industry standard task-switching API to run multiple applications at the same time. In contrast to Digital Research's Multiuser DOS (successor of Concurrent DOS in the multi-user products line), which would run DOS applications in pre-emptively multitasked virtual DOS machines, the DR DOS 6.0 task switcher would freeze background applications until brought back into the foreground. While it runs on x86-machines, it is able to swap to XMS memory on 286+ machines. TASKMAX did support some Copy & Paste facility between applications.
Via the task-switcher API graphical user interfaces such as ViewMAX
ViewMAX
ViewMAX is the file manager supplied with DR DOS versions 5.0 and 6.0. It is based on a cut-down version of the GEM GUI.-Versions:ViewMAX/1 was distributed with DR DOS 5.0. It had a very similar appearance to previous GEM desktops – two fixed-size windows...
or PC/GEOS could register as task manager menu and thereby replace the TASKMAX text mode menu, so that users could switch between tasks from within a GUI.
Microsoft responded with MS-DOS 6.0, which again matched some features of DR DOS 6.0.
Since December 1991 a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was designed to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. This check came to be known as the AARD code
AARD code
The AARD code was a segment of obfuscated machine code that is included in several executables, including the installer and WIN.COM, in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1. It was a block of code which was XOR encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated, using various undocumented...
. With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1
Patching to counter Microsoft
It was a simple matter for Digital Research to patch DR DOS 6.0 to circumvent the AARD 'authenticity check' in Windows 3.1 beta by rearranging the order to two internal tables in memory (with no changes in functionality), and the patched version was on the streets within six weeks of the release of Windows 3.1. With improved marketing and packaging, very advanced memory management, disk compression and the Super PC-Kwik caching software, DR DOS 6.0 was an outstanding value and easily the most successful version.PalmDOS
In 1992 Digital Research, still under its old name but already bought by Novell in July 1991, also embarked on a spin-off product code-named "Merlin" and later released as NetWare PalmDOS 1, which, as its name implies, was a very resource light DR DOS 6.0 derivative aimed at the emerging Palmtop/PDA market.PalmDOS was the first operating system in the family to sport the new BDOS 7.0 kernel with native DOS compatible internal data structures instead of emulations thereof. Replacing the DOS emulation on top of a CP/M kernel by a true DOS compatible kernel helped a lot in improving compatibility with some applications using some of DOS' internal data structures and also was the key in reducing the resident size of the kernel code even further - a particular requirement for the PDA market. On the other hand, introducing a genuine Current Directory Structure (CDS) imposed a limit on the depth of working directories down to 66 characters (as in MS-DOS/PC DOS), whereas previous issues of DR DOS had no such limitation due to their internal organization of directories as relative links to parent directories instead of as absolute paths. PalmDOS still reported itself as "PC DOS 3.31" to applications in order to keep the kernel small and not run into compatibility problems with Windows, which would expect the DOSMGR API to be implemented for any DOS version since 5.0.
As well as a ROM-executing kernel, PalmDOS had palmtop-type support for features such as PCMCIA PC Cards (with DPMS
DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode....
support), Power Management (BatteryMAX
BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax is an Idle Detection System used for computer power management developed at Digital Research, Inc.'s European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK. It was invented by British borne engineers Roger Gross and John Constant in August 1989 and was first released with...
and the $IDLE$ device driver with its patented dynamic idle detection by Roger Gross and John Constant), MINIMAX task switcher support for PIM (Personal Information Modules) applications stored and executed from ROM via XIP (Execute In-Place), etc.
The PCMCIA stack for PalmDOS was partially written by Ian Cullimore
Ian Cullimore
Ian Cullimore is an English-born mathematician and computer scientist who has been influential in the pocket PC arena.-Biography:Cullimore has a degree in Mathematics from King's College London, and a PhD in Cognitive and Computer Science from the University of Sussex.He was the original founder ...
.
Contribution by Novell
NovellNovell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
had bought Digital Research with a view to using DR's product line as a lever in their comprehensive strategy to break the Microsoft monopoly. (This was part of a massive and ultimately disastrous spending spree for Novell: they bought WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
Corporation at about the same time, some of Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
's products, and invested heavily in Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
as well.) The planned DR DOS 7.0, internally named "Panther", intended to trump Microsoft's troubled MS-DOS 6.0, was repeatedly delayed, while Novell was working on a Unix-like multi-user security extension (compatible with its Multiuser DOS) and two new graphical user interfaces (ViewMAX/3, a derivative of GEM, and "Star Trek
Star Trek project
Star Trek was the code name given to a prototype project at Apple Computer and Novell during 1992 and 1993. The project was named after the Star Trek science fiction franchise with the slogan "To boldly go where no Mac has gone before."...
", a true port of Apple's Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
7.1 to run under the new DR DOS multitasker named "Vladivar").
When DR DOS eventually arrived in December 1993 (with localized versions released in March 1994), renamed Novell DOS 7 (aka "NWDOS"), and without these three components, it was a disappointment to some. It was larger and introduced many new bugs, and the main functional addition was Novell's second attempt at a peer-to-peer networking system, Personal NetWare (PNW). This worked and was better than its predecessor, NetWare Lite (NWL), but it was incompatible with Microsoft's networking system, now growing popular with support in Windows for Workgroups, OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
and Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
. A considerable amount of manual configuration was needed to get both to co-exist on the same PC, and Personal NetWare never achieved much success.
Since Novell DOS 7 implemented the DOSMGR API and internal data structures had been updated, its BDOS 7.2 kernel could report with a DOS version of 6.0 and OEM ID "IBM" without risking compatibility problems with Windows. Most tools would report this as "PC DOS 6.1", because IBM PC DOS 6.1 also reported as DOS 6.0 to applications.
Novell DOS 7 introduced much advanced memory management including new support for DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface
DOS Protected Mode Interface
In computing, the DOS Protected Mode Interface is a specification introduced in 1989 which allows a DOS program to run in protected mode, giving access to many features of the processor not available in real mode...
) and DPMS (DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode....
) as well as more flexible loadhigh options. It also introduced support for "true" pre-emptive multitasking of multiple DOS applications in virtual DOS machines (VDM), similar to Multiuser DOS, but now on the basis of a natively DOS compatible environment, similar to Windows 386 Enhanced Mode without GUI. By default, the bundled TASKMGR would behave similar to the former DR DOS 6.0 TASKMAX. However, if EMM386 was loaded with the option /MULTI, EMM386 would load a natively 32-bit 386 Protected Mode operating system core providing API support for pre-emptive multitasking, multi-threading, hardware virtualization and domain management of virtual DOS machines. This API could be used by DR DOS-aware applications. If TASKMGR was run later on, it would use these APIs to instance the current 16-bit DOS system environment, create virtual DOS machines and run applications in them instead of using its own Real Mode task-switcher support. The multitasker was compatible with Windows, so that tasks started before launching Windows could be seen as tasks under Windows as well.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare 1.0 also shipped with NetWars
NetWars
NetWars was an IPX-based 3D vector-graphics computer game released by Novell in 1993 for DOS to demonstrate NetWare capabilities. It was written by Edward Hill, one of Novell's engineers in its European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK...
, a network-enabled 3D arcade game.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare required several bug-fix releases and were not completely stable when the next development occurred. With beta versions of Microsoft's "Chicago" (what would later become Windows 95) in sight, Novell wound down further development on Novell DOS 7 in September 1994 and stopped maintenance in January 1996 after more than 15 updates.
After Novell
When CalderaCaldera (company)
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.- Caldera :Caldera, Inc...
approached Novell looking for a DOS operating system to bundle with their OpenLinux distribution, Novell sold the product line off to Caldera on 23 July 1996, by which time it was of little commercial value to them.
Between the now-Caldera owned DR-DOS and competition from IBM's PC DOS 6.3, Microsoft moved to make it impossible to use or buy the subsequent Windows version, Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, with any DOS product other than their own. Claimed by them to be a purely technical change, this was later to be the subject of a major lawsuit brought in Salt Lake City by Caldera with the help of the Canopy Group
Canopy Group
The Canopy Group is an investment firm founded by Ray Noorda, headquartered in Lindon, Utah. It serves as the parent company of various technology companies. One of its most well-known members was the SCO Group...
. Microsoft lawyers tried repeatedly to have the case thrown out but without success. Immediately after the completion of the pre-trial deposition stage (where the parties list the evidence they intend to present), there was an out-of-court settlement on 7 January 2000 for an undisclosed sum. This was revealed in November 2009 to be 280 million US dollars.
In August 1996, the US-based Caldera, Inc. was approached by Roger Gross, one of the original DR-DOS engineers, with a proposal to restart DR-DOS development and to make Windows 95 run on DR-DOS which would help the court case. Following a meeting in September 1996 in Lindon
Lindon, Utah
Lindon is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 10,070 at the 2010 census.The western sculptor Grant Speed resides in Lindon.-Geography:...
, Utah, between Gross, Ransom Love
Ransom Love
Ransom Love has been a co-founder of the meanwhile defunct Caldera company in 1994, and was President and Chief Executive Officer of one of its subsidiaries created on 21 August 1998, Caldera Systems, a company, which reorganized in August 2000 to become Caldera International in March 2001. He...
, Bryan Sparks and Ray Noorda, Gross was hired and tasked to set up a new subsidiary in the UK. On 10 September 1996, Caldera announced the coming release of OpenDOS and their intent to also release the source code to the system, and Caldera UK Ltd. (51.20531°N 1.478786°W) was incorporated on 20 September 1996. Gross hired some of the original developers of the operating system from the Novell EDC as well as some new talents to continue work on the operating system in a converted barn (51.188306°N 1.487498°W) at the periphery of Andover
Andover, Hampshire
Andover is a town in the English county of Hampshire. The town is on the River Anton some 18.5 miles west of the town of Basingstoke, 18.5 miles north-west of the city of Winchester and 25 miles north of the city of Southampton...
, Hampshire, UK, nearby the former Digital Research and Novell EDC. Besides other improvements and enhancements all over the system, a string of new key features were added subsequently over the course of the next two years, including a TCP/IP stack (derived from NetWare Mobile / LAN Workplace for DOS), a graphical 32-bit DOS Protected Mode HTML 3.2 web-browser DR-WebSpyder (originally based on source code from the Arachne
Arachne (web browser)
Arachne is a full-screen Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer. It primarily runs on DOS based operating systems, but includes builds for Linux as well, but should not be used with X...
web browser by Michal Polák) with LAN and modem dialup, a POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
Pthreads extension to the multi-tasker by Andy Wightman, long filename
Long filename
Long filenames , are Microsoft's way of implementing filenames longer than the 8.3 filename, or short-filename, naming scheme used in Microsoft DOS in their modern FAT and NTFS filesystems. Because these filenames can be longer than an 8.3 filename, they can be more descriptive...
(LONGNAME) support by Edward Hill as well as LBA
Logical block addressing
Logical block addressing is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disks....
and FAT32 support (DRFAT32) by Matthias Paul. Gross also hired Andrew Schulman (who had been, with Geoff Chappell, instrumental in identifying the AARD code
AARD code
The AARD code was a segment of obfuscated machine code that is included in several executables, including the installer and WIN.COM, in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1. It was a block of code which was XOR encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated, using various undocumented...
in 1992) to work as a consultant and, in Andover, join Paul in his work on "WinGlue", a secret project to create a version of DR-DOS compatible with Windows 95, 98 and 98 SE and replace its MS-DOS 7.xx component. This was demonstrated at CeBIT
CeBIT
CeBIT is the world's largest and most international computer expo. CeBIT is held each year on the world's largest fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology...
in March 1998, and later, in a small team, developed into "WinBolt", both versions of DR-DOS, which remained unreleased , but played an important role in the court case.
Caldera UK officially released Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 in February 1997, but this version was just Novell DOS 7 update 10 (as of December 1994) with a new name, missing a year's worth of patches which had been developed for the Novell DOS updates 11 (January 1995) to 15.2 (January 1996). This was due to parts of the Novell DOS sources having been lost at Novell meanwhile. Consequently, this version still reported an internal BDOS version of 7.2, identical to Novell DOS 7. The new suite also lacked the SETFIFO command, which had been added with one of the Novell DOS updates, as well as Fifth Generation's Search&Destroy virus scanner and Fast-Backup utility, which previously came bundled with Novell DOS. Instead it brought an advanced version of NetWars.
Parts of OpenDOS 7.01 were released as open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
in form of the M.R.S. kit (for Machine Readable Sources) in May 1997, but with licence terms mostly incompatible with existing open source licences. The source was then closed again as Gross felt this would undermine the commercial aspirations of the system.
After beta releases in September and November 1997, the next official release came in December 1997, with the name changed to Caldera DR-OpenDOS 7.02, soon followed by a further release in March 1998, when the DR-DOS name returned as Caldera DR-DOS 7.02, now for the first time written with a hyphen. Version 7.02 (now reporting itself as BDOS 7.3) incorporated improved BIOS and BDOS issues, developed by Paul, adding many new boot and configuration options, integrating many compatibility enhancements, bug-fixes and optimizations for size and speed, and re-implementing all fixes of the missing Novell DOS updates. The BIOS improved the coexistence of DR-DOS with Windows 9x and its support for third-party disk compression drivers such as Microsoft's DriveSpace. It introduced a diagnostics mode (activated by Scrollock), integrated debugger support (with DEBUG=ON and a debugger loaded before or from within CONFIG.SYS) and more flexible CONFIG.SYS tracing capabilities via the F5/F6/F7/F8 hotkeys and the TRACE and TIMEOUT commands, thereby also improving the integration of alternative command line shells such as 4DOS
4DOS
4DOS is a command line interpreter by JP Software, designed to replace the default command interpreter COMMAND.COM in DOS and Windows 95/98/Me. The 4DOS family of programs are meant to replace the default command processor. 4OS2 and 4NT replace CMD.EXE in OS/2 and Windows NT respectively...
. Together with LOADER, SYS /DR:ext and the CHAIN directive, it brought enhanced multi-configuration support for DR/D/CONFIG.ext files and came with enhancements to the BASIC-like CONFIG.SYS language for more powerful boot menus, convenient user interaction and programmatical acting upon conditions (CPU386), return codes and error levels (ERROR, ONERROR). It also allowed to change the SCROLLOCK, CAPSLOCK, INSERT and VERIFY settings as well as the SWITCHAR, YESCHAR, NOCHAR and RESUMECHAR characters. Various behavioural details could be controlled with new parameters /Q, /L, /Y and /S for SWITCHES. Further, it provided optional support for a LPT4: device and allowed to configure the built-in COMx: and LPTx: devices as well as to change the PRN: and AUX: defaults. The handling of environment variables in CONFIG.SYS was improved and new load-high facilities included such as the HIFILES/FILESHIGH and HIFCBS/FCBSHIGH options to relocate file handles and FCB structures into UMBs, which typically gave between 1 and 4 KB (and up to 15 KB) more free conventional memory compared to previous versions, or the HISHELL/SHELLHIGH SIZE directive to control the pre-allocation of HMA memory for COMMAND.COM, which helped to avoid memory fragmentation and thereby typically gave between 5 to 8 KB more continuous HMA memory for HMA-capable third-party drivers to work with in conjunction with third-party command line shells, which could not load into the HMA as COMMAND.COM with its /MH option. At a reduced memory footprint version 7.02 also brought an enhanced NLS 4.xx sub-system by Paul to allow multiple, distributed and possibly user-configured COUNTRY.SYS files to be used by the system at the same time in a hierarchical model. This also gave dynamic parser support for MS-DOS/PC DOS COUNTRY.SYS file formats in addition to DR-DOS' own COUNTRY.SYS formats, and it introduced support for the ISO 8601
ISO 8601
ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times is an international standard covering the exchange of date and time-related data. It was issued by the International Organization for Standardization and was first published in 1988...
international date format (including automatic detection) and the then-new Euro currency. DR-DOS 7.02 was fully Year 2000
Year 2000 problem
The Year 2000 problem was a problem for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits.In computer programs, the practice of representing the year with two...
compliant and provided special support to work with buggy system BIOSes. It also came with an updated FDISK, which could partition and format FAT32 volumes (but not yet work with LBA). The sources of the Novell patches for the external tools and drivers had meanwhile been found in Germany and could thus be retro-fitted into the system as well, so that DR-DOS 7.02 finally not only caught up with Novell DOS 7, but was a true step forward. The release was followed by various updates in June, August and September 1998.
The updated internal BDOS version number introduced the problem, that some legacy third-party applications with special support for Novell DOS stopped working, and updates to these programs could not be expected. SETVER already allowed to fake DOS versions by file name and globally, and specifying a magic sub-version of 255, it would even disable its own internal BDOS version check in order to cope with programs specifically probing for "DR-DOS". The modified kernel and SETVER driver by Paul would, in an hierarchical model, also support load paths in order to distinguish between multiple executables of the same file name, and it introduced an extended mode, in which SETVER could not only fake DOS versions, but also BDOS kernel versions. Sub-versions of 128 to 255 would be reported as DOS sub-versions 0 to 127 to applications, but with the BDOS version check disabled, while sub-versions 100 to 127 could be used to fake different BDOS versions, whereas the DOS revision number (typically set to 0 in a static, pre-boot patchable data structure) would be taken as the reported sub-version instead, so that SETVER /G /X 6.114 would allow versions of DR-DOS since 7.02 to still report themselves as a "DOS 6.0" and with a faked BDOS version 7.2 (114 decimal = 72 hexadecimal), thereby masquerading as Novell DOS 7 / OpenDOS 7.01.
While otherwise beneficial, the new HIFILES triggered a compatibility problem in the DOS-UP feature of the third-party memory manager QEMM 8, which was hard-wired to expect a chunk of five handle structures in conventional memory under DR-DOS (as with previous versions up to 7.01), whereas version 7.02 by design left eight handles in low memory when loading high files in order to maintain full compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx. Compatibility with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 had not been affected by this. A maintenance fix was devised to patch a single byte in IBMBIO.COM in order to switch the behaviour and optionally re-invoke the old chunking. This would free some 150 bytes of conventional memory and enable full compatibility with DOS-UP, but at the same time broke compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx when using the HIFILES feature, and vice-versa. The patch named IBMBIO85.SCR continued to work with newer versions of DR-DOS.
In August 1998, the US-based Caldera, Inc. created two new subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. for the Linux business, and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. for the embedded and thin-client market.
Another version, DR-DOS 7.03 (still with BDOS 7.3 and reporting itself to applications as "PC DOS 6.0" for compatibility purposes), was pre-released at Christmas 1998 and then officially released on 6 January 1999 by Caldera UK. It came with significantly improved memory managers (in particular enhanced DPMI support in conjunction with the multitasker) and other enhancements, such as added added DEVLOAD and DRMOUSE utilities. It would become the last version of DR-DOS also tailored for desktop use.
Caldera, Inc. wanted to relocate the DR-DOS business into the US and closed the successful UK operation in February 1999 after Gross resigned and joined Citrix UK in Cambridge. Development was then moved into the US (which never worked out due to a total lack of expertise in this field) and the DR-DOS line fell to its branch company, Caldera Thin Clients, which was renamed Lineo
Lineo
Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients, on 20 July 1999.Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998...
, Inc. on 20 July 1999. DR-WebSpyder was renamed EmBrowser and was said to be ported to Linux. Lineo would re-release DR-DOS 7.03 in June and September 1999, still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS" and without any changes, but otherwise focus on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
for embedded systems, based on a stripped down version of OpenLinux named Embedix.
Among the latest and independently developed versions of DR-DOS were OEM DR-DOS 7.04 (as of 19 August 1999) and 7.05 (as of 30 November 1999), still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS". These were variants of the system consisting only of the kernel and command shell. With a specialized native implementation of FAT32 and large hard disk support they could be found bundled with Ontrack
OnTrack
OnTrack was a regional rail line that operated in Syracuse, New York from 1994 to 2007. During its operation, Syracuse was the smallest city in the United States to have regional train service. The line ran from Colvin Street on the city's south side via Syracuse University and Armory Square to the...
's Easy Recovery 5 in 2000, replacing the dynamically loadable DRFAT32 redirector driver, which still came with Easy Recovery 4. They were also used for Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...
's SeaTools
SeaTools
SeaTools is a computer hard disk analysis software developed and released by Seagate Technology. It exists as a version for DOS and Microsoft Windows.-Overview:...
and the CD imaging software Nero Burning ROM
Nero Burning ROM
Nero Multimedia Suite is a popular software suite for Microsoft Windows by Nero AG . Version 10 of this product was released in April 2010.- Included products :The following applications are included in Nero 11 :Disc authoring...
. While still reporting a BDOS 7.3 internally, these were the first versions to report themselves as "PC DOS 7.10" to applications in order to indicate integrated FAT32 support. Designed to be mostly backwards compatible, the DR-DOS 7.04/7.05 IBMBIO.COM could be combined with the DR-DOS 7.03 IBMDOS.COM in order to give the desktop-approved DR-DOS 7.03 kernel LBA capabilities and work with drives larger than 8 GB. For specific OEM requirements, DR-DOS 7.06 by Wightman combined the kernel files into a single binary executable, so that, similar to IO.SYS of Windows 98, it could be booted by MS-DOS 7.10 boot sector
Boot sector
A boot sector or boot block is a region of a hard disk, floppy disk, optical disc, or other data storage device that contains machine code to be loaded into random-access memory by a computer system's built-in firmware...
s (but no longer by DR-DOS boot sectors). DR-DOS 7.07 (with BDOS 7.4/7.7) by Paul introduced new bootstrap
Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
loaders and updated disk tools in order to combine support for CHS
Cylinder-head-sector
Cylinder-head-sector, also known as CHS, was an early method for giving addresses to each physical block of data on a hard disk drive. In the case of floppy drives, for which the same exact diskette medium can be truly low-level formatted to different capacities, this is still true.Though CHS...
and LBA disk access, the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and the differing bootstrapping conventions of DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, REAL/32 and LOADER into a single MBR and boot sector, so that the code would continue to load any version of DR-DOS down to 3.31 (and since DR-DOS 7.04 also with FAT32 support), but could also be used to launch the PC DOS or MS-DOS system files, including those of Windows 9x and PC DOS 7.10. At the same time the kernel could not only be booted by the new sectors, but also by any previously DR-DOS formatted disks, as well as off disks with existing PC DOS or MS-DOS boot sectors and a variety of other boot-loaders, thereby easing the coexistence and setup of multi-boot scenarios in conjunction with other operating systems.
Recent versions
In 2002, Lineo was bought out, and some of Lineo's former managers purchased the name and formed a new company, DeviceLogicsDeviceLogics
DeviceLogics is a startup company in Lindon, Utah, United States of America, founded in 2002. Bryan Sparks co-founded DeviceLogics, and acquired DR-DOS from the Canopy Group, a Utah technology venture group...
. They have continued to sell DR-DOS for use in embedded systems. DR-DOS 8.0 was released on 30 March 2004 featuring FAT32 and large disk support, the ability to boot from ROM or Flash, multitasking and a DPMI memory manager. This version was based on the kernel from version 7.03. The company then split into Devicelogics Inc. and DRDOS Inc, which released DR-DOS 8.1 (with better FAT32 support) in autumn 2005. This version was not based upon version 8.0, but was a complete rewrite. Both 8.0 and 8.1 were withdrawn because of the issues outlined below, and replaced with Caldera DR-DOS 7.03.
Aside from selling copies of the operating system, the DR DOS Inc. website lists a buyout option for DR-DOS; the asking price is $25,000.
The OpenDOS 7.01 source code was a base for The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project, set up in July 2002 in an attempt to bring the functionality of DR-DOS up to parity with modern PC non-Windows operating systems. The project's added native support for large disks (LBA
Logical block addressing
Logical block addressing is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disks....
) and the FAT32
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
file system, and several other enhancements, including improved memory management and support for the new FAT+
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
file system extension which allows files of up to 256 GB in size on normal FAT
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
partitions. DR-DOS 7.01.08 was released on 21 July 2011.
Controversies
In October 2005, it was discovered that DR-DOS 8.1 included several utilities from FreeDOSFreeDOS
FreeDOS is an operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. FreeDOS is made up of many different, separate programs that act as "packages" to the overall FreeDOS Project...
and other sources and that the kernel was an outdated version of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel. DR DOS Inc. failed to comply with the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
(GPL) by not crediting the FreeDOS utilities to their authors and including the source code. After complaints from FreeDOS developers (including the suggestion to provide the source code, and hence comply with the GPL), DR DOS Inc. instead withdrew version 8.1, and also the unaffected 8.0, from their website.
See also
- Comparison of x86 DOS operating systemsComparison of x86 DOS operating systems- Historical and licensing information :Originally MS-DOS was designed to be an operating system that could run on any computer with a 8086-family microprocessor. It competed with other Operating Systems written for such computers, such as CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal. Each computer would have its own...
- CP/MCP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
- MP/MMP/MMP/M was a multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each using a separate terminal....
- DOS PlusDOS PlusDOS Plus is an operating system written by Digital Research, first released in 1985. It can be seen as an intermediate step between CP/M-86 and DR-DOS....
- Multiuser DOSMultiuser DOSMultiuser DOS is a soft real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86 and Concurrent DOS operating systems, it was originally developed by Digital Research and later further developed by Novell...
DR-DOS (DR DOS, without hyphen up to including v6.0) is an MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
-compatible 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...
for IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research
Digital Research
Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
. As ownership changed, various later versions were produced as Novell DOS, Caldera OpenDOS, etc.
Origins in CP/M
Digital Research's original CP/MCP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
for the 8-bit Intel 8080
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility...
and Z-80
Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
based systems spawned numerous spin-off versions, most notably CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
for the Intel 8086
Intel 8086
The 8086 is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and mid-1978, when it was released. The 8086 gave rise to the x86 architecture of Intel's future processors...
/8088
Intel 8088
The Intel 8088 microprocessor was a variant of the Intel 8086 and was introduced on July 1, 1979. It had an 8-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and the one megabyte address range were unchanged, however...
family of processors. Although CP/M had dominated the market, and was shipped with the vast majority of non-proprietary-architecture personal computers, the IBM PC in 1981 brought the beginning of what was eventually to be a massive change.
IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
originally approached Digital Research, seeking an x86 version of CP/M. However, there were disagreements over the contract, and IBM withdrew. Instead, a deal was struck with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, who purchased another operating system, 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. This became Microsoft MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
and IBM PC DOS. 86-DOS' command structure and application programming interface imitated that of CP/M. Digital Research threatened legal action, claiming PC DOS/MS-DOS to be too similar to CP/M. IBM settled by agreeing to sell their x86 version of CP/M, CP/M-86
CP/M-86
CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
, alongside PC DOS. However, PC DOS sold for $40, while CP/M-86 had a $240 price tag. The proportion of PC buyers prepared to spend four times as much to buy CP/M-86 was very small, and the availability of compatible application software, at first decisively in Digital Research's favor, was only temporary.
Digital Research fought a long losing battle to promote CP/M-86 and its multi-tasking multi-user successor Concurrent CP/M-86, and eventually decided that they could not beat the Microsoft-IBM lead in application software availability, so they modified Concurrent CP/M-86 to allow it to run the same applications as MS-DOS and PC DOS.
This was shown publically in December 1983 and shipped in March 1984 as Concurrent DOS 3.1 (aka CDOS with BDOS 3.1) to hardware vendors. While Concurrent DOS continued to evolve in various flavours over the years to eventually become Multiuser DOS
Multiuser DOS
Multiuser DOS is a soft real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86 and Concurrent DOS operating systems, it was originally developed by Digital Research and later further developed by Novell...
, it was not specifically tailored for the desktop market and too expensive for single-user applications. Therefore, over time two attempts were made to sideline the product.
Initially, Digital Research developed DOS Plus 1.2 to 2.1, a stripped-down and modified single-user derivative of Concurrent DOS 4.1 and 5.0, which ran applications for both platforms. It did not perform well, and Digital Research made another attempt, this time a native DOS system. This new disk operating system was launched in 1988 as DR DOS.
Although DRI was based in Pacific Grove
Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...
and later in Monterey
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
, California, USA, the work on DOS Plus started in Newbury
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
, Berkshire, UK, where Digital Research Europe had its OEM Support Group (51.40612°N 1.326374°W) located since 1983. Since 1986, most of the operating system work on Concurrent DOS 386 and XM, Multiuser DOS, DR DOS and PalmDOS was done in Digital Research's European Development Centre (EDC) (51.414478°N 1.512946°W and 51.420339°N 1.515223°W) in Hungerford, Berkshire, UK.
First DR DOS version
As requested by several OEMs Digital Research started to plan develop a new DOS operating system addressing the shortcomings left by MS-DOS in 1987. The first DR DOS version was released on 28 May 1988. Version numbers were chosen to reflect features relative to MS-DOS; the first version promoted to the public was DR DOS 3.31, which offered features comparable to Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 with large disk support (FAT16B aka "BIGDOS"). DR DOS 3.31 reported itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31", while the internal BDOS (Basic Disk Operating System) kernel version was reported as 6.0, single-user nature, reflecting its origin as derivative of Concurrent DOS 6.0 with the multitasking and multiuser capabilities as well as CP/M API support stripped out and the XIOS replaced by an IBM-compatible DOS-BIOS. The system files were named DRBIOS.SYS (for the DOS-BIOS) and DRBDOS.SYS (for the BDOS kernel), the disk OEM label used was "DIGITAL ".Although DR DOS offered some extended command line tools with command line help, verbose error messages, sophisticated command line history and editing (HISTORY directive) as well as support for file and directory passwords built right into the kernel, DR DOS was cheaper to license than MS-DOS. Also, DR DOS was ROMable right from the start. As a result, DRI was approached by a number of PC manufacturers who were interested in a third-party DOS, and this prompted several updates to the system.
At this time, MS-DOS was only available to OEMs bundled with hardware. Consequently, DR DOS achieved some immediate success when it became possible for consumers to buy it through normal retail channels since 3.4x.
Known versions are DR DOS 3.31 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-06, OEM only), 3.32 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-08-17, OEM only), 3.33 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-09-01, OEM only), 3.34 (OEM only), 3.35 (BDOS 6.0, 1988-10-21, OEM only), 3.40, 3.41 (BDOS 6.3, 1989-06, OEM and retail), most of them existed in several flavors for different OEMs. While most OEMs just kept the DR DOS name designation, one OEM version is known to be called EZ-DOS 3.41.
Version 5.0
DR DOS version 5.0 (code-named "Leopard") was released in May 1990, still reporting itself as "PC DOS 3.31" for compatibility purposes, but internally indicating a single-user BDOS 6.4 kernel. (Version 4 was skipped to avoid being associated with the relatively unpopular MS-DOS 4.0.) This introduced ViewMAXViewMAX
ViewMAX is the file manager supplied with DR DOS versions 5.0 and 6.0. It is based on a cut-down version of the GEM GUI.-Versions:ViewMAX/1 was distributed with DR DOS 5.0. It had a very similar appearance to previous GEM desktops – two fixed-size windows...
, a GEM
Graphical Environment Manager
GEM was a windowing system created by Digital Research, Inc. for use with the CP/M operating system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors...
based GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
file management shell, the patented BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax is an Idle Detection System used for computer power management developed at Digital Research, Inc.'s European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK. It was invented by British borne engineers Roger Gross and John Constant in August 1989 and was first released with...
power management system, bundled disk-caching software, and also offers vastly improved memory management. For compatibility purposes, the DR DOS 5.0 system files were now named IBMBIO.COM (for the DOS-BIOS) and IBMDOS.COM (for the BDOS kernel), and the OEM label in boot sectors was changed to "IBM 3.3".
First, the DR DOS kernel and structures such as disk buffers can be located in the High Memory Area (HMA), the first 64 KB of extended memory which are accessible in real mode
Real mode
Real mode, also called real address mode, is an operating mode of 80286 and later x86-compatible CPUs. Real mode is characterized by a 20 bit segmented memory address space and unlimited direct software access to all memory, I/O addresses and peripheral hardware...
due to an incomplete compatibility of the 80286 with earlier processors. This freed up the equivalent amount of critical "base" or conventional memory
Conventional memory
In DOS memory management, conventional memory, also called base memory, is the first 640 kilobytes of the memory on IBM PC or compatible systems. It is the read-write memory usable by the operating system and application programs...
, the first 640 KB of the PC's RAM – the area in which all MS-DOS applications run.
Additionally, on Intel 80386
Intel 80386
The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...
machines, DR DOS's EMS memory manager allowed the OS to load DOS device drivers into upper memory blocks, further freeing base memory. For more information on this, see the article on the Upper Memory Area
Upper Memory Area
In DOS memory management, the upper memory area refers to memory between the addresses of 640 KB and 1024 KB in an IBM PC or compatible. IBM reserved the uppermost 384 KB of the 8088 CPU's 1024 KB address space for ROM, RAM on peripherals, and memory-mapped input/output...
(UMA).
DR DOS 5.0 was the first DOS to integrate such functionality into the base OS (loading device drivers into upper memory blocks was possible using third-party software like QEMM
QEMM
Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager , was a memory manager produced by Quarterdeck Office Systems in the late 1980s through late 1990s. It was the most popular memory manager for the MS-DOS and other DOS operating systems.-QEMM product ranges:QRAM: A memory manager for 286 or higher CPU. It...
). As such, on a 386 system, it could offer vastly more free conventional memory than any other DOS. Once drivers for a mouse, multimedia hardware and a network stack were loaded, an MS-DOS machine typically might only have 300 to 400 KB of free conventional memory – too little to run most late-1980s software. DR DOS 5.0, with a small amount of manual tweaking, could load all this and still keep all of its conventional memory free – allowing for some necessary DOS data structures, as much as 620 KB out of the 640 KB.
Because DR DOS left so much conventional memory available, some old programs utilizing certain address wrapping techniques failed to run properly as they were now loaded unexpectedly (or, under MS-DOS, "impossibly") low in memory – inside the first 64 KB segment (known as "low memory"). Therefore, DR DOS 5.0's new MEMMAX -L command worked around this by pre-allocating a chunk of memory at the start of the memory map in order for programs to load above this barrier (but with less usable conventional memory then). By default, MEMMAX was configured for +L, so that applications could take advantage of the extra memory.
Competition from Microsoft
Faced with substantial competition in the DOS arena, MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
responded with an announcement of a yet-to-be released MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This would be released in June 1991 and include similar advanced features to those of DR DOS. It included matches of the DR's enhancements in memory management.
Almost immediately in September 1991, Digital Research responded with DR DOS 6.0, code-named "Buxton". DR DOS 6.0, while already at BDOS level 6.7 internally, would still report itself as "IBM PC DOS 3.31" to normal DOS applications for compatibility purposes.
This bundled in SuperStor on-the-fly disk compression, to maximize available hard disk space, and file deletion tracking and undelete functionality by Roger Gross.
DR DOS 6.0 also includes a task-switcher named TASKMAX, supporting the industry standard task-switching API to run multiple applications at the same time. In contrast to Digital Research's Multiuser DOS (successor of Concurrent DOS in the multi-user products line), which would run DOS applications in pre-emptively multitasked virtual DOS machines, the DR DOS 6.0 task switcher would freeze background applications until brought back into the foreground. While it runs on x86-machines, it is able to swap to XMS memory on 286+ machines. TASKMAX did support some Copy & Paste facility between applications.
Via the task-switcher API graphical user interfaces such as ViewMAX
ViewMAX
ViewMAX is the file manager supplied with DR DOS versions 5.0 and 6.0. It is based on a cut-down version of the GEM GUI.-Versions:ViewMAX/1 was distributed with DR DOS 5.0. It had a very similar appearance to previous GEM desktops – two fixed-size windows...
or PC/GEOS could register as task manager menu and thereby replace the TASKMAX text mode menu, so that users could switch between tasks from within a GUI.
Microsoft responded with MS-DOS 6.0, which again matched some features of DR DOS 6.0.
Since December 1991 a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was designed to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. This check came to be known as the AARD code
AARD code
The AARD code was a segment of obfuscated machine code that is included in several executables, including the installer and WIN.COM, in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1. It was a block of code which was XOR encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated, using various undocumented...
. With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1
Patching to counter Microsoft
It was a simple matter for Digital Research to patch DR DOS 6.0 to circumvent the AARD 'authenticity check' in Windows 3.1 beta by rearranging the order to two internal tables in memory (with no changes in functionality), and the patched version was on the streets within six weeks of the release of Windows 3.1. With improved marketing and packaging, very advanced memory management, disk compression and the Super PC-Kwik caching software, DR DOS 6.0 was an outstanding value and easily the most successful version.PalmDOS
In 1992 Digital Research, still under its old name but already bought by Novell in July 1991, also embarked on a spin-off product code-named "Merlin" and later released as NetWare PalmDOS 1, which, as its name implies, was a very resource light DR DOS 6.0 derivative aimed at the emerging Palmtop/PDA market.PalmDOS was the first operating system in the family to sport the new BDOS 7.0 kernel with native DOS compatible internal data structures instead of emulations thereof. Replacing the DOS emulation on top of a CP/M kernel by a true DOS compatible kernel helped a lot in improving compatibility with some applications using some of DOS' internal data structures and also was the key in reducing the resident size of the kernel code even further - a particular requirement for the PDA market. On the other hand, introducing a genuine Current Directory Structure (CDS) imposed a limit on the depth of working directories down to 66 characters (as in MS-DOS/PC DOS), whereas previous issues of DR DOS had no such limitation due to their internal organization of directories as relative links to parent directories instead of as absolute paths. PalmDOS still reported itself as "PC DOS 3.31" to applications in order to keep the kernel small and not run into compatibility problems with Windows, which would expect the DOSMGR API to be implemented for any DOS version since 5.0.
As well as a ROM-executing kernel, PalmDOS had palmtop-type support for features such as PCMCIA PC Cards (with DPMS
DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode....
support), Power Management (BatteryMAX
BatteryMax (Idle Detection)
BatteryMax is an Idle Detection System used for computer power management developed at Digital Research, Inc.'s European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK. It was invented by British borne engineers Roger Gross and John Constant in August 1989 and was first released with...
and the $IDLE$ device driver with its patented dynamic idle detection by Roger Gross and John Constant), MINIMAX task switcher support for PIM (Personal Information Modules) applications stored and executed from ROM via XIP (Execute In-Place), etc.
The PCMCIA stack for PalmDOS was partially written by Ian Cullimore
Ian Cullimore
Ian Cullimore is an English-born mathematician and computer scientist who has been influential in the pocket PC arena.-Biography:Cullimore has a degree in Mathematics from King's College London, and a PhD in Cognitive and Computer Science from the University of Sussex.He was the original founder ...
.
Contribution by Novell
NovellNovell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
had bought Digital Research with a view to using DR's product line as a lever in their comprehensive strategy to break the Microsoft monopoly. (This was part of a massive and ultimately disastrous spending spree for Novell: they bought WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
Corporation at about the same time, some of Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
's products, and invested heavily in Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
as well.) The planned DR DOS 7.0, internally named "Panther", intended to trump Microsoft's troubled MS-DOS 6.0, was repeatedly delayed, while Novell was working on a Unix-like multi-user security extension (compatible with its Multiuser DOS) and two new graphical user interfaces (ViewMAX/3, a derivative of GEM, and "Star Trek
Star Trek project
Star Trek was the code name given to a prototype project at Apple Computer and Novell during 1992 and 1993. The project was named after the Star Trek science fiction franchise with the slogan "To boldly go where no Mac has gone before."...
", a true port of Apple's Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
7.1 to run under the new DR DOS multitasker named "Vladivar").
When DR DOS eventually arrived in December 1993 (with localized versions released in March 1994), renamed Novell DOS 7 (aka "NWDOS"), and without these three components, it was a disappointment to some. It was larger and introduced many new bugs, and the main functional addition was Novell's second attempt at a peer-to-peer networking system, Personal NetWare (PNW). This worked and was better than its predecessor, NetWare Lite (NWL), but it was incompatible with Microsoft's networking system, now growing popular with support in Windows for Workgroups, OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
and Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
. A considerable amount of manual configuration was needed to get both to co-exist on the same PC, and Personal NetWare never achieved much success.
Since Novell DOS 7 implemented the DOSMGR API and internal data structures had been updated, its BDOS 7.2 kernel could report with a DOS version of 6.0 and OEM ID "IBM" without risking compatibility problems with Windows. Most tools would report this as "PC DOS 6.1", because IBM PC DOS 6.1 also reported as DOS 6.0 to applications.
Novell DOS 7 introduced much advanced memory management including new support for DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface
DOS Protected Mode Interface
In computing, the DOS Protected Mode Interface is a specification introduced in 1989 which allows a DOS program to run in protected mode, giving access to many features of the processor not available in real mode...
) and DPMS (DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services
DOS Protected Mode Services is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode....
) as well as more flexible loadhigh options. It also introduced support for "true" pre-emptive multitasking of multiple DOS applications in virtual DOS machines (VDM), similar to Multiuser DOS, but now on the basis of a natively DOS compatible environment, similar to Windows 386 Enhanced Mode without GUI. By default, the bundled TASKMGR would behave similar to the former DR DOS 6.0 TASKMAX. However, if EMM386 was loaded with the option /MULTI, EMM386 would load a natively 32-bit 386 Protected Mode operating system core providing API support for pre-emptive multitasking, multi-threading, hardware virtualization and domain management of virtual DOS machines. This API could be used by DR DOS-aware applications. If TASKMGR was run later on, it would use these APIs to instance the current 16-bit DOS system environment, create virtual DOS machines and run applications in them instead of using its own Real Mode task-switcher support. The multitasker was compatible with Windows, so that tasks started before launching Windows could be seen as tasks under Windows as well.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare 1.0 also shipped with NetWars
NetWars
NetWars was an IPX-based 3D vector-graphics computer game released by Novell in 1993 for DOS to demonstrate NetWare capabilities. It was written by Edward Hill, one of Novell's engineers in its European Development Centre in Hungerford, UK...
, a network-enabled 3D arcade game.
Novell DOS 7 and Personal NetWare required several bug-fix releases and were not completely stable when the next development occurred. With beta versions of Microsoft's "Chicago" (what would later become Windows 95) in sight, Novell wound down further development on Novell DOS 7 in September 1994 and stopped maintenance in January 1996 after more than 15 updates.
After Novell
When CalderaCaldera (company)
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.- Caldera :Caldera, Inc...
approached Novell looking for a DOS operating system to bundle with their OpenLinux distribution, Novell sold the product line off to Caldera on 23 July 1996, by which time it was of little commercial value to them.
Between the now-Caldera owned DR-DOS and competition from IBM's PC DOS 6.3, Microsoft moved to make it impossible to use or buy the subsequent Windows version, Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, with any DOS product other than their own. Claimed by them to be a purely technical change, this was later to be the subject of a major lawsuit brought in Salt Lake City by Caldera with the help of the Canopy Group
Canopy Group
The Canopy Group is an investment firm founded by Ray Noorda, headquartered in Lindon, Utah. It serves as the parent company of various technology companies. One of its most well-known members was the SCO Group...
. Microsoft lawyers tried repeatedly to have the case thrown out but without success. Immediately after the completion of the pre-trial deposition stage (where the parties list the evidence they intend to present), there was an out-of-court settlement on 7 January 2000 for an undisclosed sum. This was revealed in November 2009 to be 280 million US dollars.
In August 1996, the US-based Caldera, Inc. was approached by Roger Gross, one of the original DR-DOS engineers, with a proposal to restart DR-DOS development and to make Windows 95 run on DR-DOS which would help the court case. Following a meeting in September 1996 in Lindon
Lindon, Utah
Lindon is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 10,070 at the 2010 census.The western sculptor Grant Speed resides in Lindon.-Geography:...
, Utah, between Gross, Ransom Love
Ransom Love
Ransom Love has been a co-founder of the meanwhile defunct Caldera company in 1994, and was President and Chief Executive Officer of one of its subsidiaries created on 21 August 1998, Caldera Systems, a company, which reorganized in August 2000 to become Caldera International in March 2001. He...
, Bryan Sparks and Ray Noorda, Gross was hired and tasked to set up a new subsidiary in the UK. On 10 September 1996, Caldera announced the coming release of OpenDOS and their intent to also release the source code to the system, and Caldera UK Ltd. (51.20531°N 1.478786°W) was incorporated on 20 September 1996. Gross hired some of the original developers of the operating system from the Novell EDC as well as some new talents to continue work on the operating system in a converted barn (51.188306°N 1.487498°W) at the periphery of Andover
Andover, Hampshire
Andover is a town in the English county of Hampshire. The town is on the River Anton some 18.5 miles west of the town of Basingstoke, 18.5 miles north-west of the city of Winchester and 25 miles north of the city of Southampton...
, Hampshire, UK, nearby the former Digital Research and Novell EDC. Besides other improvements and enhancements all over the system, a string of new key features were added subsequently over the course of the next two years, including a TCP/IP stack (derived from NetWare Mobile / LAN Workplace for DOS), a graphical 32-bit DOS Protected Mode HTML 3.2 web-browser DR-WebSpyder (originally based on source code from the Arachne
Arachne (web browser)
Arachne is a full-screen Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer. It primarily runs on DOS based operating systems, but includes builds for Linux as well, but should not be used with X...
web browser by Michal Polák) with LAN and modem dialup, a POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
Pthreads extension to the multi-tasker by Andy Wightman, long filename
Long filename
Long filenames , are Microsoft's way of implementing filenames longer than the 8.3 filename, or short-filename, naming scheme used in Microsoft DOS in their modern FAT and NTFS filesystems. Because these filenames can be longer than an 8.3 filename, they can be more descriptive...
(LONGNAME) support by Edward Hill as well as LBA
Logical block addressing
Logical block addressing is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disks....
and FAT32 support (DRFAT32) by Matthias Paul. Gross also hired Andrew Schulman (who had been, with Geoff Chappell, instrumental in identifying the AARD code
AARD code
The AARD code was a segment of obfuscated machine code that is included in several executables, including the installer and WIN.COM, in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1. It was a block of code which was XOR encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated, using various undocumented...
in 1992) to work as a consultant and, in Andover, join Paul in his work on "WinGlue", a secret project to create a version of DR-DOS compatible with Windows 95, 98 and 98 SE and replace its MS-DOS 7.xx component. This was demonstrated at CeBIT
CeBIT
CeBIT is the world's largest and most international computer expo. CeBIT is held each year on the world's largest fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology...
in March 1998, and later, in a small team, developed into "WinBolt", both versions of DR-DOS, which remained unreleased , but played an important role in the court case.
Caldera UK officially released Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 in February 1997, but this version was just Novell DOS 7 update 10 (as of December 1994) with a new name, missing a year's worth of patches which had been developed for the Novell DOS updates 11 (January 1995) to 15.2 (January 1996). This was due to parts of the Novell DOS sources having been lost at Novell meanwhile. Consequently, this version still reported an internal BDOS version of 7.2, identical to Novell DOS 7. The new suite also lacked the SETFIFO command, which had been added with one of the Novell DOS updates, as well as Fifth Generation's Search&Destroy virus scanner and Fast-Backup utility, which previously came bundled with Novell DOS. Instead it brought an advanced version of NetWars.
Parts of OpenDOS 7.01 were released as open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
in form of the M.R.S. kit (for Machine Readable Sources) in May 1997, but with licence terms mostly incompatible with existing open source licences. The source was then closed again as Gross felt this would undermine the commercial aspirations of the system.
After beta releases in September and November 1997, the next official release came in December 1997, with the name changed to Caldera DR-OpenDOS 7.02, soon followed by a further release in March 1998, when the DR-DOS name returned as Caldera DR-DOS 7.02, now for the first time written with a hyphen. Version 7.02 (now reporting itself as BDOS 7.3) incorporated improved BIOS and BDOS issues, developed by Paul, adding many new boot and configuration options, integrating many compatibility enhancements, bug-fixes and optimizations for size and speed, and re-implementing all fixes of the missing Novell DOS updates. The BIOS improved the coexistence of DR-DOS with Windows 9x and its support for third-party disk compression drivers such as Microsoft's DriveSpace. It introduced a diagnostics mode (activated by Scrollock), integrated debugger support (with DEBUG=ON and a debugger loaded before or from within CONFIG.SYS) and more flexible CONFIG.SYS tracing capabilities via the F5/F6/F7/F8 hotkeys and the TRACE and TIMEOUT commands, thereby also improving the integration of alternative command line shells such as 4DOS
4DOS
4DOS is a command line interpreter by JP Software, designed to replace the default command interpreter COMMAND.COM in DOS and Windows 95/98/Me. The 4DOS family of programs are meant to replace the default command processor. 4OS2 and 4NT replace CMD.EXE in OS/2 and Windows NT respectively...
. Together with LOADER, SYS /DR:ext and the CHAIN directive, it brought enhanced multi-configuration support for DR/D/CONFIG.ext files and came with enhancements to the BASIC-like CONFIG.SYS language for more powerful boot menus, convenient user interaction and programmatical acting upon conditions (CPU386), return codes and error levels (ERROR, ONERROR). It also allowed to change the SCROLLOCK, CAPSLOCK, INSERT and VERIFY settings as well as the SWITCHAR, YESCHAR, NOCHAR and RESUMECHAR characters. Various behavioural details could be controlled with new parameters /Q, /L, /Y and /S for SWITCHES. Further, it provided optional support for a LPT4: device and allowed to configure the built-in COMx: and LPTx: devices as well as to change the PRN: and AUX: defaults. The handling of environment variables in CONFIG.SYS was improved and new load-high facilities included such as the HIFILES/FILESHIGH and HIFCBS/FCBSHIGH options to relocate file handles and FCB structures into UMBs, which typically gave between 1 and 4 KB (and up to 15 KB) more free conventional memory compared to previous versions, or the HISHELL/SHELLHIGH SIZE directive to control the pre-allocation of HMA memory for COMMAND.COM, which helped to avoid memory fragmentation and thereby typically gave between 5 to 8 KB more continuous HMA memory for HMA-capable third-party drivers to work with in conjunction with third-party command line shells, which could not load into the HMA as COMMAND.COM with its /MH option. At a reduced memory footprint version 7.02 also brought an enhanced NLS 4.xx sub-system by Paul to allow multiple, distributed and possibly user-configured COUNTRY.SYS files to be used by the system at the same time in a hierarchical model. This also gave dynamic parser support for MS-DOS/PC DOS COUNTRY.SYS file formats in addition to DR-DOS' own COUNTRY.SYS formats, and it introduced support for the ISO 8601
ISO 8601
ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times is an international standard covering the exchange of date and time-related data. It was issued by the International Organization for Standardization and was first published in 1988...
international date format (including automatic detection) and the then-new Euro currency. DR-DOS 7.02 was fully Year 2000
Year 2000 problem
The Year 2000 problem was a problem for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits.In computer programs, the practice of representing the year with two...
compliant and provided special support to work with buggy system BIOSes. It also came with an updated FDISK, which could partition and format FAT32 volumes (but not yet work with LBA). The sources of the Novell patches for the external tools and drivers had meanwhile been found in Germany and could thus be retro-fitted into the system as well, so that DR-DOS 7.02 finally not only caught up with Novell DOS 7, but was a true step forward. The release was followed by various updates in June, August and September 1998.
The updated internal BDOS version number introduced the problem, that some legacy third-party applications with special support for Novell DOS stopped working, and updates to these programs could not be expected. SETVER already allowed to fake DOS versions by file name and globally, and specifying a magic sub-version of 255, it would even disable its own internal BDOS version check in order to cope with programs specifically probing for "DR-DOS". The modified kernel and SETVER driver by Paul would, in an hierarchical model, also support load paths in order to distinguish between multiple executables of the same file name, and it introduced an extended mode, in which SETVER could not only fake DOS versions, but also BDOS kernel versions. Sub-versions of 128 to 255 would be reported as DOS sub-versions 0 to 127 to applications, but with the BDOS version check disabled, while sub-versions 100 to 127 could be used to fake different BDOS versions, whereas the DOS revision number (typically set to 0 in a static, pre-boot patchable data structure) would be taken as the reported sub-version instead, so that SETVER /G /X 6.114 would allow versions of DR-DOS since 7.02 to still report themselves as a "DOS 6.0" and with a faked BDOS version 7.2 (114 decimal = 72 hexadecimal), thereby masquerading as Novell DOS 7 / OpenDOS 7.01.
While otherwise beneficial, the new HIFILES triggered a compatibility problem in the DOS-UP feature of the third-party memory manager QEMM 8, which was hard-wired to expect a chunk of five handle structures in conventional memory under DR-DOS (as with previous versions up to 7.01), whereas version 7.02 by design left eight handles in low memory when loading high files in order to maintain full compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx. Compatibility with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 had not been affected by this. A maintenance fix was devised to patch a single byte in IBMBIO.COM in order to switch the behaviour and optionally re-invoke the old chunking. This would free some 150 bytes of conventional memory and enable full compatibility with DOS-UP, but at the same time broke compatibility with older versions of Windows 3.xx when using the HIFILES feature, and vice-versa. The patch named IBMBIO85.SCR continued to work with newer versions of DR-DOS.
In August 1998, the US-based Caldera, Inc. created two new subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. for the Linux business, and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. for the embedded and thin-client market.
Another version, DR-DOS 7.03 (still with BDOS 7.3 and reporting itself to applications as "PC DOS 6.0" for compatibility purposes), was pre-released at Christmas 1998 and then officially released on 6 January 1999 by Caldera UK. It came with significantly improved memory managers (in particular enhanced DPMI support in conjunction with the multitasker) and other enhancements, such as added added DEVLOAD and DRMOUSE utilities. It would become the last version of DR-DOS also tailored for desktop use.
Caldera, Inc. wanted to relocate the DR-DOS business into the US and closed the successful UK operation in February 1999 after Gross resigned and joined Citrix UK in Cambridge. Development was then moved into the US (which never worked out due to a total lack of expertise in this field) and the DR-DOS line fell to its branch company, Caldera Thin Clients, which was renamed Lineo
Lineo
Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients, on 20 July 1999.Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998...
, Inc. on 20 July 1999. DR-WebSpyder was renamed EmBrowser and was said to be ported to Linux. Lineo would re-release DR-DOS 7.03 in June and September 1999, still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS" and without any changes, but otherwise focus on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
for embedded systems, based on a stripped down version of OpenLinux named Embedix.
Among the latest and independently developed versions of DR-DOS were OEM DR-DOS 7.04 (as of 19 August 1999) and 7.05 (as of 30 November 1999), still branded as "Caldera DR-DOS". These were variants of the system consisting only of the kernel and command shell. With a specialized native implementation of FAT32 and large hard disk support they could be found bundled with Ontrack
OnTrack
OnTrack was a regional rail line that operated in Syracuse, New York from 1994 to 2007. During its operation, Syracuse was the smallest city in the United States to have regional train service. The line ran from Colvin Street on the city's south side via Syracuse University and Armory Square to the...
's Easy Recovery 5 in 2000, replacing the dynamically loadable DRFAT32 redirector driver, which still came with Easy Recovery 4. They were also used for Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...
's SeaTools
SeaTools
SeaTools is a computer hard disk analysis software developed and released by Seagate Technology. It exists as a version for DOS and Microsoft Windows.-Overview:...
and the CD imaging software Nero Burning ROM
Nero Burning ROM
Nero Multimedia Suite is a popular software suite for Microsoft Windows by Nero AG . Version 10 of this product was released in April 2010.- Included products :The following applications are included in Nero 11 :Disc authoring...
. While still reporting a BDOS 7.3 internally, these were the first versions to report themselves as "PC DOS 7.10" to applications in order to indicate integrated FAT32 support. Designed to be mostly backwards compatible, the DR-DOS 7.04/7.05 IBMBIO.COM could be combined with the DR-DOS 7.03 IBMDOS.COM in order to give the desktop-approved DR-DOS 7.03 kernel LBA capabilities and work with drives larger than 8 GB. For specific OEM requirements, DR-DOS 7.06 by Wightman combined the kernel files into a single binary executable, so that, similar to IO.SYS of Windows 98, it could be booted by MS-DOS 7.10 boot sector
Boot sector
A boot sector or boot block is a region of a hard disk, floppy disk, optical disc, or other data storage device that contains machine code to be loaded into random-access memory by a computer system's built-in firmware...
s (but no longer by DR-DOS boot sectors). DR-DOS 7.07 (with BDOS 7.4/7.7) by Paul introduced new bootstrap
Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
loaders and updated disk tools in order to combine support for CHS
Cylinder-head-sector
Cylinder-head-sector, also known as CHS, was an early method for giving addresses to each physical block of data on a hard disk drive. In the case of floppy drives, for which the same exact diskette medium can be truly low-level formatted to different capacities, this is still true.Though CHS...
and LBA disk access, the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and the differing bootstrapping conventions of DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, REAL/32 and LOADER into a single MBR and boot sector, so that the code would continue to load any version of DR-DOS down to 3.31 (and since DR-DOS 7.04 also with FAT32 support), but could also be used to launch the PC DOS or MS-DOS system files, including those of Windows 9x and PC DOS 7.10. At the same time the kernel could not only be booted by the new sectors, but also by any previously DR-DOS formatted disks, as well as off disks with existing PC DOS or MS-DOS boot sectors and a variety of other boot-loaders, thereby easing the coexistence and setup of multi-boot scenarios in conjunction with other operating systems.
Recent versions
In 2002, Lineo was bought out, and some of Lineo's former managers purchased the name and formed a new company, DeviceLogicsDeviceLogics
DeviceLogics is a startup company in Lindon, Utah, United States of America, founded in 2002. Bryan Sparks co-founded DeviceLogics, and acquired DR-DOS from the Canopy Group, a Utah technology venture group...
. They have continued to sell DR-DOS for use in embedded systems. DR-DOS 8.0 was released on 30 March 2004 featuring FAT32 and large disk support, the ability to boot from ROM or Flash, multitasking and a DPMI memory manager. This version was based on the kernel from version 7.03. The company then split into Devicelogics Inc. and DRDOS Inc, which released DR-DOS 8.1 (with better FAT32 support) in autumn 2005. This version was not based upon version 8.0, but was a complete rewrite. Both 8.0 and 8.1 were withdrawn because of the issues outlined below, and replaced with Caldera DR-DOS 7.03.
Aside from selling copies of the operating system, the DR DOS Inc. website lists a buyout option for DR-DOS; the asking price is $25,000.
The OpenDOS 7.01 source code was a base for The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project, set up in July 2002 in an attempt to bring the functionality of DR-DOS up to parity with modern PC non-Windows operating systems. The project's added native support for large disks (LBA
Logical block addressing
Logical block addressing is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disks....
) and the FAT32
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
file system, and several other enhancements, including improved memory management and support for the new FAT+
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
file system extension which allows files of up to 256 GB in size on normal FAT
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
partitions. DR-DOS 7.01.08 was released on 21 July 2011.
Controversies
In October 2005, it was discovered that DR-DOS 8.1 included several utilities from FreeDOSFreeDOS
FreeDOS is an operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. FreeDOS is made up of many different, separate programs that act as "packages" to the overall FreeDOS Project...
and other sources and that the kernel was an outdated version of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel. DR DOS Inc. failed to comply with the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
(GPL) by not crediting the FreeDOS utilities to their authors and including the source code. After complaints from FreeDOS developers (including the suggestion to provide the source code, and hence comply with the GPL), DR DOS Inc. instead withdrew version 8.1, and also the unaffected 8.0, from their website.
See also
- Comparison of x86 DOS operating systemsComparison of x86 DOS operating systems- Historical and licensing information :Originally MS-DOS was designed to be an operating system that could run on any computer with a 8086-family microprocessor. It competed with other Operating Systems written for such computers, such as CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal. Each computer would have its own...
- CP/MCP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
- MP/MMP/MMP/M was a multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each using a separate terminal....
- DOS PlusDOS PlusDOS Plus is an operating system written by Digital Research, first released in 1985. It can be seen as an intermediate step between CP/M-86 and DR-DOS....
- Multiuser DOSMultiuser DOSMultiuser DOS is a soft real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86 and Concurrent DOS operating systems, it was originally developed by Digital Research and later further developed by Novell...