-
Also see Disk Operating System.
MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) was the Microsoft-marketed version of the first widely-installed operating system in personal computers. It was essentially the same operating system that Bill Gates's young company developed for IBM as Personal Computer - Disk Operating System (PC-DOS). Most users of either DOS system simply referred to their system as Disk Operating System. Like PC-DOS, MS-DOS was (and still is) a non-graphical line-oriented command-driven operating system, with a relatively simple interface but not overly "friendly" user interface. Its prompt to enter a command looks like this:
C:>
The first Microsoft Windows operating system was really an application that ran on top of the MS-DOS operating system. Today, Windows operating systems continue to support DOS (or a DOS-like user interface) for special purposes by emulating the operating system.
In the 1970s before the personal computer was invented, IBM had a different and unrelated DOS that ran on smaller business computers. It was replaced by IBM's VSE operating system.
| CONTRIBUTORS: |
Jacob Ghitis, M.D |
| LAST UPDATED: |
04 Nov 2008
|
 |
Read more about MS-DOS:
|


 |
Do you have something to add to this definition? Let us know.
Send your comments to techterms@whatis.com
|

');
// -->
 |
 |
|  |
RELATED CONTENT
 |
Windows 2000 batch file command reference
Check out this reference guide to batch file commands for Windows 2000, based on Microsoft documentation, but rewritten to increase usefulness and...
|
 |
Using CMD.exe and Command.com
Windows NT comes with two "command line shells" -- one called CMD.exe and the other called Command.com. If you're wondering which one to use, this tip...
|
 |
Microsoft's Allchin to retire in 2006
Microsoft once again shuffles its top brass. Jim Allchin, a key technologist at Microsoft, who made Windows NT the network operating system of choice,...
|
|

|