********* Hit here for more details *********MS-DOS ( /ˌɛmɛsˈdɒs/ em-es-doss; short for Microsoft Disk Operating System) 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 systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in particular by various generations of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

MS-DOS grew from a 1981 request by IBM for an operating system for its IBM PC range of personal computers. Microsoft quickly bought the rights toQDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), also known as 86-DOS,^[2] from Seattle Computer Products, and began work on modifying it to meet IBM's specification. The first edition, MS-DOS 1.0, was launched in 1982.^[3] The version shipped with IBM's PCs was called PC DOS. Although MS-DOS and PC-DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products eventually went their separate ways.

During its life, several competing products were released for the x86 platform,^[4] and MS-DOS itself would go through eight versions, until development ceased in 2000. Ultimately it was the key product in Microsoft's growth from a programming languages company to a diverse software development firm, providing the company with essential revenue and marketing resources. It was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI.

Contents   [hide]  1 History 2 Versions 3 Competition 4 Legal issues 5 Use of undocumented APIs 6 End of MS-DOS 7 The Windows command-line interface 8 Legacy compatibility 9 Related systems 9.1 Single-user 10 See also 11 Quotations 12 Remarks 13 Notes 14 References 15 External links

MS-DOS

An example of MS-DOS's command-line interface, this one showing that the current directory is the root of drive C.
Company /developer	Microsoft Corporation
Programmed in	Assembly language[1]
OS family	DOS
Working state	Discontinued/Historic
Source model	Closed source
Initial release	1981
Latest stable release	8.0 / September 14, 2000; 11 years ago
Availablelanguage(s)	Multilanguage
Availableprogramming languages(s)	C, Pascal, QBasic,Batch, etc.
Supported platforms	x86
Kernel type	Monolithic kernel
Default user interface	Command-line interface, Text user interface
License	Proprietary

An operating system (OS) 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. A user cannot run an application program on the computer without an operating system, unless the application program is self booting.

Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources.

For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between application programs and the computer hardware,^[1][2] although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and will frequently call the OS or be interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on almost any device that contains a computer—from cellular phones and video game consoles to supercomputers and web servers.

Examples of popular modern operating systems include Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.^[3]

Contents   [hide]  1 Types 2 Summary 3 History 3.1 Mainframes 3.2 Microcomputers 4 Examples of operating systems 4.1 Unix and Unix-like operating systems 4.1.1 BSD and its descendants 4.1.1.1 Mac OS X 4.1.2 Plan 9 4.1.3 Linux and GNU 4.1.3.1 Google Chrome OS 4.2 AmigaOS 4.3 Microsoft Windows 4.4 Other 5 Components 5.1 Kernel 5.1.1 Program execution 5.1.2 Interrupts 5.1.3 Modes 5.1.4 Memory management 5.1.5 Virtual memory 5.1.6 Multitasking 5.1.7 Disk access and file systems 5.1.8 Device drivers 5.2 Networking 5.3 Security 5.4 User interface 5.4.1 Graphical user interfaces 6 Real-time operating systems 7 Operating system development as a hobby 8 Diversity of operating systems and portability 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links

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