DOS /dɒs/, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 including the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.
Related systems include MS-DOS, PC DOS and its ancestor 86-DOS, DR-DOS (including PalmDOS, Novell DOS and OpenDOS), FreeDOS and RxDOS as well as PTS-DOS, ROM-DOS, Embedded DOS, NXDOS and ZDOS.
In spite of the common usage, none of these systems were simply named "DOS" (a name given only to an unrelated IBM mainframe operating system in the 1960s). A number of unrelated, non-x86 microcomputer disk operating systems had "DOS" in their name, and are often referred to simply as "DOS" when discussing machines that use them (e.g. AmigaDOS, AMSDOS, ANDOS, Apple DOS, Atari DOS, Commodore DOS, CSI-DOS, ProDOS, and TRS-DOS). While providing many of the same operating system functions for their respective computer systems, programs running under any one of these operating systems would not run under others.
Read more about DOS: Design, User Interface, Software, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word dos:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Mealtime’s the only time I get to devote to the things of the spirit.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Perhaps you can tell me why in this country nobody ever does anything. Nobody ever writes any music or starts any revolutions or falls in love. All anybody ever does is to get drunk and tell smutty stories.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)