Sparta DOS X - History

History

SpartaDOS X is named after its predecessors, SpartaDOS 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 (also ICD products), and enjoys good level of backward compatibility with the older SpartaDOS software. But it is not, contrary to what can be thought considering the name and the version number, a newer version of SpartaDOS 3.0. It was a completely new system, written from scratch.

SpartaDOS X 4.0 was originally developed by Michael Gustafson in 1987-89, and shipped on 64k ROM cartridges by ICD, Inc. up to version 4.21. The cartridge contained an additional cartridge slot on itself, so that it was possible to plug-in another cartridge, such as ICD's R-Time 8 battery-backed clock, a language cartridge (Action!, MAC/65 etc.) or a game cartridge, and use it in conjunction with the DOS.

In 1992 Atari Corp. dropped all the official support for their 8-bit computers, and so did ICD shortly after that. The rights for the 8-bit ICD inventory were purchased in November 1993 by some Michael Hohman, officially as Fine Tooned Engineering (FTe). FTe released a (barely) updated version 4.22 on 5 November 1995, and, after two or three years, having financial problems, disappeared together with all the items and rights it owned.

Ten years later development of SpartaDOS X, then considered abandonware, was picked up by its enthusiasts, as SpartaDOS X Upgrade Project. It resulted in several unofficial revisions of the software, incorporating many of the utilities written since 1992, cleaning many identified problems and including numerous improvements. As of 2011 the published versions are: 4.31 (2005), 4.39RC (2006), 4.40 (a leaked-out beta, 2006), 4.41 (Feb. 2008), 4.42 (Dec. 2008), 4.43 (Apr. 2011), 4.44 (Jun. 2011), 4.45 (Nov. 2011) and 4.46 (Jan. 2013).