http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.History

Club Dr-DOS Wiki - history page

6.? Stories
6.1? Matthias Paul

Lineo DrDOS (2000) is the successor of Novell DOS (1993-1996), which derived from Digital Research's DR DOS (1988-1993), and DR Multiuser DOS, which in turn were based on the DOS Plus (1985-1987), CP/M-Plus, DR Concurrent DOS (since 1986), and DR Concurrent CP/M (CCP/M) (since 1982) families, directly going back to the legendary CP/M (Control Program for Microprocessors) (1973) and the multitasking/multiuser version MP/M (Multiprogramming Monitor for Microcomputers). If you have a look, you can see the copyright messages going back to 1976, even though DRI's DOS family actually started out of DR Concurrent CP/M-86, which had some DOS emulation, and the multitasking DOS Plus for the Amstrad/Schneider PC1512, which had a Concurrent CP/M-86 emulation layer. However, some of the code or technology might even go back to the original CP/M code base, that is back to the days the whole microcomputer area started with Intel's 8080 in 1973. Other members of this OS family tree have been for example DR PalmDOS (1993), DR Concurrent PC-DOS, DR Concurrent DOS/386, DR Concurrent DOS/XM, CP/M-80, and CP/M-86, even a CP/M-68K and a graphically system extension named GSX. The list goes further with the networking software DR NET, the graphically multitasking shell GEM (Graphical Environment Manager) for both, Intel and Motorola platforms (e.g. on Atari computers with their GEMDOS), and last but not least the modular protected mode real-time operating system DR FlexOS, including its subsystems X/GEM and FlexNet. Currently shipping products such as Concurrent Control's CCI Multiuser DOS, Intelligent Micro Software's IMS REAL/32, and Integrated Systems' FlexOS are now on independent development paths, but also inherited the DR Multiuser DOS respectively DR FlexOS source code. "Ok, and what about MS-DOS/PC-DOS, then?" Microsoft's MS-DOS alias IBM's PC-DOS 1.0 (1981) (optimized for the IBM PC) were originally based on 86-DOS, licensed for $50.000 from Seattle Computer Products' QDOS (1980), a disk-operating-system written in two months (Technically, this is incorrect. Tim Paterson claims it took him 2 man-months over a 4 month period, look at http://patersontech.com/Dos/Micronews/paterson04_10_98.htm), and basically representing a mixture of `new' ideas (especially in media access) and a 16 bit port from CP/M-80 to the 8088/8086 architecture. Of course, much has changed from these ancient times, but the roots are still visible. So after all, although OpenDOS (Caldera: 1997-1999) also learnt from MS-DOS to become most compatible (e.g. taking its own HIDEVICE= and MS-DOS' play on words DEVICEHIGH=, etc. ;-) ) and emulates MS-DOS' APIs, it truely is not a clone, as real as DOS can be. To give some foundation to these arguments, here are some of the single-user series' unique features at that times: DR DOS 3.4x (1988/1989) had the CONFIG.SYS INSTALL= command, and CONFIG.SYS queries by the ?= command, a full screen editor, help screens with /?, XDIR and XDEL, and already was ROMable and supported harddisks up to 512 MByte; DR DOS 5.0 (1990) introduced all these DOS load-high options moving parts of the kernel and drivers into UMBs and the HMA (like MEMMAX, HIDOS=ON, HIDEVICE=, HIINSTALL=, HILOAD, and the /MH parameter), and the graphically DOS-shell (ViewMAX); DR DOS 6.0 (1991) came with data compression (SUPERSTOR at that times), delete tracking software (DELWATCH), NetWare Lite support, a DOS prompt task switcher (TASKMAX), a link facility (FILELINK), CONFIG.SYS SET= and boot menus; been followed by Novell DOS 7 (1993) introducing real multitasking, Personal NetWare, a DOS DPMI server (without a need for MS Windows), Protected Mode DOS drivers (with DPMS), an adaptive cache which could lean memory even to DOS programs, LASTDRIVE=32 etc. Some of the features, like password protection or list files still have not been adapted by the competitors. Well, that's history and we should now get back to the present - because the story goes on (even if much of the being ahead of time has been lost because of Novell's trashing the product for two years).

 6.2? Mr. M.

DRDOS was originally developed in the 1980s at Charnam Park, an industrial estate in Hungerford, in the far east of Wiltshire, in England (Not Quite True it was in Station Road Hungerford in West Berkshire, didnt move to charnham park till much later - remark from anonymous poster of our guestbook). It stayed there until about 1996 when Novell dropped DRDOS. In January 1997, under Caldera, development began again in a barn near Andover, in Hampshire, by a group of ex-Novell engineers. OpenDOS 7.01 was released, a quick hack based on the version of Novell DOS which Novell had given them. Novell had unfortunately mislaid the source code of the latest version, which would not be found for nearly a year. In May 1997, I was looking for a company to do a placement year with as the 3rd year of a sandwich course. I was running OpenDOS 7.01 at the time, and I'd been using DRDOS 6.01 since 1992. At the time, I believed that the OpenDOS work was being done in the US, so I didn't believe my eyes when I found a note on the University noticeboard looking for a Software Engineering undergraduate to work on DRDOS in Andover. I applied for that post and worked for Caldera UK as a contractor from July 1997 until August 1998. I did a little kernel work and have a fair few bugs to my name (The Year 2000-PCI problem of the 7.02 beta, the DR-Mouse fiasco). I also rewrote the guts of FDISK and added support for other partition types. I'm attaching a photo of the inside of the barn where DRDOS and Webspyder were being developed, sometime in early 1998. This photo was taken by Matthias Paul. I've concealed all the faces except those of myself and Kevin, who can't really be seen well enough to identify Click here to see the photo! I also have some photos of the outside of the barn but I haven't scanned them in yet. 

--------------end -----------------