History of Computers - MS-DOS

MS-DOS logo

Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) was released by Microsoft in 1982. It is a 16bit Operating System(OS) which displays a command line interface on a black screen with white letters and numbers.^[1] No mouse is required because users are required to type in commands to execute programs. Directly after its release it became the standard OS because the majority of computer companies licensed it. ^[2]

Overview

As MS-DOS grew and became more wide spread, programers also made their programs DOS friendly. Because of this there were a large amount of applications made for MS-DOS. This factor helped MS-DOS become the standard worldwide by 1985. By 1988, there were over 60 million MS-DOS installations and all software was made compatible with it. MS-DOS continued to grow in popularity and usage until 1995 with the release of Windows 95. However, updated versions were included to run with W95 because so many applications still were based on DOS. Updates for MS-DOS were made until 2000. ^[2]

User Interface

Significance

MS-DOS was the first wide spread Operating System. For almost 15 years it was the standard for users and made interaction with a computer easier. MS-DOS paved the way for more graphical user interfaces such as Windows 95, Windows ME, Windows XP, and even Vista. Because MS-DOS was more user friendly then previous Operating Systems, it helped make computers usable for people who weren't adept at using computer technology, thus making computers more widespread than they ever previously were. ^[2]