SCP originally wanted to simply use Digital Research’s 8086 version of CP/M, but with an uncertain release date SCP made the decision to develop an OS themselves. It was first developed to be packaged with CPM’s 8086 computer kit. It was originally named QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), but was changed to 86-DOS once they began shipping in August of 1980.

QDOS / 86-DOSĨ6-DOS was originally developed by Seattle Computer Products (SCP) beginning in April of 1980. More about this project can be found here. The website for the project is now seemingly dead but it can still be viewed on. This branch of the DOS family is still somewhat alive under the name DR-DOS (with the hyphen) with the last real update being back in 2011. While IBM moved on, Digital Research went on to develop their own version of DOS based on CP/M 86 that eventually became DR DOS.Īs ownership of Digital Research changed, later versions had different names like Novell DOS and Caldera DR-OpenDOS (what a mouthful).

IBM looked elsewhere for an operating system and in July of 1980 began talks with Microsoft about their development of MS-DOS, which was based on 86-DOS by Seattle Computer Products. IBM discussed licensing CP/M from Digital Research, but they were unable to come to an agreement. It was designed for 8-Bit computers, so it ran on Intel 8080/85 and Z80 processors.ĬP/M originally stood for “Control Program/Monitor” and later “Control Program for Microcomputers”.ĬP/M 1.4 was the first major version released, later followed by version 2.2.ĬP/M was even able to run on the Commodore 64, though it required a specialized cartridge that housed a Z80 processor.Īt the time, IBM was looking for an operating system to use with their IBM PC line of products. The code for the chart can be found in my Projects repository, under the Dos Lineage Cladogram folder.ĬP/M was a operating system designed by Gary Kildall for Digital Research. I hope to use it in other articles to walk through the history of Digital Research’s DOS, DR DOS and the many transformations it went through.

In addition to writing this article, I also made the following cladogram chart showing the relationships of different DOS “flavors”. It went through 8 (and a half-ish) major revisions, with the final version being shipped with Windows ME in September, 2000.īefore I talk about MS-DOS proper, I talk about it’s “grandparents” if you will, Digital Research’s CP/M and Seattle Computer Product’s 86-DOS. It is the software that helped build Microsoft, becoming the foundation Microsoft built the Windows operating system on. MS-DOS stood for Microsoft Disk Operating System and was often referred to simply as “DOS”. First released on August 12, 1981, MS-DOS became the foundation for business computing for almost two decades.

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