- Joined
- May 18, 1997
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- 55,634
The OS2 Museum has gotten hold of the oldest known PC operating system known to exist. And if you are looking to brush up on those old DOS keystrokes, you can hit up the emulator here. So I guess now you guys need to start digging through those old disks and see if you can uncover something older? I gave a quick look and found these at the bottom of my junk drawer.
Astute readers will notice that that's exactly the same message as PC DOS 1.0 (August 1981) shows, but this COMMAND.COM did not prompt for the date. That's because this disk is not from August but rather early June 1981-newest file is timestamped June 6, 1981-which may make it the oldest known surviving piece of software written for the IBM PC (not counting the IBM PC ROMs which are dated April 1981). It's certainly the oldest known surviving PC operating system. It comes with a short text file which provides further insight into the development history of PC DOS.
Astute readers will notice that that's exactly the same message as PC DOS 1.0 (August 1981) shows, but this COMMAND.COM did not prompt for the date. That's because this disk is not from August but rather early June 1981-newest file is timestamped June 6, 1981-which may make it the oldest known surviving piece of software written for the IBM PC (not counting the IBM PC ROMs which are dated April 1981). It's certainly the oldest known surviving PC operating system. It comes with a short text file which provides further insight into the development history of PC DOS.