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DOS Versions
DocumentID: 619369
Revision Date: 29-Feb-96 1:38:33 PM

The information in this document applies to:
WordPerfect® 5.1 for DOS

Problem

Solutions: Listed below is a very brief evolution of DOS.

Year            DOS      Description
1981            1.0      This version is the original version of DOS. It supported single-sided disks which held 160K of programs and data. It could hold a maximum 64 files (all in one main directory).
1982            1.1      DOS was upgraded to support double-sided disks offering 320K of storage. It could now hold 112 entries.
1983            2.0      DOS was upgraded to support directory management needed for hard drives. Introduced File Handles. Increased diskette format from 8 to 9 sectors per track which provided 360K of storage per double-sided diskette.
1983            2.1      DOS was modified to accommodate PCjr, half height drives, and to fix problems.
1984            3.0      DOS was upgraded to accomodate high-density floppy diskettes allowing users 1.2M of storage per diskette.
1985            3.1      DOS was upgraded to allow networking. (This was actually part of version 3.0, but IBM's networking hardware wasn't ready so the features were deactivated.) The SUBST command was introduced.
1985            3.2      DOS was upgraded to accommodate 3.5" drives. XCOPY was introduced.
1987            3.3      DOS added compatibility with PS/2 computers. APPEND command was introduced. TIME and DATE commands now updated the internal CMOS clock on 286+ systems.
1988            4.0      DOS was upgraded to use larger hard drives without having to divide them up into 32M partitions. DOSSHELL was introduced, but this first version was awkward (not well accepted).
1988            4.1      Problems in DOS 4.0 were fixed.
1991            5.0      DOS was upgraded to allow it to use more than the standard 640K of conventional memory. Most of DOS can now reside in the area above 640K. On a 386 computer with a little tuning, more than 620K can be made available to applications. Hard drive access was improved again, now allowing partitions as large as 2.0 gigabytes (2,048M). DOSSHELL was rewritten and is now a very useful tool. Commands such as UNDELETE and UNFORMAT were introduced along with MIRROR to protect against accidental hard drive formats. SMARTDRV.SYS disk caching software was introduced and later upgraded to SMARTDRV.EXE which shipped with Microsoft Windows.

Answer:

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