10 Facts About Microsoft DOS

Microsoft DOS planned, over time, to improve MS-DOS so it would be almost indistinguishable from single-user Xenix, or XEDOS, which would run on the Motorola 68000, Zilog Z8000, and the LSI-11; they would be upwardly compatible with Xenix, which Byte in 1983 described as "the multi-user MS-DOS of the future".

Microsoft DOS was released through the OEM channel, until Digital Research released DR-DOS 5.

Microsoft DOS itself sold a version of Unix for the PC called Xenix.

Unwilling to lose any portion of the market, Microsoft responded by announcing the "pending" release of MS-DOS 5.

Microsoft DOS chose to license Vertisoft's DoubleDisk, using it as the core for its DoubleSpace disk compression.

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All versions of Microsoft Windows have had an MS-DOS or MS-DOS-like command-line interface called MS-DOS Prompt which redirected input to MS-DOS and output from MS-DOS to the MS-DOS Prompt, or, in later versions, Command Prompt.

In Windows 95, the Microsoft DOS, called MS-Microsoft DOS 7, can be booted separately, without the Windows GUI; this capability was retained through Windows 98 Second Edition.

MS-Microsoft DOS is still used in embedded x86 systems due to its simple architecture and minimal memory and processor requirements, though some current products have switched to the still-maintained open-source alternative FreeMicrosoft DOS.

The purpose of this, according to Microsoft DOS, is mainly for education and experimentation with historic operating systems and for new programmers to gain an understanding of how low-level software works, both historic and current.

Windows NT runs independently of Microsoft DOS but includes NTVDM, a component for simulating a Microsoft DOS environment for legacy applications.