You know your brand-new computer is all set to run today's top-of-the-line software. What you probably spend less time pondering is "legacy support." That is, while there may be compatibility issues, ...

As the forerunner to the graphical user interfaces in Microsoft’s Windows platform, MS-DOS helped set the stage for the company’s dominance in the PC software market. When MS-DOS was released in 1981, ...

Microsoft arguably built its business on MS-DOS, and on Tuesday the software giant and the Mountain View, CA-based Computer History Museum took the unprecedented step of publishing the source code for ...

Source code for Microsoft's MS-DOS and Word for Windows programs is now publicly available via the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Microsoft donated the code of MS-DOS versions 1.1 ...

Reader Steve P. sends in this question: “I’m running Windows 2000 and want to upgrade my system BIOS. The instructions say to create a bootable disk with the format a:/s command. However, the /s doesn ...

Microsoft’s MS-DOS (and its IBM-branded counterpart, PC DOS) eventually became software juggernauts, powering the vast majority of PCs throughout the ’80s and serving as the underpinnings of Windows ...

In brief: A YouTuber has demonstrated the ability to run the venerable MS-DOS operating system and classic games directly on modern computer hardware without any emulation. This blast from the past ...

Clifford led How To coverage. He spent a handful of years at Peachpit Press, editing books on everything from the first iPhone to Python. He also worked at a handful of now-dead computer magazines, ...

In context: Back in 1980, Tim Paterson was creating a new operating system he called QDOS or Quick and Dirty Operating System. The system was later renamed 86-DOS, as it was being designed to run on ...

Tony Smith puns it up, with “Kudos to QDOS”: On 27 July 1981, Microsoft gave the name MS-DOS to the…operating system it acquired on that day from Seattle Computer Products (SCP). … The company had ...

Some things we don't think much about; we just accept them. But have you ever wondered why the hard drive on a Windows system ...