MS-DOS passed away Thursday, October 25, 2001, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel

on Times Square in New York City.

MS-DOS was born in August 1980, in Tukwila, Washington, the creation of Tim
Paterson and the Seattle Computer Company. Initially called QDOS 0.10 (short

for "Quick and Dirty Operating System"), MS-DOS was a lifelong resident of
the
Seattle area. In late 1980, nonexclusive rights for 86-DOS 0.3, as the
operating system was then known, were sold to Microsoft. In July 1981, as
Paterson recounted in a June 1983 BYTE article entitled "A Short History of
MS-DOS," Microsoft bought all rights to the DOS from Seattle Computer and
changed the name of the operating system to "MS-DOS."

In the 1980s and early 1990s, MS-DOS was arguably the most widely used
computer program in the world. There were many reasons for this, the least
of
which was the historical rise of the personal computer. But what set MS-DOS
apart from other players in the personal computer operating system arena was

Paterson's desire to make application development as easy as possible for
software developers. To this end, Paterson made the MS-DOS API similar to
CP/M, an 8-bit operating system in widespread use at the time. Secondly,
Paterson focused on making MS-DOS fast and efficient, something he achieved
by
writing it entirely in 8086 assembly language.

MS-DOS is survived by Windows 98, XP, Me, 2000, and CE, all of the same
home.
MS-DOS was preceded in death by Windows 1.0, 3.0, 95, and Windows for Pens.

In announcing MS-DOS's demise, Microsoft founder Bill Gates typed "exit" at
the MS-DOS command line during the launch of Windows XP. He stated, "It's
the
end of the MS-DOS era," referring to the exorcism of 16-bit code from the
Windows code base. Gates was joined on stage by industry leaders such as
Gateway's Ted Wait, Dell's Michael Dell, Compaq's Michael Capellas, and
Intel's Craig Barrett, all of whom have made millions of dollars from the
late
MS-DOS. TV personality Regis Philbin also appeared to pay his respects (or,
more precisely, to be paid for paying his respects), and rock singer Sting
led
mourners in soulful renditions of "Ave Marie," "Take A Closer Walk with Me,"

and "Here I Am Lord" at nearby Bryant Park.

In lieu of flowers, we respectfully request that you make contributions to
the
charity of your choice.

Jonathan Erickson, Editorial Director [log in to unmask]

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