IBM 5150 PC

On 7/8/09, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: Yes. Especially if you are used to DOS 5 or DOS 6, DOS 3.3 won't feel too "odd", but takes up less memory than the newer versions. Even a few K makes a huge difference, in case you've forgotten how painful it was. I agree it wasn't pretty. Fortunately for me, I "missed out" when that stuff was current. I was working on DEC computers at work, Commodore computers at home, and classic Macs at my mother's small business when "the whole business world" was using DOS. I didn't get a DOS box at home until about 1991. Except for one project in 1988 (application development for a motor platform for a remote microscope), I didn't really use DOS at work on a daily basis until 1995 (the same year I first got paid to set up a Linux box, coincidentally), and even then, I had my Amiga on same desk for "real" work. What else was popular back then... Procomm for dialup terminal emulation (if you weren't using Kermit), Turbo Pascal for app development (unless you were already a dyed-in-the-wool C programmer, and there were options for that), games of course, and before Word or WordPerfect or even WordStar, there was WordVision by Bruce and James software (my first employer). I have a copy of it downstairs - it comes on a PC-DOS 1.0 install floppy w/copy protection, and the box says "PC-DOS 1.0 or higher required, 256K of RAM required, floppy drive required". It uses timing loops, so it really only runs right at 4.77MHz (but I think someone came up with a timing loop constant patch program when machines over 8MHz started coming along). In 1982, it was really great; not so much so by 1984 when the company folded. Glad I got a copy of the product to show off what things used to be like before hard disks were common as mud. -ethan