27 Sep
2000
27 Sep
'00
1:42 p.m.
On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Clint Wolff (VAX collector) wrote:
MSDOS wasn't available separate from the hardware
until much later.
I remember running a copied version of DOS on a brand new '286 clone
I built from parts purchased from Jameco. I searched high and low,
and couldn't find MSDOS unbundled anywhere. This was about a year or
so after the '286 was released (early '90s? I don't remember)
The gray market around here was so extensive that virtually nobody knows
that it WASN'T available! (in THEORY, you could only buy MS-DOS thorough
your OEM hardware supplier)
MS-DOS 5.00 (4/91) was the first version that was available as a MICROS~1
retail product. There is widespread speculation that the unavailability
of MS-DOS as a retail product was due to an explicit deal between MICROS~1
and IBM, that ran out in 10 years. The original PC release was 8/11/81,
so the deal was probably made a few months before release.
BTW, the 286 was in the first half of the 80s.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com