30 Years Ago IT all Started with MS-DOS

That posting title just came to me. It could say “30 years ago it all started with MS-DOS”, but it actually says “30 years ago IT all started with MS-DOS”. So what’s the difference some of you might be asking. Well the first heading indicates MS-DOS all started 30 years ago but the second interpretation says Information Technology (IT) all started 30 years ago. The cool thing is that both of these decodes of the heading are (more or less, up to a point) correct.

Anyway … Apparently it was 30 years ago on the 27th of July this year (2011) that MS-DOS was born.

For those that have no idea what this means—well before there was Windows 7 there was Windows XP (ignoring Windows Vista, as most people do). Before that there was Windows NT 3.51/4 Workstation (remember that one?), Windows ME, Windows 98/98SE, Windows 95, and Windows 2000. And before that there was Windows 3.11, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.0, Windows 2.1, Windows 2.0, and (I am pretty sure although I can’t actually remember anything called this), Windows 1.0. Somewhere in there are Windows 286 and Windows 386 but I suspect they map to Windows 2.0/2.1 and Windows 3.0 respectively (although I can’t remember for sure).

All of these were preceded by MS-DOS (which IBM licensed from Microsoft and re-boxed for their computers as PC‑DOS). In fact all versions of Windows up until Windows 2000 actually ran on top of MS‑DOS and you had to buy a license for both before you could install Windows.

It is a bit scary to admit but I was around in the days of MS-DOS/PC-DOS and remember it very well.

It is also a bit scary to have seen the massive changes from MS-DOS through to Windows 7 in just 30 years and to wonder just what could happen in the next 30 years if the same pace of technological advancement continues; or even accelerates!!

Oh. The MS-DOS image links to an article over at the ExtremeTech site if you want to read some more about MS-DOS. Don’t forget to use Ctrl+Click to open the link in a new Tab (or Shift+Click if you use Opera).