Hackers rejoice. Microsoft has just released the source code for three of its most famous operating systems.
Unfortunately for cyber thieves the operating systems are MS-DOS 1.1, 2.0 and Windows 1.1a. In a nod to the historical significance of the code the company gave it to the Computer History Museum (CHM).
"We think preserving historic source code like these two programs is key to understanding how software has evolved from primitive roots to become a crucial part of our civilization," said Len Shustek, CHM chairman.
Interested geeks will be amazed to see that MS-DOS was a fully functioning OS that was only 12kb in size, compared to Windows 8.1 which requires 20GB of hard drive space for the 64-bit verions. MS-DOS was the breakthrough product for the then tiny Microsoft.
"Remember, this was a time when a typical personal computer might have an 8 Mhz processor, 1 megabyte of memory, a 20 megabyte hard disk, and a floppy disk drive. How did Word accomplish so much with so little?" said Shustek.
The company had been providing a BASIC language interpreter to IBM. In 1981 that company was in the midst of developing a personal computer, code named Chess. IBM did not have an operating system so it licensed one from Microsoft that was named PC-DOS for the IBM product and MS-DOS for more general distribution. MS-DOS 1.1 was released in 1982 and 2.0 in 1983.
Contained in the 2.0 release was the forerunner of the software suite that would eventually turn Microsoft into the giant it is today and founder Bill Gates into the richest person on the planet.
The MS-DOS version of Word pretty much flopped against the competition, WordPerfect. However, Microsoft stuck with the idea of creating productivity software and with the release in 1989 of Word for Windows it finally took over.
"MS-DOS and Word for Windows built the foundation for Microsoft's success in the technology industry," said Roy Levin, distinguished engineer and managing director, Microsoft Research. "By contributing these source codes to the Computer History Museum archives, Microsoft is making these historic systems from the early era of personal computing available to the community for historical and technical scholarship."
