tschak909 Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Silly, absurd thread coming... Why do we not know who wrote DOS 3? Were they afraid of death threats? "NO DEAR GOD, WE DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THIS! MANAGEMENT MADE US DO IT!" -Thom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 We do know. I read it not too long ago. Ill have to dig up the link. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Seems to me DOS 3 was quite a forward-looking DOS. Its only crime seems to have been lack of direct backwards compatibility with DOS 2.0s, resulting in user revolt. But from what I've read of DOS 3, the file system seems better designed (if somewhat wasteful owing to the use of clusters) than that of DOS 2.0s. So I don't think the author should be too ashamed. It was just bad timing, and the clusters didn't really suit the (then) low-capacity floppies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 DOS 3 was my first DOS, and I used it almost exclusively through high school and college. I don't understand all the frustration with it, seems to work ok to me. Of course, I only had one floppy drive at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 I can't edit, but a quick search didn't remind me where I read it. I read a ton of back issues over the last 4 months. Don't quote this as completely accurate, but I want to say It was Bill Wilkinson, and 3 was the fore bearer to what would eventually become DOS XE. Banging my head on where I read it and now its going to bug me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 DOS 3 was my first DOS, and I used it almost exclusively through high school and college. I don't understand all the frustration with it, seems to work ok to me. Of course, I only had one floppy drive at the time. DOS 3 got a bad rap because it was not backward compatible with DOS 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 This is all true. It is not a bad DOS on it's own, but since it is SO on it's OWN it's not really something you want to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 There was this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/102915-dos-3-history/ DOS3 was the solution to a problem that didn't exist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 DOS 3 was written by Skylar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 There was this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/102915-dos-3-history/ DOS3 was the solution to a problem that didn't exist. I read it in a book or magazine and for the life of me cant remember where. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorfdbg Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Dos 3 was basically FAT. It used pretty much the same structure as FAT. Unfortunately, they tried to fit in the FAT into one 128 byte sector (instead of one 512 byte sector, as on the PC), which required them to combine eight sectors into one block. Needlessly wasteful. Other than that, the FMS itself was fine and removed a lot of restrictions Dos 2 had (no free point & note, no extend,read-write-update mode). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 DOS 3 was the one that came with my 1050. Not sure when or why I switched to 2.5. It might have been on the recommendation of a friend or, more likely, because of the bad press it was getting in the mags. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 (edited) If it had backward compatability, really it would have been worse. Supporting both filing systems would mean plenty more uncommon code. Realistically, FAT is a much better filing system than embedding pointers in data and allocation as a bitmap. But you can't just throw out what was essentially a 5 year old standard that practically everyone was using. If they'd have put much of the code under the OS and included legacy 2.x file system support then acceptance might have been better, but then again XL users and 64K ones at that were somewhat a minority probably until 1985 or later. Edited February 28, 2014 by Rybags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 DOS 3 was written by Skylar. Was that a company or a person's last name? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbking67 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 I can't edit, but a quick search didn't remind me where I read it. I read a ton of back issues over the last 4 months. Don't quote this as completely accurate, but I want to say It was Bill Wilkinson, and 3 was the fore bearer to what would eventually become DOS XE. Banging my head on where I read it and now its going to bug me... I don't think this is accurate. Bill Wilkinson was involved with OSS, and was part of the team that developed OS/A+ and later DOS XL, an early command-line operating system for the Atari. DOS XE was an Atari product, and I don't think OSS or Bill Wilkinson was involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 I may be wrong with the name, but what I read said that whomever had written it was either leaving Atari or had just left Atari. I wish I could remember the details. I thought they went to either OSS or Activision, but OSS makes more sense. I'm going to have to dig that up this weekend. Where did I read that?!? ugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 DOS 3 was written by SkyNet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Bill Wilkinson did develop DOS XE for Atari. I found that in the Atari 8 Bit FAQ. Though thats not where I read the details on DOS 3. What the %^&* book was I reading!?! This is going to bug me all weekend. Excerpt from: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-64.html "Before its release, DOS XE was widely known as "ADOS." It was developed by Bill Wilkinson for Atari. The DOS XE disk is labeled: DOS XE Master Diskette (DX5090)." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcanis-Will Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Bill Wilkinson did develop DOS XE for Atari. I found that in the Atari 8 Bit FAQ. Though thats not where I read the details on DOS 3. What the %^&* book was I reading!?! This is going to bug me all weekend. Excerpt from: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-64.html "Before its release, DOS XE was widely known as "ADOS." It was developed by Bill Wilkinson for Atari. The DOS XE disk is labeled: DOS XE Master Diskette (DX5090)." I have not seen anything for DOS 3 yet, but in the book Inside Atari DOS, Bill Wilkinson from OSS describes how they created DOS 2.0S for Atari. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Was that a company or a person's last name? Allan DOS 3 was written by SkyNet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Where did you learn to code? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 (edited) DOS 3 was my first DOS, and I used it almost exclusively through high school and college. I don't understand all the frustration with it, seems to work ok to me. Of course, I only had one floppy drive at the time. I am sure articles written by "experts" of the time had a lot to do with DOS 3 hatred, wasn't a problem for me, although I realize for people who had a large collection of DOS 2 disks it was inconvenient to say the least. Edited February 28, 2014 by atari8warez Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPA5 Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 I thought one of the project leads was Mark Zbikowski? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 I don't think this is accurate. Bill Wilkinson was involved with OSS, and was part of the team that developed OS/A+ and later DOS XL, an early command-line operating system for the Atari. DOS XE was an Atari product, and I don't think OSS or Bill Wilkinson was involved. Listen to the Antic podcast interview with Bill. He confirms he wrote it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Yep, I interviewed Bill, and he said that he wrote DOS 3. He talks about it in this interview: ANTIC Interview 7 - The Atari 8-bit Podcast - Bill Wilkinson, OSS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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