Unboxing New Old Stock MS-DOS 5

The First Modern MS-DOS release

In 1990, Microsoft did something that not many companies are brave enough to do. They asked users around the world what they’d like to see in the next MS-DOS release. This was done on the early internet (Byte’s BIX and also on Compuserve), and it was Gordon Letwin (author of HDOS, lead for OSs at MS at this time) who wrote: “I’ve never met a programmer who didn’t think he could have done it better; here’s an opportunity to enlighten us.” As with all public requests for comment on the internet, this didn’t result in the most well thought out pool of suggestions, but there were several recurrent themes. Many people craved a DOS version that would use less memory, that would load the kernel in high memory when possible, and that would support larger floppy disk capacities as well as larger hard disk partitions. These were supplied with MS-DOS 5. Additionally, many commands gained the /? parameter for command help, quick formatting arrived in FORMAT with the /q switch, the fullscreen EDIT.COM editor showed up and had mouse support. In general, all of the new features in MS-DOS 5 had been available from third party vendors previously, but having them integrated in a single cohesive product was mighty fine.

The initial release of MS-DOS 5 was made in June of 1991. This was followed with version 5.00a in November which fixed some bugs in FDISK and FORMAT. Version 5.50 was a modified version of 5.00a which was used in the NTVDM.

I happened to acquire a new old stock copy of MS-DOS 5, and I feel it is finally time to open it up and install it. I will photo everything, but with the manual… which is absolutely huge, I will just do the table of contents and the “what’s new” section.