DeviceLogics, the keepers of the DR-DOS code base, released this week what might be the final upgrade to the 17-year-old DOS operating-system variant.
At the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, DeviceLogics took the wraps off DR-DOS 8.0, the first update to DR-DOS since 1999.

The primary new feature of the 8.0 release is FAT32/large-partition support, which DeviceLogics is targeting at customers with DOS-based embedded applications that are built atop FAT32 platforms.

DeviceLogics also rolled out at the show a DR-DOS-based Linux application called DRLX 1.0, which DeviceLogics is positioning as a migration utility for customers who want to migrate from DOS to Linux.

While Microsoft's now-defunct MS-DOS is the probably the best known of the DOS flavors (Microsoft buried MS-DOS inside Windows, as of Windows 95), DR-DOS has had its share of backers through the years.

DR-DOS was launched in 1987 by Digital Research Inc. Novell acquired the product in the early 1990s. Caldera Inc. acquired DR-DOS from Novell in 1996. Shortly thereafter, Caldera sued Microsoft for antitrust violations in the DOS space. Caldera and Microsoft settled their suit before it went to trial in 2000.

Meanwhile, in 1998, the DR-DOS product was spun out to Lineo (one of the Canopy Group companies), which repositioned it primarily as an embedded operating system. And in October 2002, DeviceLogics acquired DR-DOS.

DeviceLogics says it still has "thousands" of DR-DOS users, a number of which are among the Fortune 500, according to Bryan Sparks, co-founder and CEO of DeviceLogics. Customers are embedding the operating system in everything from bar-code scanners, to medical systems, to video-gaming devices.


"DOS is what it is," said Sparks. "We're not looking to add substantial features to it, as we're at the point of diminishing returns…. We still get requests, like could you add USB support to DR-DOS. But we see there is a community on the Net that is already doing things like this. We refer users to them."

In fact, said Sparks, "This is probably the last major upgrade we'll do to DR-DOS. We recognize the technology is well-past its prime."

Sparks acknowledged that DR-DOS has been on its death bed for the past six or seven years.

"Our customers are embedded PC makers and users," said Sparks. And "Linux is what we're transitioning our customers to."

DR-DOS 8.0 is available now as a Web download and costs $200 for a 5-user license pack. Non-royalty volume licensing options also are available.

Source: Microsoft Watch

who even uses MS DOS, let alone DS DOS anymore??

LOTS of people. In my networking class at school, we are being TAUGHT how to use DOS better. DOS is great for troubleshooting, and EVERYONE knows SOME of it. Ever use COMMAND PROMPT? That uses DOS commands. If you're in networking, you would use PING and TRACERT and ARP. If you're in programming, you would use QBASIC. They're ALL DOS commands.

QBASIC isnt Dos its BASIC lol anyway Dos is on the way out in XP its emulated for compatibility for older programs. Embeded systems still use alot of Dos and some buisnesses that do not need to upgrade (that is untill there systems die and they go to buy more Dos hardware only to find the only thing they can buy is Windows or Linux) I wont say Dos is dead but compared to windows or Linux its on its way out in a hurry... as for Techs using it to diagnos problems with Windows installs get a CD bootable version of Linux it has much better tools and a nice GUI (alot of techs are learning this new trick)