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MS-DOS 4.0 (multitasking)
MS-DOS 4.0 was a multitasking release of MS-DOS developed by Microsoft based on MS-DOS 2.0. Lack of interest from OEMs, particularly IBM (who previously gave Microsoft multitasking code on IBM PC DOS included with TopView), led to it being released only in a scaled-back form. It is sometimes referred to as European MS-DOS 4.0, as it was primarily used there. It should not be confused with PC DOS 4.00 or MS-DOS 4.01 and later, which did not contain the multi-tasking features. History Apricot Computers pre-announced "MS-DOS 4.0" in early 1986, and Microsoft demonstrated it in September of that year at a Paris trade show. However, only a few European OEMs, such as SMT Goupil and International Computers Limited (ICL), actually licensed releases of the software. In particular, IBM declined the product, concentrating instead on improvements to MS-DOS 3.x and their new joint development with Microsoft to produce OS/2. As a result, the project was scaled back, and only those f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VirtualBox
Oracle VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and InnoTek VirtualBox) is a hosted hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, which was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2010. VirtualBox may be installed on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris (operating system), Solaris and OpenSolaris. There are also ports to FreeBSD and Genode. It supports the creation and management of guest virtual machines running Windows, Linux, Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD, OS/2, Solaris, Haiku (operating system), Haiku, and Hackintosh, OSx86, as well as limited virtualization of guests on Apple hardware. For some guest operating systems, a "Guest Additions" package of device drivers and system applications is available, which typically improves performance, especially that of graphics, and allows changing the resolution of the guest OS automati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OS/2
OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, intended as a replacement for DOS. The first version was released in 1987. A feud between the two companies beginning in 1990 led to Microsoft’s leaving development solely to IBM, which continued development on its own. OS/2 Warp 4 in 1996 was the last major upgrade, after which IBM slowly halted the product as it failed to compete against Microsoft's Microsoft Windows, Windows; updated versions of OS/2 were released by IBM until 2001. The name stands for "Operating System/2", because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "IBM Personal System/2, Personal System/2 (PS/2)" line of second-generation PCs. OS/2 was intended as a protected mode, protected-mode successor of IBM PC DOS, PC DOS targeting t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jon Shirley
Jon A. Shirley (born April 12, 1938) is a former president, chief operating officer, and director of the Microsoft Corporation. He is a collector of vintage cars and modern art. Early life and education Shirley was born to Joseph and Mercedes Shirley in San Diego, California, where Joseph was stationed in the U.S. Navy. Jon Shirley attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Career Shirley started 25-year tenure at Radio Shack as a store department manager in Boston before the company's acquisition by the Tandy Corporation in 1963. Tandy Corporation founder Charles Tandy sent Shirley to open the first Radio Shack stores in California, then later sent him to Brussels, Belgium, to open the first European stores as merchandising vice president. Shirley was also responsible for Radio Shack's computer division and as vice president of computer merchandising, he was credited with propelling the T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
INT 21h
The DOS API is an API which originated with 86-DOS and is used in MS-DOS/ PC DOS and other DOS-compatible operating systems. Most calls to the DOS API are invoked using software interrupt 21h ( INT 21h). By calling INT 21h with a subfunction number in the AH processor register and other parameters in other registers, various DOS services can be invoked. These include handling keyboard input, video output, disk file access, program execution, memory allocation, and various other activities. In the late 1980s, DOS extenders along with the DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI) allow the programs to run in either 16-bit or 32-bit protected mode and still have access to the DOS API. History of the DOS API The original DOS API in 86-DOS and MS-DOS 1.0 was designed to be functionally compatible with CP/M. Files were accessed using file control blocks (FCBs). The DOS API was greatly extended in MS-DOS 2.0 with several Unix concepts, including file access using file handles, hierarc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MS-Net
MS-Net, sometimes stylized as MS-NET, was a network operating system sold by Microsoft in the 1980s, the earliest days of local area networking. Overview MS-Net was not a complete networking system of its own; Microsoft licensed it to vendors who used it as the basis for server programs that ran on MS-DOS, porting it to their own underlying networking hardware and adding services on top. Version 1.0 was announced on 14 August 1984 and released along with the PC/AT on 2 April 1985. A number of MS-Net products were sold during the late 1980s, before it was replaced by LAN Manager in 1990. MS-Net's network interface was based on IBM's NetBIOS protocol definition, which allowed it to be ported to different networking systems with relative ease. It did not implement the entire NetBIOS protocol, however, only the small number of features required for the server role. One key feature that was not implemented was NetBIOS's name management routines, a feature third parties often added ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pipeline (Unix)
In Unix-like computer operating systems, a pipeline is a mechanism for inter-process communication using message passing. A pipeline is a set of process (computing), processes chained together by their standard streams, so that the output text of each process (''stdout'') is passed directly as input (''stdin'') to the next one. The second process is started as the first process is still executing, and they are executed concurrency (computer science), concurrently. The concept of pipelines was championed by Douglas McIlroy at Unix's ancestral home of Bell Labs, during the development of Unix, shaping its Unix philosophy, toolbox philosophy. It is named by analogy to a physical pipeline transport, pipeline. A key feature of these pipelines is their "hiding of internals". This in turn allows for more clarity and simplicity in the system. The pipes in the pipeline are anonymous pipes (as opposed to named pipes), where data written by one process is buffered by the operating system un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interprocess Communication
In computer science, interprocess communication (IPC) is the sharing of data between running processes in a computer system. Mechanisms for IPC may be provided by an operating system. Applications which use IPC are often categorized as clients and servers, where the client requests data and the server responds to client requests. Many applications are both clients and servers, as commonly seen in distributed computing. IPC is very important to the design process for microkernels and nanokernels, which reduce the number of functionalities provided by the kernel. Those functionalities are then obtained by communicating with servers via IPC, leading to a large increase in communication when compared to a regular monolithic kernel. IPC interfaces generally encompass variable analytic framework structures. These processes ensure compatibility between the multi-vector protocols upon which IPC models rely. An IPC mechanism is either synchronous or asynchronous. Synchronization pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel 80386
The Intel 386, originally released as the 80386 and later renamed i386, is the third-generation x86 architecture microprocessor from Intel. It was the first 32-bit computing, 32-bit processor in the line, making it a significant evolution in the x86 architecture. Pre-production samples of the 386 were released to select developers in 1985, while mass production commenced in 1986. The 386 was the central processing unit, central processing unit (CPU) of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time. The 386 began to fall out of public use starting with the release of the i486 processor in 1989, while in embedded systems the 386 remained in widespread use until Intel finally discontinued it in 2007. Compared to its predecessor the Intel 80286 ("286"), the 80386 added a three-stage instruction pipelining, instruction pipeline which it brings up to total of 6-stage instruction pipeline, extended the architecture from 16-bits to 32-bits, and added an on-chip memory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Mode
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as Memory_segmentation, segmentation, virtual memory, paging and safe computer multitasking, multi-tasking designed to increase an operating system's control over application software. When a processor that supports x86 protected mode is powered on, it begins executing instructions in real mode, in order to maintain backward compatibility with earlier x86 processors. Protected mode may only be entered after the system software sets up one descriptor table and enables the Protection Enable (PE) bit in the control register 0 (CR0). Protected mode was first added to the x86 architecture in 1982, with the release of Intel's 80286 (286) processor, and later extended with the release of the 80386 (386) in 1985. Due to the enhancements added by protected mode, it has become widely adopted and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preemptive Multitasking
In computing, preemption is the act performed by an external scheduler — without assistance or cooperation from the task — of temporarily interrupting an executing task, with the intention of resuming it at a later time. This preemptive scheduler usually runs in the most privileged protection ring, meaning that interruption and then resumption are considered highly secure actions. Such changes to the currently executing task of a processor are known as context switching. User mode and kernel mode In any given system design, some operations performed by the system may not be preemptable. This usually applies to kernel functions and service interrupts which, if not permitted to run to completion, would tend to produce race conditions resulting in deadlock. Barring the scheduler from preempting tasks while they are processing kernel functions simplifies the kernel design at the expense of system responsiveness. The distinction between user mode and kernel mode, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Executable
The New Executable (NE or NewEXE) is a 16-bit executable file format, a successor to the DOS MZ executable format. It was used in Windows 1.0–3.x, Windows 9x, multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, OS/2 1.x, and the OS/2 subset of Windows NT up to version 5.0 (Windows 2000). An NE is also called a segmented executable. It utilizes the 286 protected mode or unreal mode, and it can be 16-bit and 32-bit hybrid.https://wiki.osdev.org/NE History The first product to be released using the New Executable format was Windows 1.0 in 1985, followed by the 1986 multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, which was a separate branch of MS-DOS development, released between mainstream MS-DOS versions 3.2 and 3.3, and sometimes referred to as "European MS-DOS 4.0". The Portable Executable (PE) format replaced NE format in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, while Linear Executables (LX) replaced NE for 32-bit programs in OS/2. VxD in Windows 9x also use LE format. Compatibility While designed for 16-bit O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
