IBM® Personal Computer™
DOS Version 1.10 (1982)

Copyright © 2005, 2007 by Daniel B. Sedory

NOT to be reproduced in any form without Permission of the Author !

Index

Introduction
Boot Up Screen
References
Download PC-DOS 1.10

For further study, see: Disk Contents and Boot Sector (and its Assembly code) pages.

Introduction


Photo of Diskette Label. The "6936669" in the upper-right corner is IBM's part
number for the diskette. The words near the bottom of the label state in part:
"Version 1.10 ©Copyright IBM Corp. 1981, 1982" (Photo©Daniel B. Sedory).

IBM® Personal Computer™ DOS 1.10 was a revision of version 1.00 (see our description of the original version for general aspects of its creation).

The latest file on the diskette has a date of May 7, 1982 (see Disk Contents), however, it's the opinion of many that this simply reflects the targeted release date by IBM® since all the files have this same exact date. The software was still being distributed on 160 KiB media (rather than the 180/360 KiB diskette sizes of DOS 2.00 or later); see Tech Notes for more information on the media.

First International Versions of IBM® Personal Computer™ DOS1

IBM® Personal Computer™ DOS 1.10 was IBM's first Personal Computer™ DOS version to be distributed internationally; it required two diskettes. The product part numbers for diskettes sold in Germany were #6936913 and #6936915 (with the word "BEISPIEL" below it) with copyright clauses written in German. [John Kitching, who was an IBM dealer in England, sent us this picture of his unopened "D.O.S." package (still in the original cellophane wrapper), clearly showing his UK English version as part number 6936916. ]
Thus, although we find a Batch program on the first diskette which could set-up DOS for French, German, Italian, Spanish, UK English or USA English*, we assume there were different production labels (and part numbers) for each of the different languages. IBM deleted all the original BASIC (*.BAS) files from the first diskette of these distributions to make room for the new setup and keyboard files on it, but remnants of those files can still be found in their original locations. The second diskette of these international sets, merely contains the 12 BASIC programs deleted from the first.
*In this first attempt to make DOS available to users in other countries, we must note that the DOS commands and  all their error messages were still in English. Manuals were translated into other languages and keyboard layouts were altered to display characters used only in other languages, but DOS itself remained English.

Boot Up Screen

The following illustration shows how IBM® Personal Computer™ DOS version 1.10 would appear on a display screen when booting up. Since the date is optional in this version, we simply pressed the ENTER key using a default date in the BIOS of January 1st, 1980 and the system clock time as shown here:

Current date is Tue  1-01-1980
Enter new date:
Current time is  18:54:00.16
Enter new time:


The IBM Personal Computer DOS
Version 1.10 (C)Copyright IBM Corp 1981, 1982  

A>_

Some Command Examples while running IBM® Personal Computer™ DOS 1.10 under BOCHS:

This version added the /w parameter to the dir command, making it possible to view many more file names at once. The output from the chkdsk command was changed to specifically point out how many files were hidden from the user (in this case, 2). Thus, there was a total of 2 + 26 = 28 files on the version 1.10 (#6936669) distribution diskette.

Historical Notes and References

1 Thanks to Wolfgang Kainz-Huber (of the ComputerMuseum München) for the data he provided about IBM's international version of PC DOS 1.10 in Germany.

 

NOTE: This is still a work in progress!

Create your own IBM PC-DOS 1.10 Image File

The following tutorial will provide both a copy of IBM Personal Computer DOS v 1.10 and teach you some things about using the free hex (and disk) editor HxD: Tutorial on extracting "Disk Images" from *.DIM Files.

 

Last Update: 13 August 2008.   (Added link to download page.)

You can write to me using this: online reply form. (It opens in a new window.)

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