Category Archives: Microsoft

Twenty Years Ago Today…

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Michal Necasek

On July 24th 1993, Microsoft finalized the first release of Windows NT, labeled version 3.1 “to avoid confusion”. This was a big day for Microsoft, although the practical impact on the computer industry was not particularly big, at least not … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, NT | 6 Comments

The Oldest OS/2 Executable In the Wild

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Michal Necasek

While researching the history of Microsoft’s segmented-executable linker originally called LINK4.EXE, I came across an OS/2 executable that was publicly released almost a year before the first OS/2 SDK was shipped, and many months before OS/2 was even announced. In … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft, OS/2 | 16 Comments

Fixing Broken LINK4

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Michal Necasek

The recently-mentioned multitasking DOS 4 disk images came with a linker called LINK4.EXE. The ‘4’ in fact stands for ‘DOS 4’, although most people who used LINK4 never saw multitasking DOS 4 (LINK4 was shipped with 16-bit Windows SDKs). LINK4 was … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft | 5 Comments

Multitasking MS-DOS 4.0 Lives

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Michal Necasek

Something rather unexpected happened over the weekend: disk images of the near-mythical multitasking DOS 4 suddenly popped up. This is “MS-DOS Version 4.00”—from 1985. It looks almost exactly like MS-DOS 3.0, with COMMAND.COM, FORMAT, SYS, FDISK, JOIN, SUBST, ATTRIB, and … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft | 40 Comments

Master Builders of OS/2

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Michal Necasek

The MS OS/2 videos exhibit has now been completed with the addition of two PDF documents. These are scans of two fat three-ring binders that were handed out to attendees of the Microsoft OS/2 Developer’s Conference in New York City … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Microsoft, OS/2 | 11 Comments

Microsoft’s 1987 OS/2 Videos

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Michal Necasek

The site has been finally expanded to include videos of presentations given at Microsoft OS/2 developer conferences held in 1987, a quarter of a century ago. These videos are of historical interest as they show Microsoft’s product plans as they … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, OS/2 | Leave a comment

OS/2 1.0 Availability Announced 25 Years Ago

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Michal Necasek

On November 3, 1987 IBM announced a few new products and provided more information on several previously announced packages. One of those was OS/2 1.0 Standard Edition. First announced on April 2, 1987, OS/2 1.0 SE ($325) had been completed … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, OS/2 | Leave a comment

IBM PC XENIX

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Michal Necasek

In 1984, IBM briefly flirted with XENIX, Microsoft’s variant of UNIX licensed from AT&T.  Around 1983-1984, Microsoft and Intel worked on porting XENIX to the 286 processor; Intel shipped XENIX with a number of its development systems in the mid-1980s. … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, Xenix | 27 Comments

Windows Update Fail

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Michal Necasek

The other day I needed to update a server blade with Windows Server 2008 R2 installed on it. The system hadn’t been running for a while and now had about 100 updates available. I wasn’t looking forward to this as … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, Windows | 7 Comments

Book Review: DOS Internals

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Michal Necasek

A Few Decades Late Book Reviews DOS Internals, by Geoff Chappell Addison-Wesley, March 1994; 768 pages, ISBN 0-201-60835-9; $39.95 DOS Internals is a very unusual book. Written by an academic whose field isn’t computer science, it is a in-depth and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Development, DOS, Microsoft | 6 Comments