This post is not really about MS-DOS, but DOS in general. I am writing a paper for school and I was looking for information on computers before DOS. :-? I know hey are ancient, but if anyone has ANY information they can GIVE me, I would be very grateful.

You can either respond to this or you can reach me at [emailprotected] or [emailprotected]

Again,
Thank you for anyone who is willing to helpBack when my parents were young (15 years ago), they said that they would feed commands on a paper into a machine about the size of the ROOM. Also, you can google search Charles Babbage, the creator of the first computer system. You will get a lot about him and the first programmer, it was a girl was the only thing I can remember right now. Also, this question does pertain to DOS.Thanks, I'll do just that. Keep in touch if you have anymore info. ThanksCongratulations. You're the first person who needed homework help and was honest about it. Most people try to "trick" us into doing homework for them. While I've never heard of or touched anything before DOS (I was pretty smart for my AGE to use the extreme basics of DOS at three, but I came into the world too late to learn about pre-DOS machines - birthdate is 1991), I applaud your honesty. What a refreshing difference! [smiley=thumbsup.gif]Before DOS, there was the killer OS - CP/M
or if you were lucky enough, bigger machines ran Unix. Other 'mini' OS were multics (unix is a pun on this), PICK which is still alive and well.

Then there were the mainframes (ICL, IBM, Data General etc).

The home computer revolution started with the Altair, the commodore Pet. Sinclair came out with the Mk 14, another popular homebrew computer was the UK101.

There are plenty of websites where you can find out more about these - and other computers.

In 1973, my school had a teletype link to a university mainframe computer where I learned Basic. In 1976-7, my friends brother bought a Pet for an enormous sum (the equivalent cost to a 2nd hand car I remember). He had to persuade the bank manager to lend him the money.

I got a Sinclair ZX80 in 1982 and have never looked back. Funnily my first professional programming work was on an ICL mainframe - for about 7 years.

Good luck with your paper !
GrahamAnyone ever used Tape Operating System from IBM circa 1964 or thereabouts :-?Thanks a lot. I also was trying to find differences in computers before and after DOS but so far I've only found the common info that almost everyone has. If anyone can send me info on that, I would be eternally grateful. Also, what exactly is pre-DOS, I cannot find a single thing on it?The prefix "pre" means before. I was SAYING I knew nothing about machines before DOS. I believe that before Any real civilized operating system... they used Punch cards to run commands...

I did a paper for the evolution of computers... but it's been a while


i know they used to use either Vacuum tubes ... or some other type to store the info... originally trying to get them to store more than on/off (1/0) but after a while the voltage ran down and if it were originally a 10... it could come up as a 9.

I believe Dos was actually created by programmers at Xerox.. but when confronted about it ... Xerox told their programmers, "We make Copiers" what the heck is this going to do for us." and they sold it to Microsoft.

i remember that the first IBM computer took up 1000 square feet. and that it only had 128 KB of space. Thats all I can remember of the top of my head.. maybe do a search for Evolution of Computers i'm pretty sure thats what I did and found amazing amounts of info.