86-DOS 0.2

86-DOS 0.2, also known as QDOS 0.2 while in development, is the third beta build and first public release of QDOS/86-DOS. It added the line editor EDLIN and cost $95 or $195 at launch.

This version had preliminary documentation created for it, but it was never released to the general public and only appeared as an exhibit in a 1986 lawsuit between Seattle Computer Products and Microsoft. Tim Paterson later scanned the documentation and uploaded it to his website.

New features
Though not much different from QDOS 0.10, version 0.2 adds a line editor and has other minor changes to internals. BASIC for 86-DOS (dubbed BASIC-86) was also provided by Microsoft for this version, and was for purchase with 86-DOS by September 1980.

EDLIN
EDLIN is a line editor, created for 86-DOS. It was meant to last only 6 months, but ended up being the only text editor until MS-DOS 5.0 and is supported in all Windows NT versions up to Windows 10.

The creator, Tim Paterson, has called it the "quickest line editor I could imagine" and an "absurdity". Software critic Bill Machrone called a later version of 86-DOS' EDLIN "just as bad as any other line editor I have attempted to use".

History
EDLIN, being a line editor, was not a new concept. Its look, feel, and syntax have been compared to CP/M's ed, which itself is loosely similar to Unix's ed and its predecessor qed.

EDLIN was created out of need for a text editor - a key part of office work and assembly-language development. It was written in either one or two weeks.

Usage
EDLIN was a line editor, reading a text file line-by-line. Line numbers were printed along with each line.

To call EDLIN, use the command. If the file already exists, it will be opened - otherwise, it will be created and the message "New file" will be shown.

The editor contained commands for users to control the document. They are denoted by the asterisk symbol and appear after every line.

Though not described in detail, the preliminary manual states that global searching and text replacement are available.

Commands
The following list includes only newly confirmed commands, and not the ones already known to be present in QDOS 0.10. They are all sourced from the preliminary manual.

Lomas OEM
86-DOS 0.2 is known to have been sold by Lomas Data Products with their LDP88, an 8088 processor, and LDP72, their floppy disk controller. 2 ads were posted for this OEM, with one being from October 1980 and another being from December 1980. In both ads, the OEM was priced $195, having no markup on the original price.

Microsoft license
While not actually licensed by Microsoft, version 0.2 was the version that was originally going to be licensed. On the morning on September 22, 1980, a month after 0.2 was released, Paul Allen of Microsoft called Rod Brock of Seattle Computer Products and told him they had an anonymous customer interested in sublicensing 86-DOS. The next day, they reached a verbal agreement, and on the 24th the terms of the nonexlusive sublicense were set in stone.

Dumped sections
The preliminary manual includes version 0.2's BOOT.ASM and DOSIO.ASM files.

Compared to the same files at the end of the version 0.3 manual, there some major differences. All differences are in the DOSIO.ASM file - the BOOT.ASM files are identical minus the system-dependent switches.

Naming
This version's name is shrouded in mystery. It has never been mentioned in official 86-DOS documents, and only the existence of an operating system between QDOS 0.11 and 86-DOS 0.3 is known.

Version number
The assumed version number - 0.2 - isn't certain. Though a version between 0.11 and 0.3 is probably 0.2, the addition of an extra "0" (0.20) is very possible. Also, as seen in later versions such as 0.42 and 0.56, the version number could be anything from 0.21 to 0.29.