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MS-DOS: Difference between revisions
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A port of the 16-bit MS-DOS was made for 8-bit MSX computers known as [[MSX-DOS]]. MSX-DOS is based on the MS-DOS 1.25 kernel and uses the same filesystem. | A port of the 16-bit MS-DOS was made for 8-bit MSX computers known as [[MSX-DOS]]. MSX-DOS is based on the MS-DOS 1.25 kernel and uses the same filesystem. | ||
== Architecture == | |||
MS-DOS consists of three main components, the DOS BIOS (<code>IO.SYS</code> or <code>IBMBIO.COM</code>), the DOS kernel (<code>MSDOS.SYS</code> or <code>IBMDOS.COM</code>), and the shell (<code>COMMAND.COM</code>). | |||
=== DOS BIOS === | |||
The DOS BIOS is the lower layer of MS-DOS, which communicates directly with the system's hardware and contains resident device drivers (as opposed to installable drivers, loaded from <code>CONFIG.SYS</code>). This module used to be supplied by an OEM and customized for a particular machine; this practice eventually died out as generic MS-DOS copies started to be sold in retail by Microsoft. | |||
It also includes the DOS initialization module, <code>SYSINIT</code>, which is invoked by the boot sector when booting into MS-DOS. The module initializes the DOS BIOS as well as the DOS kernel, parses the <code>CONFIG.SYS</code> file and then proceeds to launch the shell. | |||
=== DOS kernel === | |||
The DOS kernel is the higher layer of MS-DOS, and provides services including process control, memory management, peripheral support, and file system access. | |||
Since [[MS-DOS in Windows 9x|MS-DOS 7]], the kernel was merged into <code>IO.SYS</code> and <code>MSDOS.SYS</code> now serves as a configuration file. | |||
== Timeline == | == Timeline == | ||