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IBM DOS v5...

Minerva10210

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
75
Location
Pretoria, South Africa
Hi Guys!

... I have it, well sort of anyway :|

I got hold of a boxed IBM DOS 5, including from what I can tell all the manuals, but only 2 of the 3 disks, Disk 1 is missing :(

Now I know this is probably not allowed, but does someone perhaps have the same version of the disks who would not mind making an image of the first disk for me?

I took a quick photo of the box + manuals + disks...

Thanks!

PS. I tried uploading the pics, but it's not working - will post them ASAP :(
 
I don't think there is much of an issue with giving you one image of the set ..

I'm a big fan of IBM DOS 5. Unfortunately, all of my copies seem to be on 5.25" diskettes, not 3.5s.
 
I have MS-DOS 5.0 from WIN Laboratories, LTD. There are five DS/DD 360 KB disks in this set. If you need images it will take a while, as my 486 'do-all' pc, with 5.25 floppy, is awaiting arrival of a new P24T cpu, scheduled for today. You can send me a PM with a personal email address and I can make a '7-ZIP' archive and get it to you as soon as I re-assemble my 486, or an I can do an image. How about both? You could then shuffle things around a little and make your own 3.5 disks out of all that. The boot disk is easy to make, assuming you have a 5.25 floppy at your disposal.
 
I have MS-DOS 5.0 from WIN Laboratories, LTD. There are five DS/DD 360 KB disks in this set. If you need images it will take a while, as my 486 'do-all' pc, with 5.25 floppy, is awaiting arrival of a new P24T cpu, scheduled for today. You can send me a PM with a personal email address and I can make a '7-ZIP' archive and get it to you as soon as I re-assemble my 486, or an I can do an image. How about both? You could then shuffle things around a little and make your own 3.5 disks out of all that. The boot disk is easy to make, assuming you have a 5.25 floppy at your disposal.

Is MS-DOS 5.0 the same as PC-DOS 5.0? I think there are some differences.
 
Chuck:

Pretty much the same, I've used both. I never encountered a pc from that era that wouldn't at least run some form of MS-DOS.
 
A few minor differences in DOS 5. Microsoft still has a web page devoted to the differences. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/75169
If Iceland or 122 key keyboards matter, one needs the IBM PC DOS 5.

In earlier versions of PC-DOS, the differences included GW-Basic versus BASICA and PC-DOS would only recognize hard disks formatted by PC-DOS.
 
Minerva:

Let me work on 3.5 those inchs disks - may take a few days. I'm assuming that you do not have a 5.25 inch floppy?
 
A few minor differences in DOS 5. Microsoft still has a web page devoted to the differences. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/75169
If Iceland or 122 key keyboards matter, one needs the IBM PC DOS 5.

In earlier versions of PC-DOS, the differences included GW-Basic versus BASICA and PC-DOS would only recognize hard disks formatted by PC-DOS.

I haven't checked a copy of PC-DOS 5 recently. Are the system files still called IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM or are they IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS as in the Microsoft product?
 
Minerva:

Let me work on 3.5 those inchs disks - may take a few days. I'm assuming that you do not have a 5.25 inch floppy?

I do actually have a 1.2MB 5" drive, so it's not an issue at all. I presume one would just have to fiddle around a bit to make sure that one copies all the correct files onto the 3" floppies.

Thanks a lot!

PS. as a side note, I noticed that here in South Africa we created a name for 3" disks, we call them Stiffies here, and the 5" we call floppies. A bit of useless info ;)
 
OK, trying Imageshack here now :?


dsc2436.jpg



dsc2437.jpg
 
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Just a casual observation - Your IBM "stiffies" appear to be from Microsoft as they are not branded PC-DOS. The disks were copywrited 1991. So, this was slightly prior to the big Microsoft/IBM falling out. Maybe just before the NT/OS2 era when IBM decided to go their own way (just like in the Fleetwood Mac song).
 
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I haven't checked a copy of PC-DOS 5 recently. Are the system files still called IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM or are they IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS as in the Microsoft product?
All the versions of PC DOS/IBM DOS I've seen (including 5.00 and 5.02) have IBMBIO.COM & IBMDOS.COM
BTW: there's no such thing as "PC DOS 5", as this version was released during the PS/2 era, when IBM distanced themselves from "PC", hence the name "IBM DOS".
 
Can't say for sure. I can only guess that they are using IO.SYS & MSDOS.SYS as they appear to be manufactured by Microsoft.
 
I'm a big fan of IBM DOS 5. Unfortunately, all of my copies seem to be on 5.25" diskettes, not 3.5s.
Was IBM DOS 5 even available on 5.25" diskettes? It would be logical if it wasn't, after all this was in the PS/2 era, when IBM was pushing 3.5" drivers pretty hard.
Yes, I know about 5.25" variants of MS-DOS 5, but I've never seen IBM DOS 5 in any other form than 3.5" 720KB.
 
Marrr:

Check the labels on the two 3.5 inch floppies above. They don't say "PC-DOS". This particular set was made by Microsoft. (You have to almost stand on your ear to see it, but they do say "Copyright Microsoft 1991". These disks seem to have been licensed to IBM, however. As to your question, who knows? I would bet yes, they were available. At that time almost all popular softrware was available in the 5.25 inch format. As a mater of fact, I remember purchasing a 5.25 inch PC-DOS boxed edition back in early 90's, when a friend asked me put a pc together. Do you remember that there was a period when some boxed software came with both, the 3.5 and 5.25 variety?

Interesting topic.
 
I'm not sure about 5.0x, but I do know that IBM PC DOS 6.x came on 3.5" 1.44 MB disks and included a coupon to get a free set of 3.5" 720K installation disks. 5.25" disks of either density did not appear to be available from IBM.

MS-DOS 6.x came on 3.5" 1.44MB disks and included a coupon to get a free set of either 5.25" 360K or 3.5" 720K installation disks. I actually used this coupon once and got myself a free set of MS-DOS 6.22 on about twelve or thirteen 360K floppies (yes, including all the Windows utilities which likely wouldn't even be applicable to a machine needing 360K floppies).

And finally, IBM's PC DOS 7.0 and 2000 came on either 3.5" 1.44MB floppies or a CD-ROM (!) and did not include any coupon for a set of 720K floppies.
 
Marrr:

Check the labels on the two 3.5 inch floppies above. They don't say "PC-DOS". This particular set was made by Microsoft. (You have to almost stand on your ear to see it, but they do say "Copyright Microsoft 1991". These disks seem to have been licensed to IBM, however. As to your question, who knows? I would bet yes, they were available. At that time almost all popular softrware was available in the 5.25 inch format. As a mater of fact, I remember purchasing a 5.25 inch PC-DOS boxed edition back in early 90's, when a friend asked me put a pc together. Do you remember that there was a period when some boxed software came with both, the 3.5 and 5.25 variety?
Well, you just forced me to dig out my IBM DOS 5.0 box, and it was painful as I'm getting ready to move and almost all of my vintage stuff is temporarily very hard to access :p
Anyway, yes, my IBM DOS 5.0 disks also have both "Copyright International Business Machines" and "Copyright Microsoft". And no wonder: for all those years DOS was mostly being developed by Microsoft, IBM only did minor modifications.
And, as I already mentioned, there was no PC DOS 5. There was PC DOS 3.30, but the following versions of this product were named IBM DOS 4 and IBM DOS 5, the name "PC DOS" was reintroduced with version 6.

And yes, I very well remember the 5.25"->3.5" transition. Random fact: here in Poland in early 1990s genuine IBMs were pretty rare, the market was totally dominated by clones, 5.25" diskettes were still more popular, so local OEMs (eg. Optimus and Protech) were selling (bundled with hardware) their MS-DOS 5 versions in 2 x 5.25" 1.2MB variant.
But it's also fact that at the same time all new IBM PCs^H^H^H PS/2s by default only had 3.5" drives, and IBM DOS was intended primarily for IBM hardware, so why should they provide 5.25" option?
 
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