Module B Assignment #1- Assignment #2

MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System)

MS-DOS was invented in the 1970's. It was used in some of the earliest computers. There were a lot of different volumes of software available to use in DOS. In the 1980’s DOS became the huge in the market of operating systems. Eventually MS-DOS would become the most popular operating system to be used in consumer and business PC’s. Microsoft designed this operating system in hopes that it would make it big in the industry of operating systems for PC’s. You could do pretty much anything with DOS. The users didn’t have to memorise many commands for this operating system because there weren’t very many to begin with. When you start to understand this operating system then you would be set for life, unless you decided to change operating systems and then this operating system probably wouldn’t be much help to you. MS-DOS was replaced by the Macintosh Operating Systems.

There are many strengths and weaknesses to using the MS-DOS operating system. One strength is the reliability of the system. The programs ran well with little crashes or lockups. The stability of this operating system was another one of its strengths. Even with the prompt of this operating system wasn’t elegant, once you understood the commands that you used frequently it wasn’t very difficult to understand the rest of the operating system. A third strength of this operating system is the filter of chains onto the computer. This operating system could only operate one thing at a time, which saved the user from having too many distractions while they were working on the computer.

Some weaknesses of the MS-DOS are as followed:
-It could only load one program at a time. If the user wanted to use a different program then the one they were working on they would have to close down the first program and then open up the other one.
-It could only support one user and could only use a single processor. Only one owner could be able to log onto the computer. No one else could, there were no other users allowed on the computer.
-It could not handle large amounts of RAM. It was designed to be used with 640 KB of RAM. If the user had more RAM on the computer they would have to use utilities for the computer to work properly. But eventually the MS-DOS was able to handle 1 MB of RAM without any problems.
-Some users might find it hard to memorise the keys to press to use the computer. This operating system was to be used with key strokes and function keys, not a keyboard like the operating systems today.

A unique feature of this operating system is how it can restore data from the internal hard drive of a computer in the event that a computer crashes. Even though it doesn’t have a great RAM, it is still able to store the most important things that a user needs to use.

I think that when this operating system was in use many people enjoyed it, once they understood the key and commands. But today I think that it is great that the operating systems have changed. MS-DOS sounds a little to confusing for my mind. But in the early days this was one of not many operating systems that people had to work with. This operating system was a big hit when it was first invented, but now I am so glad that we don’t need to use it, you wouldn’t be able to use a normal keyboard and you had to memorise everything that was needed to be used for typing or formatting your computer. Now it was a good operating system but I don’t think that I would ever use it.