"The listings include sources to the 86-DOS 1.00 kernel, several development snapshots of the PC-DOS 1.00 kernel, and some well-known utilities such as CHKDSK."
"Software history lives in code, yes, but also in scanned listings, internal documents, assembler printouts, and the sometimes wonderfully analog artifacts of how operating systems came together in the late 1970s and early 1980s."
"The earliest DOS source code was found on printer paper in Tim Paterson's garage. The printout predates tools like GitHub by decades."
"Where a Git repository might have a commit history, the printouts create a timeline of changes, showing which features were implemented when, what errors were made, and how they were fixed."
Microsoft has made the source code for 86-DOS 1.00 available as open source, following the release of MS-DOS 4.0. This release includes the 86-DOS 1.00 kernel, development snapshots of PC-DOS 1.00, and utilities like CHKDSK. The release highlights the importance of historical artifacts in software development, showcasing how early code was stored on printouts. The original DOS source code was discovered in Tim Paterson's garage, predating modern version control systems. This material offers significant insights into the evolution of PC-DOS 1.00 and the development process of early operating systems.
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