Yufeng GaoandRichCini
8065d4d8be
Initial import of the transcribed source code from Tim Paterson's DOS listings. Co-authored-by: RichCini <rich.cini@gmail.com>
95 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
95 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
From: Yufeng Gao
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To: Tim Paterson
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 11:17:51 +0000
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Subject: 86-DOS Printouts
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Dear Mr. Paterson,
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I hope you've had a wonderful Easter. I'm reaching out to you regarding 86-DOS
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source code printouts. I'm a huge fan of 86-DOS, and just over a year ago, I
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completed a full source code reconstruction of 86-DOS 0.11 - the earliest
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surviving version of DOS.
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Recently, Bill Gates released a scanned listing of Altair BASIC 1.3, which
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brought to mind the "6-inch stack of printouts" you mentioned in your email to
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Len Shustek. A friend of mine, Rich Cini, suggested that your printouts might
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include the original source code for 86-DOS 1.00. I wanted to ask whether you
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still have those printouts, and if so, whether you'd be open to having them
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scanned and digitised.
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As 86-DOS approaches its 45th anniversary, I believe this would be a timely
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opportunity to preserve and revive the original source code. To make this
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happen, I'm more than happy to assist in any way I can. I have the equipment
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and time to produce high-DPI scans and to transcribe the listings manually.
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Thank you for considering this request, and I hope to hear from you soon.
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Best regards,
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Yufeng Gao
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: Tim Paterson
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To: Yufeng Gao
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Cc: Richard Cini
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 17:30:43 +0000
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Subject: RE: 86-DOS Printouts
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The listing stack is actually only 3.5" (I found a bunch of blank paper at the
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bottom). Here is the inventory:
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- DOS 1.25
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- DOS snapshot 7/8/81
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- DOS snapshot 6/16/81
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- DOS diff: 5/5/81 vs. 6/16/81
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- EDLIN diff: 5/5/81 vs. 7/1/81
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- CHKDSK snapshot 7/28/81
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- CHKDSK snapshot 6/16/81
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- SCP Assembler 2.40
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- SCP Assembler 2.43
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- MS BASIC compiler runtime library 11/13/81
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The last item was my area of responsibility at MS at the time, and takes up
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half the stack. Most of the listings are from an MS line printer, and print
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quality is not great.
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Getting around to packing and shipping is the hard part.
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Tim Paterson
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: Richard Cini
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To: Tim Paterson
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Cc: Yufeng Gao
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 18:26:22 +0000
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Subject: RE: 86-DOS Printouts
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That's wonderful, Tim, thanks for taking a look at that stack. That's some
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great stuff to archive. The various DOS snapshot dates seem unfamiliar to me.
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Do you remember the significance of 5/5/81 versus the other two dates? I do
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remember reading in a book that there was some last minute bug squashing so
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maybe that's it.
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Rich
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: Tim Paterson
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To: Richard Cini
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Cc: Yufeng Gao
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 18:32:58 +0000
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Subject: RE: 86-DOS Printouts
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There was ongoing work on DOS so the date is the OS file time stamp of the last
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change. It does not correspond to any release or version.
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The 5/5/81 date should be very close if not identical to the v1.00 release
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dated 4/28/81. The difference could be the date it was uploaded to the MS
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server.
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Tim Paterson
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