NewDos/80

NewDos/80 is a third-party operating system for the Radio Shack TRS-80 line of microcomputers released in 1980. NewDos/80 was developed by Apparat, Inc. of Denver, Colorado. NewDos/80 version 2.0 was released in August of 1981. It ran on the TRS-80 Model I and Model III.

"NEWDOS" redirects here. For the IBM and Microsoft PC operating system, see OS/2.
NewDos/80
DeveloperApparat, Inc.
OS familyDOS
Working stateHistoric
Source modelClosed source
Initial release1980 (1980)
Available inEnglish
PlatformsTRS-80
Kernel typeMonolithic
Default user interfaceCommand-line interface

Overview

The operating system had additional commands and features that were not available in TRSDOS, the native operating system for TRS-80 computers. NewDos/80 allowed TRS-80 computers to take advantage of advances in floppy disk storage that went beyond the initial 87.5KB 35-track, single-density, single-sided format.[1] The system also corrected issues that early versions of TRSDOS had with arbitrarily losing data due to errors in how it communicated with the contemporary TRS-80 disk drives' 1771 disk controller.

NewDos/80 had many options for specifying specific low-level disk configurations. Settings such as diskette formats, disk drive types, track geometry and controllers could be configured using the PDRIVE command.[1] In version 2.1, Apparat added support for hard disk drives via an external bus adapter.

NewDos/80 was written by Cliff Ive and Jason Matthews. Ive was the primary author of NewDos in all of its incarnations, Matthews wrote "patches" for various applications such as Scripsit and VisiCalc. Ive later retired and Matthews went on to other projects in the software business.

Commands

The following is a list of NewDos/80 commands:[2]

NewDos/80 commands and counterparts in other operating systems
Command MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows UNIX, Unix-like
APPEND type file1 >> file2cat file >> file2
ATTRIB attribchmod
AUTO AUTOEXEC.BAT~/.profile or ~/.login or /etc/rc*
BASIC2
BLINK
BOOT
BREAK
CHAIN
CHNON
CLEAR
CLOCK prompt $t *in some shells: PS1="...\t..." *
CLS clsclear
COPY copycp
CREATE
DATE datedate
DEBUG debug
DIR dirls
DO
DUMP
ERROR
FORMAT formatmkfs
FORMS
FREE chkdskdf
HIMEM
JKL
KILL delrm
LC
LCDVR
LIB
LIST typecat
LOAD program programprogram
MDBORT
MDRET
PAUSE pause
PDRIVE
PRINT type file > prnlpr
PROT attribchmod
PURGE
R
RENAME ren or renamemv
ROUTE
SETCOM
STMT echo echo
PDRIVE
SYSTEM
TIME time
VERIFY
WRDIRP

Reception

While criticizing NEWDOS's "nearly incomprehensible documentation", Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1980 that it was "a much better operating system" than the "needlessly complex" TRSDOS and stated that "Tandy ought to be marketing NEWDOS+ themselves".[3]

See also

References
  1. System 80 Archive Site - NewDos/80, version 2.0 and the JV1 Disk Image format, classic-computers.org.nz
  2. commands
  3. Pournelle, Jerry (July 1980). "Omikron TRS-80 Boards, NEWDOS+, and Sundry Other Matters". BYTE. p. 198. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
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