Microsoft Donates Historic Operating System Source Code

Microsoft has unlocked the source code vault containing some of its older software treasures, with the donation of two former flagship products.

The donation, to the Computer History Museum (CHM) based in Mountain View, California, allows fans of computing history to download the source code for MS-DOS (versions 1.1 and 2.0 from 1983), as well as Word for Windows (the 1990 Windows-based version).

Code Donation

Fans can download the early versions of MS-DOS here, and Word for Windows here. It should be noted that the source code has not been made available as open source by Microsoft, but rather the code is available under a research licence.

Versions 1.1 and 2.0 of MS-DOS highlight how unprepared Microsoft was for the advent of the personal computer (PC). The company had signed a deal with IBM to supply an OS for IBM’s PC. The only problem? Redmond didn’t have one. Instead, Microsoft agreed to licence 86-DOS from a nearby company called Seattle Computer Products. Redmond then shipped this OS with the IBM PC. It was branded as “PC-DOS” for IBM PCs, and “MS-DOS” for other PC manufacturers.

“Version 1.1 fits an entire operating system – limited as it was – into only 12K bytes of memory, which is tiny compared to today’s software,” said Len Shustek, CHM chairman.

Meanwhile, the version of Word (version 1.1a for Windows) that Microsoft has donated is a bit younger than the MS-DOS on offer. DOS-based versions of Word had their origins as far back as 1983, but the product struggled against the market leader of the time, namely WordPerfect [anyone else remember WordStar?]. But things changed in 1989, when Microsoft shipped Word for Windows, and within four years the office application was generating over half the worldwide word processing market revenue.

“MS-DOS and Word for Windows built the foundation for Microsoft’s success in the technology industry,” said Roy Levin, distinguished engineer and managing director at Microsoft Research. “By contributing these source codes to the Computer History Museum archives, Microsoft is making these historic systems from the early era of personal computing available to the community for historical and technical scholarship.”

“We think preserving historic source code like these two programs is key to understanding how software has evolved from primitive roots to become a crucial part of our civilisation,” said CHM’s Shustek.

Protective Or Open?

Microsoft was historically very protective of its software creations, but in recent years it has occasionally open sourced some of its technologies.

The company has previously expressed its commitment to open-source software, and even opened a wholly-owned subsidiary, known as Microsoft Open Technologies, which ships its own products.

Last month, Redmond decided to share its data centre secrets when it backed the Open Compute Project (OCP), the Facebook initiative that seeks to develop cheaper, more energy-efficient data centre designs.

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