The year was 1980, and IBM asked Digital Research for a version of CP/M (the Z80 OS) that works on x86 processors. But Microsoft was in a hype. Everyone wanted MS-DOS. Several other DOS flavors were released, some took flight, others we can't even find reference nowadays. But DR was famous because of the Z80s and the CP/M OS, which was very popular among gamers and arcade developers at the time. Let's tell the story:
DR-DOS is a popular PC operating system, created and developed up to version 6.0 by Digital Research. After the demise of Digital Research, it was acquired by Novell who released version 7.0 as Novell DOS 7. Despite being a commercial success, Novell lost their interest in the further development of DR-DOS and, in 1996 sold it to Caldera, who changed the name to Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 and released the source code of the kernel under an Open Source license. Subsequent versions were named DR-DOS again, but unfortunately, the development model was changed back to Closed Source. Caldera Thinclients, a subsidiary of Caldera which later renamed itself to Lineo, continued the development of DR-DOS as an OS for embedded systems before they abandoned its development in favor of Linux. The current owners of DR-DOS, Devicelogics, acquired it in November 2002 and promised to produce an 8.0 version of DR-DOS for the embedded systems market, which was released in March 2004.
In July 2002, when the commercial development of DR-DOS was stagnating and the last official version had been released three years ago, Udo Kuhnt, an independent developer who worked on the open source code for the DR-DOS Kernel 7.01 decided to continue the development of DR-DOS as an Open Source operating system. Since the source code of later versions was not freely available, he used the source code of DR-DOS 7.01 alias OpenDOS as a base for his work and started to write his own set of patches for it. Thus, The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project was born!
As the name states, this project aims to enhance the capabilities of DR-DOS/OpenDOS 7.0x and to add support for new standards. In the first two years, the project reached many of its short-term design goals, including native support for large disks (LBA) and the FAT32 file system, and it became a bigger success than no one had ever hoped. Like other, similar projects, it strives to achieve compatibility with most existing software written for DOS.
IBM Personal Computer Disk-based Operating System, or IBM PC-DOS, is an operating system sold by IBM in their machines from the early 1980s into the early 2000s. It was developed by Microsoft and IBM, Until 1993, it was almost identical to MS-DOS, the Microsoft DOS operating system, when IBM released PC-DOS 6.1, with new features while Microsoft was aiming at the Windows project.
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers developed by Microsoft and IBM.
MS-DOS, rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS". MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, but it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system.
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| Test Drive III: The Passion is a racing game released in 1990. It was the third entry in the Test Drive series of video games. The game was very different from the previous episodes. Mostly because the graphics were entirely new. Accolade said goodbye to sprite graphics and started using 3D graphics instead.
Test Drive had the concept of a free landscape. The player did not have to drive on a preset course but could go wherever they wanted, i.e. drive off the road and onto the grass, hills, farms, etc. The player would also have to watch out for the speed limit when a police car was in sight, otherwise he could get caught. A level also featured railroad crossings with a real train running in a loop. Car radio, windscreen wipers, and headlights were featured in this game. The game shipped with three cars to drive; the Lamborghini Diablo, Ferrari Mythos Pininfarina Concept, and the Chevrolet Corvette CERV III Concept. Developed in-house by Accolade, the third series of this fabulous game resulted in many differences from the first two games. As we said, the graphics. They were made using a combination of bitmapped and polygon-fill 3D graphics, and digitized car interiors instead. Unlike the previous games, this was released exclusively for DOS. An add-on package, 'Road and Car', was available as an extra purchase featuring a Cape Cod to Niagara road course, and the Acura NSX and Dodge Stealth R/T Turbo. More details about this game can be found on Wikipedia.org |
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| The Duel: Test Drive II is a cross-platform racing game developed by Distinctive Software and published by Accolade in 1989. It is the second entry in the Test Drive series of video games. Like the original Test Drive, the focus of The Duel is driving exotic cars through dangerous highways, evading traffic, and trying to escape police pursuits. While the first game in the series had the player simply racing for time in a single scenario, Test Drive II improves upon its predecessor by introducing varied scenery, and giving the player the option of racing against the clock or competing against a computer-controlled opponent. The player initially is given the opportunity to choose a car to drive and a level of difficulty, which in turn determines whether the car will use an automatic or manual transmission—the number of difficulty options varies between gaming platforms. Levels begin with the player’s car (and the computer opponent, if selected) idling on a roadway. Primarily these are two to four lane public highways with many turns; each level is different, and they include obstacles such as bridges, cliffs, and tunnels in addition to the other cars already on the road. Each level also has one or more police cars along the course. The goal of each level is to reach the gas station at the end of the course in the least amount of time. Stopping at the gas station is not mandatory, and one could drive past it if inattentive. The consequence of not stopping results in running out of gas, and thus losing a car (life). The player begins the game with 5 lives, one of which is lost each time that the player crashes into something. If the player completes a level without crashing or running out of gas, then he or she is awarded a bonus life. In addition to losing a life, crashing adds thirty seconds to the player's time. Cars could crash into other traffic or off-road obstacles such as trees; they could crash by falling off the cliff on one of the mountain levels, or they could sustain too much damage by staying off the roadway for too long on the flatland levels. Players could also lose a life when using a manual transmission by redlining and consequently blowing the engine. Crashing into a police car instantly ends the game, regardless of the number of lives the player has left. Police cars appear in every level, and if the player is driving faster than the speed limit when encountering one of them, the police car will follow in pursuit. If at any point while being pursued the police car is able to pass the player’s car, the player is forced to pull over and receives a ticket stating the offense and the speed of the vehicle. While this doesn’t cost the player a life, it does take away valuable time. Players can avoid being pursued by police by slowing down before encountering them, anticipating them through the aid of a radar detector, which comes standard in all vehicles in the game.More details about this game can be found on Wikipedia.org |
Platform: This game was designed for PC with an operating system compatible with DOS.
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| Stunts (also known as 4D Sports Driving) is an early 3D racing video game developed by Distinctive Software, Inc.. The game places emphasis on racing on stunt tracks and features a track editor, it is clearly influenced by the earlier arcade game Hard Drivin' and has many similar elements to the game Stunt Driver which was released around the same time. In Stunts, players race a lap around the circuit, with the aim of completing the lap as quickly as possible without crashing. However, these laps often feature special track areas such as loops, jumps (including over tall buildings), slalom roads and corkscrews. Stunts (DOS)The game area is restricted by a large fixed size square area defined and surrounded by a fence which the game is designed to prevent the player from leaving. Players can either race against the clock or choose between six different opponents; there is no support for real-time multiplayer. Stunts features 11 different drivable cars, with either automatic or manual transmission. Replays of races can be saved and reviewed. There are four camera views available during replay and actual driving, and the dashboard is an optional overlay on all views. Another major feature of the game is the built-in track and terrain editor which allows the user to design arbitrary new tracks or modifications of existing tracks. |
