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Y2K Compliant DOS versions?

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neutrino78x

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So, does anybody know about Y2K Compliant DOS versions?

I know IBM PC DOS 2000 is Y2K Compliant. I assume FreeDOS and DR-DOS 7.03 are as well.

But, what about other official versions of DOS from IBM or Microsoft, which are easier to find on ebay? For example is IBM PC DOS 5.0 Y2K compliant?

Would the original IBM PC, XT, AT, or PS/2 Model 30 be Y2K compliant even with a Y2K compliant OS? I would think IBM's original BIOS probably is not Y2K compliant?

btw, I am correct in thinking that the main difference between an English version of DOS and this IBM DOS 2000 French version is that the help pages and documentation are in French? I do speak some French, I studied it in high school, lol. I guess instead of "help", you would type "assiste" or "aider" lol. ;-)

--Brian
 
For Microsoft products, this table probably will be of help. As you can see, "compliant" isn't an absolute, but rather a relative property.

Alas, this doesn't mean that the applications you'll be running will be Y2K-compliant.

A fair amount of attention was given not only to the ability to display dates Y2K and later, but what would happen when the date rolled over on December 31. 1999--and if the product was smart enough to know that 2000 is not a leap year.
 
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Chuck(G) said:
For Microsoft products, this table probably will be of help. As you can see, "compliant" isn't an absolute, but rather a relative property.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks.

and if the product was smart enough to know that 2000 is not a leap year.
Click to expand...

lol, that reminds me of a Usenet discussion a long time ago where they were arguing about the Year 2000 being a non-leap year, and somebody worked in tech support and put in a tech support ticket for Solaris with Sun Microsystems, saying "user feels 2000 should be a leap year" and Sun Microsystems wrote a 4 page reply explaining the mathematics of why 2000 is NOT a leap year! lmao!!! Maybe I can find it again if I search Google...lmao
 
2000 was a leap year, but my Timex wrist watch that I had at the time thought otherwise. It was one of those fancy ones with the year and day of week display. It took me half the 29th to actually look at the watch I notice it rolled over to March 1st!
 
Yes, I got that backwards--2000 is a leap year, but 1900 and 2100 aren't. The point is that if you had a programmer who'd thought he'd be smart and add the "century years are not leap years" part of the rule, but forget "...except those exactly divisible by 400".

It happened.
 
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Bummer... and here I was hoping that you had abandoned the Gregorian calandar for a newer, better model that you were about to turn us all on to. Well, I'm not giving up yet as there's still a way better chance of that than winning the lottery (which I never will since I don't play). You are aware of the accepted definition of a lottery, aren't you? It's a game for people who are really bad at math. So, for all you fellow geeks out there who still buy lottery tickets (on the sly, no doubt) -- you're *not* geeks at all. You're just faking it! :)
 
twolazy said:
I noticed the app that came with my toshiba 2130, indeed works on any pc not just that one. Tosh2000.exe.
readme says works on MSdos 6.22+, but i bet any version 5+ work
Click to expand...

hmm so MS-DOS 6.22 is not compliant by default? There are only a few "new" copies of IBM DOS 2000 left. ABC Resellers (link here) mainly sells vintage computer hardware, but they also sell old DOS versions, looks like they have MS-DOS 6.22 for $99 and IBM PC DOS 6.1 for $89.

It is here under operating systems.

But AFAIK, the only DOS still being officially sold as a retail package for desktop PCs is DR-DOS 7.03. :)


Although, you can download IBM DOS 7.1 here...(official IBM web site, this is English version of DOS)

You just download that ZIP file, and then unzip it and go to the sgdeploy directory, then the sgtk directory, and inside the sgtk directory, you will see a directory that says DOS!!! That's IBM DOS 7.1!!! :) It doesn't have the DOSSHELL command, or the HELP command, but it is a DOS 7.1 that would fit on a 3.5" floppy....lol :)
 
Pretty sure its for the actual machines hardware, not the software side. Most clock chips that era were double digit, not 4, so all the utility does is remap the 1900s to 2000s. Since almost all the old vintage IBM compatible machines worked the same way, the utility should be useful on them as well. :)

BTW, anyone looking for vintage full versions of dos, not bootdisks, go here. Available is Msdos, Pcdos, and a few others, like Dell Msdos 3.3, Rom Dos, etc. Also avail are nearly every version of windows till 3.11 and os/2.
http://www.os.sysbin.com/index.html
 
MikeS said:
Oh? In what way is it not Y2K compliant? Sounds like you're confusing the OS with the BIOS and the hardware, not to mention the applications...
Click to expand...

Indeed:

Code: 
$ver
MS-DOS Version 6.22
$date
Current date is Fri 04-15-2012
Enter new date (mm-dd-yy):

Works for me.
 
I just wonder really wonder what all the fuss is about it wasn't much of a drama back in 1999. As for Dos 7.1 on the IBM site, just make sure you replace himem.sys with the win9x one or pressing ctrl-alt-del will lock the machine up. And naughty boy twolazy.

Earlier versions of DrDos/OpenDos are readily available for download for personal use and the DrDos enhancement project did some cool stuff. Though most enhancements have gone over to the FreeDos project.
 
Caluser2000 said:
I just wonder really wonder what all the fuss is about it wasn't much of a drama back in 1999.
Click to expand...


I have seen several opinions like this since 2000, but "they" had been working on preventing problems for 7-8 years before the year 2000 began, the fact that nothing or very little happened just proves that those engineers were not wasting their time.
 
If anyone asks, I didn't just bookmark that web address :p

I can confirm DOS 5 has no problems. My T3200SX and T5200/100 both run MS-DOS 5.0, the 3200 knows what day it is, T5200 thinks it's 1992.

With the fuss, it was worth it for programmers, it was just the media telling people to buy buy buy because there was going to be no power etc that started getting over-dramatised.
We'll no doubt get the same thing in 2037.
 
Heck, I still use non-Y2K versions of some programs, LIST for example (I've got a Y2K-compliant version, I'm just a little slow installing it.)

Mostly, what happens is that (a) either the program won't accept a 2K+ date as input or (b) it displays 2K+ dates wrong. For example, the year shown on LIST is ";0".

If this were a bookkeeping package, I'd be concerned.

The AT&T 6300's problem was in the clock/calendar chip, which had a very limited range of dates. Fortunately, there's a driver that corrects that.

But I wonder if the T5200 is just more of the same--not DOS, but the hardware.
 
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Chuck(G) said:
. . . If this were a bookkeeping package, I'd be concerned.
Click to expand...

Indeed, I think this was where the major concerns were. Those who calculate interest and the like, really need to keep their dates straight - and much of this code goes back a long way. I think 1999 was a good year for COBOL programmers.

I remember the jokes about the automatically generated letter from payroll noting that the employee hadn't taken any time off for 100 years and would they like to take 8 years time off, or would they just like to collect the money in lieu. :)
 
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