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AT&T 6300 2.11 Boot Disk

D

deanhills

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May 11, 2026
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My cousin has just purchased an AT&T 6300 PC without any of the Manuals or Software. I find plenty of software linked with MS-DOS, but rarely mention of AT&T. The little I have followed vintage discussions, looks like the MS-DOS 2.11 version needs to be AT&T 6300 specific to work with the AT&T 6300.

I found software here that mentions ATT OEM:

WinWorld: Microsoft MS-DOS 2.11 [ATT 6300 OEM r1.0] (5.25-360k)

WinWorld is an online museum dedicated to providing free and open access to one of the largest archives of abandonware software and information on the web.
winworldpc.com

Will this software work? Or does anyone know of where we may find the absolute right software for a 5.25" Boot Floppy for the AT&T 6300?

We're complete novices so the next question would be how, once we have found the right Boot Software can we create a 5.25" Boot Floppy. From discussions I've listened to looks like the Boot Floppy needs to be created in a specific format.

Any help will be much appreciated many thanks.
 
deanhills said:
Will this software work? Or does anyone know of where we may find the absolute right software for a 5.25" Boot Floppy for the AT&T 6300?

We're complete novices so the next question would be how, once we have found the right Boot Software can we create a 5.25" Boot Floppy. From discussions I've listened to looks like the Boot Floppy needs to be created in a specific format.
Click to expand...

The best place to start your AT&T 6300 journey is here:

ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/misc/Hardware/ATT/

There are scans of the manuals and the correct software. Just be careful to pay attention to get stuff for the right model of the 6300 when you are collecting. There are differences between an AT&T 6300, 6300 plus, and 6300 WGS. Sometimes those differences aren't important and other times they are like night and day.

As for how to make a boot floppy, start with this readme from the same site:

ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/misc/Hardware/ATT/6300 disks/README.1ST

On a final note, computers in the AT&T 6300 series were actually made by an Italian computer company named Olivetti. The AT&T 6300 was sold as the Olivetti M24 in Italy, for example. So any stuff you find for that machine should apply to the AT&T 6300 as well.
 
I don't recall the 6300 supporting 2.11. I thought we (was AT&T Starlan support) started with MSDOS 3.x (late 80's early 90's)
 
Prior to 3.3, all versions of MS-DOS were OEM-specific. There was no generic copy of MS-DOS you could walk into a store and buy off the shelf. Some OEMs would deviate more than others away from the IBM PC standard, but they all had their own custom version of MS-DOS.

As for the PC6300, it should be able to boot and run a generic version of MS-DOS 3.3, but you may be missing out on some AT&T/Olivetti-specific features, especially in regards to its special keyboard/mouse and graphics capabilities.
 
acgs said:
The best place to start your AT&T 6300 journey is here:

ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/misc/Hardware/ATT/

There are scans of the manuals and the correct software. Just be careful to pay attention to get stuff for the right model of the 6300 when you are collecting. There are differences between an AT&T 6300, 6300 plus, and 6300 WGS. Sometimes those differences aren't important and other times they are like night and day.

As for how to make a boot floppy, start with this readme from the same site:

ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/misc/Hardware/ATT/6300 disks/README.1ST

On a final note, computers in the AT&T 6300 series were actually made by an Italian computer company named Olivetti. The AT&T 6300 was sold as the Olivetti M24 in Italy, for example. So any stuff you find for that machine should apply to the AT&T 6300 as well.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the detailed response. I checked Oldskool.org and downloaded a number of files. I also was able to find some of the AT&T 6300 Shrine Website original software at the Internet Archive. So in total we found three really good sources for the boot software:

Oldskool
Winworld
Internet Archive

Regarding which version software to use. We're not quite sure about which version it may need as there were no literature or disks that came with the PC when my cousin purchased it from EBay. We think it could be 2.1 or 3.3. We're starting with 2.1 hoping we will get wiser as we move along.

vwestlife said:
Prior to 3.3, all versions of MS-DOS were OEM-specific. There was no generic copy of MS-DOS you could walk into a store and buy off the shelf. Some OEMs would deviate more than others away from the IBM PC standard, but they all had their own custom version of MS-DOS.

As for the PC6300, it should be able to boot and run a generic version of MS-DOS 3.3, but you may be missing out on some AT&T/Olivetti-specific features, especially in regards to its special keyboard/mouse and graphics capabilities.
Click to expand...
Thank you for this. My cousin and I were wondering about this when we discovered MS-DOS2.1 OEM at Winworld. So you have made it more certain for us that we are moving along the right track if MS-DOS2.1 is the right Version. (y)
 
deanhills said:
Regarding which version software to use. We're not quite sure about which version it may need as there were no literature or disks that came with the PC when my cousin purchased it from EBay. We think it could be 2.1 or 3.3. We're starting with 2.1 hoping we will get wiser as we move along.
Click to expand...

If you find a pre-1986 manufacture date on the computer, DOS 2.11 should have been the version that came with the machine.

But either version will work. The important thing to know from a user's perspective about AT&T DOS is that it has some extras that don't come from Microsoft. Starting with version 2.11, for example, there is a program file named CHMOD.COM. This is a precursor to the later MSDOS ATTRIB command. It can change all 4 of a file's attributes which ATTRIB originally couldn't do. CHMOD is a generic program and able to be run under any brand of DOS, not just AT&T's. Some other companies also included this program, such as Leading Edge, making some people think it was originally from Microsoft.
 
The one thing I know AT&T DOS came with was the ABT command extenstion (Advanced BaTch file). I never played with it and I don't know when it was added.
 
It's nice to hear from someone who worked at AT&T when these machines were being sold.

I think you mean ABL (Advanced Batch Language) which was added in version 3.2. It was a batch processor external to COMMAND.COM and provided some more programming features beyond standard batch files such as defining a variable's type, looping structures, and simple arithmetic calculation. Running one of these "advanced batch files" required prefixing the name with ABL like this example:

C:\> abl mainmenu

It was similar to the shareware EBL program but far less powerful.
 
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