an operating system that resides on a disk: term used primarily in connection with microcomputers
Origin of DOS
d(isk) o(perating) s(ystem)DOS
DOSWebster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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DOS
noun
Any of a family of operating systems that use command lines and were originally developed for personal computers made by IBM.
Origin of DOS
d(isk) o(perating) s(ystem)THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Noun
- plural form of do
Abbreviations
- (computing, Internet) Denial of Service
- (teaching) Director of Studies; someone in charge of the academic side of a school including training teachers and deciding course materials.
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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dos - Computer Definition
- A generic term describing an operating system (OS) that loads from a disk device when the computer system is turned on. Earlier, more primitive OSs loaded from magnetic tape or even paper tape, or were resident in memory. See also OS.
- Referring to MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System), a single-user, single-tasking OS released in 1981 for use in IBM personal computers (PCs) and compatibles. See also OS and PC.
Webster's New World Telecom Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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(1) See denial of service.
(2) (Disk Operating System) Any operating system that supports hard drives. See operating system.
(3) (Disk Operating System) A family of IBM mainframe operating systems (DOS, DOS/370, DOS/VS, DOS/VSE). As disk storage became accepted in the late 1960s, DOS started out as a variant of IBM's Tape Operating System (TOS); however, it was always the "junior partner" to OS/360 and its progeny. See DOS/VSE.
(4) (Disk Operating System) Pronounced "dahss." A single-user operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 personal computers. It was the first operating system for IBM PCs and IBM-compatible PCs, and it remained the underlying control program for Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and ME. Subsequent versions of Windows incorporated all DOS functionality, and most DOS commands work the same in Windows. See cmd abc's. PC-DOS and MS-DOS The OS in the IBM PC was PC-DOS, and the OS used by all other PC makers was MS-DOS. Except for DOS 6, which contained different utilities, PC-DOS and MS-DOS commands and system functions were the same, and all PC-DOS and MS-DOS versions were commonly called "DOS." See DOS 6. DOS Lives On In various incarnations, DOS is still used in embedded systems, where a small OS footprint is required. Examples are Digital Research's DR-DOS, ROM-DOS from DataLight (www.datalight.com) and the open source FreeDOS. See embedded system.
Computer Desktop Encyclopedia THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher. © 1981-2017 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved.
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