Sinclair QDOS
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QDOS (sometimes written as Qdos in official literature; the name is not regarded as an acronym; also see the identically-pronounced word kudos) was the multitasking operating system found on the Sinclair QL personal computer and its clones. It was designed by Tony Tebby whilst working at Sinclair Research.
QDOS was implemented in Motorola 68000 assembly language, and on the QL, resided in 48 kB of ROM. This ROM also held the SuperBASIC interpreter, an advanced variant of BASIC with structured programming additions. This also acted as the QDOS command interpreter.
Rewritten, enhanced versions exist in the form of Minerva, SMS2 and SMSQ/E. The latter is the most modern variant and is still being improved.
Versions
The following version of QDOS were released:
- 0.08: the last pre-release version.
- 1.00: corresponded to the FB version QL ROMs, released in April 1984.
- 1.01: corresponded to the PM version ROMs. This was faster and had improved Microdrive support.
- 1.02: corresponded to the AH ROM version released in June 1984. This fixed many bugs and was the first ROM version to be produced in quantity.
- 1.03: ROM versions JM and TB; a minor bug-fix release issued in late 1984.
- 1.10: corresponded to the JS and JSU (US export version) ROMs, released in early 1985. This was the last version used in QLs manufactured for the UK market.
- 1.13: corresponding to the MGx series of ROM versions for European export markets. Included a significant number of bug fixes.
External links
The QDOS name was also used briefly for an early version of MS-DOS.
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