MS-DOS
Fewer than 5 people recommend it so far, so there's no written verdict. Here is what commenters said.
4recommend
3warn against
Nov 19, 2025first mention
Sep 26, 2026latest mention
Why people recommend it
“I really enjoyed playing with the toolchain they included with the MS-DOS 4 source code release”
“I like the MS-DOS from Win98SE”
Show 2 more
“I think Windows and DOS do have good documents”
“It should go straight into MS-DOS after booting -- from an emulator of course.”
Caveats and dissent
“Because MS carefully built them. This was proved in court.”
Show 1 more
“DOS was build one small hack at a time.”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Ask HN: Who's still keeping a DOS machine up because the business depends on it? 2 mentions
- OpenClaw isn't fooling me. I remember MS-DOS 2 mentions
- Donkey.bas is 45 Years Old – 131 line of Glory 1 mention
- CP/M-386 – CP/M for 386 protected mode, derived from CP/M‑68K 1 mention
- No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s 1 mention
- Sysadmining Like It's 2009 1 mention
Data: ms-dos.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 18
“The software for that requires MS-DOS.”
“still runs DOS and Window 3.11”
“I really enjoyed playing with the toolchain they included with the MS-DOS 4 source code release”
“Because MS carefully built them. This was proved in court.”
“A customised mix of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS 3.3 could fit in a 3.5 inch high density floppy”
“dos was the reason i switched to linux”
https://www.filfre.net/2012/05/the-ibm-pc-part-3/ None actually, because I didn't recall the original amount correctly and I failed to correct for inflation, and Microsoft was already doing pretty well at that point. That was inaccurate to say. It does make you think, though. If you too are able to work hard and build an operating system or save up six figures corrected for inflation, that still doesn't get you anyth
“the modern PC still uses DOS and WordStar lol”
“People have looked at DOS for years and never found any stolen CP/M code.”
“DOS was build one small hack at a time.”
“we improved it until it had all the security and capabilities we needed”
“later MS-DOS on an AT”
“I like the MS-DOS from Win98SE”
“I think Windows and DOS do have good documents”
“It should go straight into MS-DOS after booting -- from an emulator of course.”
“typing "works" at the MS-DOS prompt”
“DOS proved a hit”
“is there a difference in environment between running a COM executable for MS-DOS versus running a bootblock”