MS-DOS, which is an acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its re-branding as IBM PC DOS, and some operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as “DOS” (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s and the early 1990s, when it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system.
MS-DOS was the result of the language developed in the seventies that was used by IBM for its mainframe operating system. Microsoft acquired the rights to meet IBM specifications. IBM licensed and re-released it on August 12, 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in their PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognisable differences in compatibility, syntax, and capabilities.
MS-DOS had many many games and applications – much more than any other system – due to the range of systems it was capable of running on. Some required dedicated gaming hardware, and due to this reason it is hard to classify all this software, and listing it all may take us a while. For now only the older titles that would run on 100% IBM AT or compatible will be listed in this section; other sections will be added for games that required special hardware (for example, 3DFX or other graphics accelerator). This small section of games may also take a while to populate, but all these games should run with https://www.dosbox.com/ with very little or any modification, but some actual MS-DOS experience may be required.
