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IBM PC DOS 3.20 |
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PC DOS 3.20 was first announced on March 18, 1986 and released April 1986. Read the early PC Magazine Review below.
A Feature Summary, along with Directory Listings of the two 360Kb distribution diskettes, are provided below. This version of PC DOS was also available on one 720Kb Diskette.
Most copies of IBM PC DOS you'll find these days actually say "3.21" on the DOS diskette and "3.20" on the Supplemental Programs diskette. This is because shortly after 3.20 was released, a problem was discovered with IBM's newest keyboard. The August 1986 issue of PC Magazine ("First Looks", p.54) explains:
IBM Corp. released PC DOS 3.21 in the form of a patch to DOS 3.2. Some users get an error when cursor keys on the new IBM keyboard (with 12 function keys) won't respond in BASICA edit mode. The patch fix is available free from dealers where users purchased DOS 3.2.
Even though the DOS diskette was labeled "3.21", the operating system version was not actually modified; the system still reported itself as version 3.20. However, since BASIC and BASICA had been updated, their displayed versions were changed to "D3.21" and "A3.21", respectively.
IBM apparently decided to slip a few other last-minute changes into the same release, as you can see from the file timestamps on the 360K diskette (the 720K diskette contains the original files). The additional modifications include:
- DISKCOPY.COM
- KEYBFR.COM
- KEYBGR.COM
Changes to KEYBFR.COM and KEYGR.COM are not surprising, since IBM's new 12-function-key keyboard would have likely affected those programs as well. However, the reasons for changing DISKCOPY.COM are unclear and we're unaware of any public explanation from IBM.
{% include machine.html id="ibm5170-pcdos320" %}
New features:
- 720KB 3.5" floppy disk support
- Hardware interrupt stack switching support
- Master environment block size can be specified using COMMAND /E:size
- FORMAT supports /T and /N to specify number of tracks and number of sectors
New external commands:
- APPEND (MS-DOS)
- REPLACE
- XCOPY
New CONFIG.SYS commands:
- DRIVPARM
- STACK
New device drivers:
- DRIVER.SYS
- RAMDRIVE.SYS (MS-DOS)
New functions:
- INT 21h functions 440Ch-440Fh, 64h
- INT 2Fh multiplex functions 08h (IBMBIO/DRIVER.SYS), 13h (IBMBIO)
- Device driver command codes 13h, 17h, 18h
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
IBMBIO COM 16369 12-30-85 12:00p
IBMDOS COM 28477 12-30-85 12:00p
ANSI SYS 1651 12-30-85 12:00p
ASSIGN COM 1536 12-30-85 12:00p
ATTRIB EXE 8247 12-30-85 12:00p
BACKUP COM 6234 12-30-85 12:00p
BASIC COM 19298 12-30-85 12:00p
BASICA COM 36396 12-30-85 12:00p
CHKDSK COM 9832 12-30-85 12:00p
COMMAND COM 23791 12-30-85 12:00p
COMP COM 4184 12-30-85 12:00p
DISKCOMP COM 5792 12-30-85 12:00p
DISKCOPY COM 6224 12-30-85 12:00p
DRIVER SYS 1115 12-30-85 12:00p
EDLIN COM 7508 12-30-85 12:00p
FDISK COM 8173 12-30-85 12:00p
FIND EXE 6416 12-30-85 12:00p
FORMAT COM 11135 12-30-85 12:00p
GRAFTABL COM 1169 12-30-85 12:00p
GRAPHICS COM 3220 12-30-85 12:00p
JOIN EXE 8955 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBFR COM 3291 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBGR COM 3274 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBIT COM 3060 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBSP COM 3187 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBUK COM 3036 12-30-85 12:00p
LABEL COM 2346 12-30-85 12:00p
MODE COM 6864 12-30-85 12:00p
MORE COM 295 12-30-85 12:00p
PRINT COM 8976 12-30-85 12:00p
RECOVER COM 4297 12-30-85 12:00p
REPLACE EXE 11650 12-30-85 12:00p
RESTORE COM 6012 12-30-85 12:00p
SELECT COM 3826 12-30-85 12:00p
SHARE EXE 8580 12-30-85 12:00p
SORT EXE 1911 12-30-85 12:00p
SUBST EXE 9911 12-30-85 12:00p
SYS COM 4620 12-30-85 12:00p
TREE COM 3357 12-30-85 12:00p
VDISK SYS 3307 12-30-85 12:00p
XCOPY EXE 11200 12-30-85 12:00p
ART BAS 1879 12-30-85 12:00p
BALL BAS 1966 12-30-85 12:00p
BASIC PIF 369 12-30-85 12:00p
BASICA PIF 369 12-30-85 12:00p
CIRCLE BAS 1643 12-30-85 12:00p
COLORBAR BAS 1427 12-30-85 12:00p
COMM BAS 4254 12-30-85 12:00p
DEBUG COM 15799 12-30-85 12:00p
DONKEY BAS 3572 12-30-85 12:00p
EXE2BIN EXE 3063 12-30-85 12:00p
LINK EXE 39076 12-30-85 12:00p
MORTGAGE BAS 6178 12-30-85 12:00p
MUSIC BAS 8575 12-30-85 12:00p
MUSICA BAS 13431 12-30-85 12:00p
PIECHART BAS 2180 12-30-85 12:00p
SAMPLES BAS 2363 12-30-85 12:00p
SPACE BAS 1851 12-30-85 12:00p
VDISK LST 136315 12-30-85 12:00p
VENDOR-# DO1 0 07-04-83 12:00a
60 file(s) 563032 bytes
135168 bytes free
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
IBMBIO COM 16369 12-30-85 12:00p
IBMDOS COM 28477 12-30-85 12:00p
ANSI SYS 1651 12-30-85 12:00p
ASSIGN COM 1536 12-30-85 12:00p
ATTRIB EXE 8247 12-30-85 12:00p
BACKUP COM 6234 12-30-85 12:00p
BASIC COM 19298 2-21-86 12:00p
BASICA COM 36396 2-21-86 12:00p
CHKDSK COM 9832 12-30-85 12:00p
COMMAND COM 23791 12-30-85 12:00p
COMP COM 4184 12-30-85 12:00p
DISKCOMP COM 5792 12-30-85 12:00p
DISKCOPY COM 6266 4-11-86 12:39a
DRIVER SYS 1115 12-30-85 12:00p
EDLIN COM 7508 12-30-85 12:00p
FDISK COM 8173 12-30-85 12:00p
FIND EXE 6416 12-30-85 12:00p
FORMAT COM 11135 12-30-85 12:00p
GRAFTABL COM 1169 12-30-85 12:00p
GRAPHICS COM 3220 12-30-85 12:00p
JOIN EXE 8955 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBFR COM 3295 3-07-86 12:00p
KEYBGR COM 3278 3-07-86 12:00p
KEYBIT COM 3060 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBSP COM 3187 12-30-85 12:00p
KEYBUK COM 3036 12-30-85 12:00p
LABEL COM 2346 12-30-85 12:00p
MODE COM 6864 12-30-85 12:00p
MORE COM 295 12-30-85 12:00p
PRINT COM 8976 12-30-85 12:00p
RECOVER COM 4297 12-30-85 12:00p
REPLACE EXE 11650 12-30-85 12:00p
RESTORE COM 6012 12-30-85 12:00p
SELECT COM 3826 12-30-85 12:00p
SHARE EXE 8580 12-30-85 12:00p
SORT EXE 1911 12-30-85 12:00p
SUBST EXE 9911 12-30-85 12:00p
SYS COM 4620 12-30-85 12:00p
TREE COM 3357 12-30-85 12:00p
VDISK SYS 3307 12-30-85 12:00p
XCOPY EXE 11200 12-30-85 12:00p
41 File(s) 22528 bytes free
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
ART BAS 1879 12-30-85 12:00p
BALL BAS 1966 12-30-85 12:00p
BASIC PIF 369 12-30-85 12:00p
BASICA PIF 369 12-30-85 12:00p
CIRCLE BAS 1643 12-30-85 12:00p
COLORBAR BAS 1427 12-30-85 12:00p
COMM BAS 4254 12-30-85 12:00p
DEBUG COM 15799 12-30-85 12:00p
DONKEY BAS 3572 12-30-85 12:00p
EXE2BIN EXE 3063 12-30-85 12:00p
LINK EXE 39076 12-30-85 12:00p
MORTGAGE BAS 6178 12-30-85 12:00p
MUSIC BAS 8575 12-30-85 12:00p
MUSICA BAS 13431 12-30-85 12:00p
PIECHART BAS 2180 12-30-85 12:00p
SAMPLES BAS 2363 12-30-85 12:00p
SPACE BAS 1851 12-30-85 12:00p
VDISK LST 136315 12-30-85 12:00p
18 File(s) 107520 bytes free
The following article appeared in PC Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 13, July 1986, p. 110.
by Charles Petzold
As usual with new PC-DOS versions, PC-DOS 3.2 has been released in conjunction with a new product (the PC Convertible), but it can run on all previous members of the IBM PC family. PC-DOS 3.2 is available on either one 3-1/2 inch 720K-byte disk or two 5.25-inch 360K disks. These disks include everything in PC-DOS 3.1, plus three new programs. At $95, PC-DOS 3.2 is the most expensive PC-DOS yet.
The shining star of the new PC-DOS is XCOPY, a fast file-copy utility that combines features of COPY, BACKUP, and RESTORE. XCOPY is fast because it reads as many files as possible into available memory and then writes them out to the target. (COPY and BACKUP, on the other hand, have to continually alternate between the source and target drives for each file they copy.)
Like COPY, XCOPY has /V switch to verify all file writes. Like BACKUP, it has /M and /D switches to restrict copying based on file modification of the file date. A /S flag lets XCOPY find files in nested subdirectories and create the subdirectories on the target disk if they don't already exist. A /P switch prompts you with a "Y/N?" for each file, and a /W switch lets you swap disks before XCOPY starts up.
You can also use XCOPY as a backup utility. The advantage over BACKUP is that the copied files are directly usable. On a Bernoulli Box attached to a PC, I XCOPYed over 1,200 files from one 10-megabyte cartridge to another in just under 15 minutes. The bonus, of course, is that the fi1es are unfragmented on the target cartridge. However, XCOPY's usefulness for backing up hard disks is diminished by two problems: first, it does not recognize hidden files, which are used by many copy-protection schemes, and second, it has no built-in provision for changing target disks when they become full. (You can get around this second problem by using the /M switch and repeatedly running the same XCOPY command for different target disks.)
The second new program in PC-DOS 3.2 is REPLACE, yet another file copy utility. REPLACE can replace all copies of a particular file (which may be located in various subdirectories of a hard disk) with a new version. Using a /A switch adds the source files to the target without overwriting existing files. The manual recommends using REPLACE after a SYS command when upgrading an existing machine to DOS 3.2.
The third new program is DRIVER.SYS, a device driver that can be included in your CONFIG.SYS file. It lets you create a new logical disk drive letter that references the same physical disk as an existing disk drive letter. This type of thing happens automatically on a PC with only one disk drive: logical drive letters A and B both refer to the same physical disk drive. DRIVER.SYS lets you do the same thing for another drive. This is most useful when installing the external 720K-byte 3-inch disk in a PC, XT, or AT. By using DRIVER.SYS to give this disk drive a second drive letter, you can XCOPY files from one 3-inch disk to another using the same physical drive.
PC users who have been getting an "Out of environment space" message after executing a few too many SET commands from batch files need no longer resort to patches or undocumented COMMAND.COM switches. If you specify COMMAND.COM as a SHELL program in your CONFIG.SYS file, you can use the /E switch to specify your environment size up to 32K bytes. Note that this is the same switch that worked (but was undocumented) in DOS 3.1, but the DOS 3.1 switch required a 16-byte paragraph environment size instead of bytes.
Some smaller changes: FORMAT and DISKCOPY now support the 720K-byte 3.5-inch disk format (of course). FORMAT 3.2 will not run unless you give it a drive letter parameter--an added barrier to accidently formating your hard disk. ATTRIB 3.2 lets you manipulate the archive attribute of files as well as the read-only attribute.
The elongated shape of the PC Convertible display may make printing graphics screens on the printer a problem. You may want printed graphics to look the way they do on the Convertible display or as they would appear on a normal display. The GRAPHICS 3.2 resident graphics screen print program lets you make this decision yourself.
The disappointing aspects of PC-DOS 3.2 are its omissions. Although Microsoft has stated that future versions of MS-DOS will support the Lotus/lntel/Microsoft Expanded Memory Specification, that support is not included with PC-DOS 3.2. ANSI.SYS 3.2 still does not support the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) in 43-line mode or for video pages other than page 0. No changes at all have been made to ANSI.SYS.
Although documentation for BASICA 3.2 did not reach the editorial offices of PC Magazine, some creative DEBUGing and experimentation reveal five new BASICA commands. Three of these commands are EXTERR, LOCK, and UNLOCK, corresponding to the extended error-handling and file-locking and unlocking functions of DOS 3.x. Another new BASICA command is PCOPY, which lets you copy one video page to another.
BASICA 3.2 also includes some support for the EGA, but this support is so minimal that it is likely to infuriate BASIC users. The PALETTE command lets you manipulate the EGA palette registers so that you can map default colors to other colors. This is particularly useful in medium-resolution mode because it means you're no longer stuck with the same two sets of three colors.
The PALETTE command is the extent of EGA support in BASICA 3.2. In fact, the SCREEN and PCOPY commands do not even recognize the additonal video pages in the EGA's 80-column text mode. Support of the EGA graphics modes is nowhere to be seen.
PC-DOS 3.2 gives the PC user a couple of extra tools that would certainly be worth a $30 update charge. Unfortunately, there is no update policy for DOS, so you'll be shelling out the full $95 for it. That's obviously too much money. But for those who spend many hours at their PCs, keeping up with the latest DOS version comes with the territory.