30 years – Domesdos, not Domestos
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 8:29 pm
Domesdos was the working title of the operation system for the Sinclair ZX83 which eventually became QDOS for the Sinclair QL.
In a CONFIDENTIONAL (at that time) document dated 26 October 1983 (hey, that’s today 30 years ago), Tony Tebby wrote: “The changes from Version 0.05 are mostly in the internal organisation. These reflect the change in emphasis from a small machine to a 128Kbyte minimum configuration, a high probability that a 512Kbyte expansion will be available at launch, a hard disk will be available soon after, and the machine is a flagship of a new line.”
Decades later, back in 2009, TT wrote in a series of articles called “25 years” in the QL Today magazine: “ln a fit of hubris over this "design for reliability" approach, the new operating system was called Domesdos {a home {domestic) DOS, even though it was designed for business use and it was a ROM operating system and not a disk operating system) after the slogan for a brand of bleach "Domestos" which "kills 99% of all known germs (bugs).”
Even 30 years later no single operating system has proved to be bug free. Time to dig out Domes*os...
Access the PDF of the 1983 Domesdos documentation:
http://sinclairql.net/downloads/1983-10 ... -OCRed.pdf
Enjoy history!
Cheers, Urs
In a CONFIDENTIONAL (at that time) document dated 26 October 1983 (hey, that’s today 30 years ago), Tony Tebby wrote: “The changes from Version 0.05 are mostly in the internal organisation. These reflect the change in emphasis from a small machine to a 128Kbyte minimum configuration, a high probability that a 512Kbyte expansion will be available at launch, a hard disk will be available soon after, and the machine is a flagship of a new line.”
Decades later, back in 2009, TT wrote in a series of articles called “25 years” in the QL Today magazine: “ln a fit of hubris over this "design for reliability" approach, the new operating system was called Domesdos {a home {domestic) DOS, even though it was designed for business use and it was a ROM operating system and not a disk operating system) after the slogan for a brand of bleach "Domestos" which "kills 99% of all known germs (bugs).”
Even 30 years later no single operating system has proved to be bug free. Time to dig out Domes*os...
Access the PDF of the 1983 Domesdos documentation:
http://sinclairql.net/downloads/1983-10 ... -OCRed.pdf
Enjoy history!
Cheers, Urs