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DOS is an abbreviation for Disk Operating System. Historically, not all operating systems ran off of floppy disks or hard drives, so ones that included this functionality often had "DOS" in their name. Examples include Apple DOS, Atari DOS, ProDOS, Commodore DOS, and TRS-DOS. Nowadays, most operating systems are run off of a disk, so the term DOS is no longer widespread.

DOS is also usually used to refer to MS-DOS and related systems. While by no means the first operating system to run off of a disk, it was the most popular one. Thus, the term "DOS" was hijacked to refer mostly to MS-DOS and compatible systems.

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9y ago

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