As part of a collaboration with the Computer History Museum Microsoft has made the_source code for early versions of MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to the public. _Specifically MS DOS 1.1 and 2.0 and Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1a created in the 1980s. Distinguished Microsoft engineer Roy Levin provided a bit of back-story on why MS-DOS was created: In 1980, IBM approached Microsoft to work on a project code-named “Chess.” What followed was a significant milestone in the history of the personal computer. Microsoft, at the time, provided the BASIC language interpreter for IBM. However, they had other plans and asked Microsoft to create an operating system. Without their own on hand, Microsoft licensed an operating system from Seattle Computer Products which would become the foundation for PC-DOS and MS-DOS. Microsoft had under 100 employees and a Microsoft product (MS-DOS) had less than 300KB (yes,_kilobytes) of source code. Following closely on the heels of MS DOS, Microsoft released the first DOS-based version of Microsoft Word in 1983, which was...

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