QDOS

operating system The Sinclair QL's proprietary operatingsystem. The origin of the name is uncertain (a weak pun on

kudos, perhaps, as Unix was on Multics). There was

another OS around from the birth of personal computers called

Q.D.O.S. - Quick And Dirty Operating System. QDOS might also

stand for QL Data/Disk/Drive/Device Operating System.

QDOS did the usual OS sorts of things, as well as

multitasking. It was unusual in several ways. It treated all

devices (serial ports, mouse ports, screen, microdrive,

disk drive, keyboard, etc.) uniformly, so you could print a

text file direct to disk or save a binary to the screen for

example.

Also logical channels could be assigned to particular physical

devices. Output directed to a channel would go to the

appropriate in/output. This also meant you could have many

windows on screen (the QL booted up from internal ROMs with 3

windows - command line, output and program listing) all

independent to some extent. Channels could be redirected

without affecting the way the process sent or received the

data.

(1996-07-22)