What's the most recent MS-DOS that's compatible with the Compaq Portable 1?

[dag10]

I have a [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Portable]Compaq Portable I[/url] from 1982. Apparently, they originally shipped with MS-DOS 1.1.

Does anyone know what is the most recent version of MS-DOS that would still be compatible with the machine? It has no Hard Drives, only two 5.25" floppy drives.

[wlzshroom]

i'd just go with 1.1 just to be safe though you can also shove freedos on a floppy and check how it runs

[bohb]

You have to understand that back in those days, there was no standard for personal computers to follow, so it wasn't surprising that the IBM clone manufacturers in those days didn't adhere to any similar standard to another manufacturer.

So in order to have a common interface amongst all of the IBM PC clones, each machine had to have their own version of DOS written for them to accommodate the architectural differences between them. These custom DOS versions usually wouldn't run on other architectures, and generic versions of DOS generally wouldn't run on any of the proprietary architectures without severe problems.

You'd be [I]real[/I] lucky if you could get DOS 3.3 to run on it. There is also no real point in running a higher version of DOS, as the machine you have couldn't take advantage of the new features, like hard drive support or EMS/XMS memory. You'd basically be wasting RAM on the operating system that could be used for applications.

[agentgamma]

I love how small and compact the Compaq Portable is :v: