[[MS-DOS]] (acronym for '''Microsoft Disk Operating System''') is an [[operating system]] for [[x86]]-based personal computers mostly developed by [[Microsoft]]. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as [[IBM PC DOS]], and some operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for [[disk operating system]]). MS-DOS was the main operating system for [[IBM PC compatible]] personal computers during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a [[graphical user interface]] (GUI), in various generations of the graphical [[Microsoft Windows]] operating system.{{fact|date=October 2021}}
IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as [[PC DOS]] 1.0 for use in its PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax, and capabilities.{{fact|date=October 2021}}
