Are Nike-DOS and Kiev-DOS related?

Paladin (675)

14-10-2020, 13:53

So I have Nike-DOS 3.42/1.21 (1988/1989) and Kiev-DOS 4.01/2.07 (1990). When viewing them in code they don't look anything alike. Nike-DOS has a lot of extra internal commands, while Kiev-DOS even has viewer commands than standard MSX-DOS. And yet, they share some similarities.

First of all they both have a SET command. SET A will switch to 80 columns mode, SET B will switch to 40 columns mode. Other SET commands seem to have no effect. But why? Nike-DOS also has the regular MODE command, while Kiev-DOS hasn't.

Second, if you enter a non-existing command, let's say MRC they respond similarly. Nike-DOS will respond '? MRC', Kiev-DOS will respond 'MRC?'. Both instead of the regular 'Bad command or file name' error from MSX-DOS.

And of course they probably share a Ukrainian origin. On Helger Lipmaa's page he tells Ted Chary was called Alex Garmash in real life and he lived in Kharkov, Ukraine. I don't have any backstory for Kiev-DOS, except of course Kiev is located in Ukraine as well.

Who knows the relation (if any) between these MSX-DOS clones? Who knows about other versions of these? According to the forum, there were multiple versions of Nike-DOS. Is Kiev-DOS one of them?

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Par Pencioner

Scribe (1566)

14-10-2020, 17:03

Too bad i was a boy and i didn't know such details (more because i wasn't looking for such infos) back in 1990-s (i studied in Kiev school which has a class of Yamahas), but i remember we had at least 3 different DOS versions which were different in some details. But i can't remember any more exact facts. I just had a favourite one of those, but do not remember names or versions...

Par hamlet

Scribe (4106)

14-10-2020, 19:04

Can't answer your question but nice read in the link you mentioned. :) Thanks!

Par Briqunullus

Paladin (675)

26-10-2020, 13:15

I'm in touch with @max_iwamoto, who was a member of the group that developed Nike-DOS. So hopefully, we will find out soon. In the meantime, I have found two more similarities between Nike-DOS and Kiev-DOS.

They both have a Ramdisk as drive C. The one in Nike-DOS is 64K, the one in Kiev-DOS is 176K. The latter probably uses VRAM for that.
Both require memory to be in slot 3-2 or the computer will crash.

My guess is that Kiev-DOS is just Nike-DOS with its credits changed. And I think we are looking at a newer MSXDOS.SYS version (hence the larger Ramdisk) and an earlier COMMAND.COM version (with fewer commands). But I'll let the experts decide.

Par Pencioner

Scribe (1566)

26-10-2020, 13:54

I have a guess why the memory has to be in slot 3-2 - just because Yamaha YIS503III and YIS805 have a ram in that slot and the guys was never thought about compatibility with other MSX computer or about following the MSX standard (just because i remember that we had small to none info about other MSX computers and the standard itself)

Par Briqunullus

Paladin (675)

26-10-2020, 14:17

Yeah I know. Luckily my Philips has the same slot configuration.

Par Briqunullus

Paladin (675)

16-12-2020, 19:18

I have received mail from NSG, one of the original developers of Nike-DOS. Though he has never heard of Kiev-DOS and would give it the benefit of the doubt ("maybe they did the same discoveries as we did"), the details he has provided actually strengthen my belief that Kiev-DOS is just a rebranded version of Nike-DOS.

In my previous post I had thought Kiev-DOS's Ramdisk was more advanced than Nike-DOS's. But it turns out to be the other way around. Nike-DOS has a built in DISK command to reconfigure Ramdisk size. By default it utilizes regular RAM only, but it can make use of VRAM as well. NSG recalls "typing DISK 4 7 almost automatically after each reboot".

So it seems Kiev-DOS is an older version of Nike-DOS. The Ramdisk was initially fixed-size and in later versions could be reconfigured.

Par Briqunullus

Paladin (675)

16-12-2020, 19:32

Also, NSG explained that the SET A and SET B had been introduced to make use of 80 column mode on the Yamaha YIS503IIR. This is a MSX1 machine with a V9938 VDP and 16K of VRAM. Regular MSX-DOS would not support 80 column mode on MSX1.

I have tested this on openMSX and indeed this seems to work. Though only on Kiev-DOS and not on the Nike-DOS version that I have.

Par gdx

Enlighted (6221)

17-12-2020, 09:11

MiSiX-DOS, Kiev-DOS and Nike-DOS have similarities. The developers probably drew inspiration from each other but I don't think that one version is based on another.

Par ~mk~

Champion (330)

15-03-2021, 22:34

Hi, I didn't know about Nike-DOS / Kiev-DOS until I read about it here. Thanks for sharing this @Briqunullus.
Recently I tried Nike-DOS and I am impressed by the ramdisk feature.
The requirement regarding ram slot configuration sucks, though.
I can't use it on my real MSX.

Also wanted to mention I was sent the source code for Misix 3.11.
If anyone is interested I can upload somewhere.
Misix requires Beer IDE interface and has a few problems regarding compatibility with MSX-DOS / jumping to Basic and back to Misix, as explained in the wiki, but AFAIK it is the only MSX-DOS clone that has decent support for FAT12 directories.

Par garalex

Supporter (6)

03-11-2022, 09:55

hi there!
googled my name and found this post.
yes Alex Garmash (me) aka Ted Chary, I contributed to nike-dos in 199x’s.
project was started in Kharkiv State Pedagogical Univerisity by one of the employee - Alexander Demenshin. per my understanding he got decompiled standard msx dos 1.0, adding few commands such as SET A, but also optimized some floppy disk operations, mostly removing unnecessary delays, so those started to work much faster.
my contribution was around further improving source and build process, and adding support of virtual memory drive.
command DISK was added by NSG (Andrew Nikiting) and few other guys when they picked up this project from me.
We all worked in same computer laboratory during many years. And I also have no idea about how Kiev DOS appears, and probably followed similar way branching from original msx dos. yes, at time during lack of good documentation and internet we had no idea of different memory slot configurations (just a little) but had access only to yamaha msx 1 and 2.