MS-DOS

Once the problem of utilizing the additional memory found in most 386/486 systems has been solved, the next question is how to extend the capabilities of MS-DOS to make use of the additional processing power that is available.

To get the best from a 386/486 system you have to move beyond MS-DOS. However, there are still very good reasons why users stay with MS-DOS, particularly in the case of less powerful machines such as 386SX systems or machines with only 1MByte of memory. To make use of the sophisticated software designed specially for the 386 you still need plenty of processing power, plenty of disk storage and RAM. In the case of a system that lacks any of these MS-DOS is a good basis for running a wide range of applications and you can take advantage of the memory management abilities of the 386.