IBM PC DOS 2000
Hey guys, i'm the one that's been working on a massive software archive for the last several years in a clean environment, where (for magnetic media), we document and image floppy-based titles in a near-sterile evironment. For optical media, obiously our jobs are easier in that we can accept used media so long as it's authentic and factory-pressed. In any event, I would like to pick y'alls brains on this and solicit your professional opinions. Like a lot of you, I am also a personal collector with a large collection of sealed software titles, and over the years I have had to build-up a lot of knowledge and skill in determining whether software media is authentic, and still in it's original packaging; or has been re-sealed or tampered-with. A lot of manufacturers had small details in the way they packed, as well as the materials that they used which aid in this process: IBM was no exception.
One of those hard-to-find titles always seems to be IBM's PC DOS 2000 in it's physical RETAIL and OEM forms (not the SGTK downloads or the 7.1 releases bundled with Symantec products). After several years, we managed to grab what appears to be the U.S. English OEM SKU package. As with any title where I am not already familiar with how the materials should look, and given that it's an open-box item, I am starting to analyze this to determine whether it's a legitimately-produced copy from IBM. I have only ever seen the retail CD discs and the shrink-wrapped OEM package without a box (disc not in view). Which (to the best of my knowledge) were all professionally-pressed by an IBM contractor, and not on CD-R media.
However, if you look at the pics of the kit I just got in, the SKU # 04L5567 on the plain white box appears to be the U.S. OEM CD-ROM version, but the disc (which was still sealed in an envelope) is clearly burned onto a CD-R. The printing on the disc is not a peel and stick label though, it appears to have been professionally printed onto the disc. Although I wasn't able to capture it with my camera, on the spine of the CD-R is printed the following: "3047380736880_JVC" I also took note that the factory label on the box (which also says 22217 Printed in Ireland) shows a production date of December 30, 2014 (another potential red flag to me). Unless I am terribly mistaken, I thought that all sales channels had completely ceased offering PC DOS to both the public and corporate many years prior to 2014. Although I regularly inspect media and have dealt with lots of re-sealed software and fake media, this one really has me leaning towards believing that IBM did continue to offer limited runs of PC DOS through some back-channel, and had a contractor overseas producing limited runs of CD media on-demand. I just can't imagine that anyone would have gone to such a length to produce copies of PC DOS 2000 on CD as late as 2014. Another alternate thought I had was that the original pressed disc was removed and replaced with a copy, but there again, this does not appear to be a CD-R that was burned at home by a consumer.
I just wish that I could find someone else on the planet with the same kit. I ripped an iso and uploaded to virustotal for the purpose of seeing if the same had been run through their systems previously, but no dice! And VT produced a matching MD5 hash to mine. Moving on...the filesystem on the disc contains the exact same structure and time/dates as the retail disc and floppies....4/30/1998 all over the place! The manuals and materials included appear to be authentic as best I can tell. Your professional opinion? For now, we're not exposing it to the archive until i'm fully-convinced that it's a legitimate IBM kit. I'm just on the fence with this one, and hoping that some of you either have more knowledge to share, and/or have the U.S. OEM discs to verify what they look like.
One of those hard-to-find titles always seems to be IBM's PC DOS 2000 in it's physical RETAIL and OEM forms (not the SGTK downloads or the 7.1 releases bundled with Symantec products). After several years, we managed to grab what appears to be the U.S. English OEM SKU package. As with any title where I am not already familiar with how the materials should look, and given that it's an open-box item, I am starting to analyze this to determine whether it's a legitimately-produced copy from IBM. I have only ever seen the retail CD discs and the shrink-wrapped OEM package without a box (disc not in view). Which (to the best of my knowledge) were all professionally-pressed by an IBM contractor, and not on CD-R media.
However, if you look at the pics of the kit I just got in, the SKU # 04L5567 on the plain white box appears to be the U.S. OEM CD-ROM version, but the disc (which was still sealed in an envelope) is clearly burned onto a CD-R. The printing on the disc is not a peel and stick label though, it appears to have been professionally printed onto the disc. Although I wasn't able to capture it with my camera, on the spine of the CD-R is printed the following: "3047380736880_JVC" I also took note that the factory label on the box (which also says 22217 Printed in Ireland) shows a production date of December 30, 2014 (another potential red flag to me). Unless I am terribly mistaken, I thought that all sales channels had completely ceased offering PC DOS to both the public and corporate many years prior to 2014. Although I regularly inspect media and have dealt with lots of re-sealed software and fake media, this one really has me leaning towards believing that IBM did continue to offer limited runs of PC DOS through some back-channel, and had a contractor overseas producing limited runs of CD media on-demand. I just can't imagine that anyone would have gone to such a length to produce copies of PC DOS 2000 on CD as late as 2014. Another alternate thought I had was that the original pressed disc was removed and replaced with a copy, but there again, this does not appear to be a CD-R that was burned at home by a consumer.
I just wish that I could find someone else on the planet with the same kit. I ripped an iso and uploaded to virustotal for the purpose of seeing if the same had been run through their systems previously, but no dice! And VT produced a matching MD5 hash to mine. Moving on...the filesystem on the disc contains the exact same structure and time/dates as the retail disc and floppies....4/30/1998 all over the place! The manuals and materials included appear to be authentic as best I can tell. Your professional opinion? For now, we're not exposing it to the archive until i'm fully-convinced that it's a legitimate IBM kit. I'm just on the fence with this one, and hoping that some of you either have more knowledge to share, and/or have the U.S. OEM discs to verify what they look like.