The operating system had additional commands and features that were not available in TRSDOS, the native operating system for TRS-80 computers. NewDos/80 allowed TRS-80 computers to take advantage of advances in floppy disk storage that went beyond the initial 87.5KB 35-track, single-density, single-sided format.[1] The system also corrected issues that early versions of TRSDOS had with arbitrarily losing data due to errors in how it communicated with the contemporary TRS-80 disk drives' 1771 disk controller.
NewDos/80 had many options for specifying specific low-level disk configurations. Settings such as diskette formats, disk drive types, track geometry and controllers could be configured using the PDRIVE command.[1] In version 2.1, Apparat added support for hard disk drives via an external bus adapter.
Additionally, NewDOS/80 incorporated a software fix for the infamous hardware "keybounce" problem associated with the TRS-80 Model I. Without such a fix, keyboard keys would often repeat multiple times when struck. This fix was not built into TRS-DOS that came with the computer, so users were forced to load a separate debounce utility every time they booted.
NewDos/80 was written by Cliff Ide and Jason Matthews. Ide was the primary author of NewDos in all of its incarnations, Matthews wrote "patches" for various applications such as Scripsit and VisiCalc. Ide later retired and Matthews went on to other projects in the software business.
While criticizing NEWDOS's "nearly incomprehensible documentation", Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1980 that it was "a much better operating system" than the "needlessly complex" TRSDOS and stated that "Tandy ought to be marketing NEWDOS+ themselves".[3]
