Bit of a historical question: MS-DOS

[Yousuf Khan]

I've been trying to remember this, and I honestly can't remember it
anymore. In MS-DOS, where were the standard external commands located?
The only thing I remember about MS-DOS was that the command.com was
located in the root directory (along with autoexec.bat, config.sys, and
the hidden files msdos.sys & io.sys). Slightly different names for the
PC-DOS version, such as pcdos.sys & ibmio.sys, but otherwise identical.
The standard external commands were those like chkdsk or xcopy, which
weren't built into the command.com. Was there an MSDOS folder or
something which contained these commands?

Yousuf Khan

 

[David H. Lipman]

I've been trying to remember this, and I honestly can't remember it anymore. In MS-DOS,
where were the standard external commands located? The only thing I remember about
MS-DOS was that the command.com was located in the root directory (along with
autoexec.bat, config.sys, and the hidden files msdos.sys & io.sys). Slightly different
names for the PC-DOS version, such as pcdos.sys & ibmio.sys, but otherwise identical.
The standard external commands were those like chkdsk or xcopy, which weren't built into
the command.com. Was there an MSDOS folder or something which contained these commands?

Yousuf Khan

It depended upon the DOS falvour; PC/MS/DR.

However it was always located in the PATH (%PATH%).

 

[John Williamson]

It depended upon the DOS falvour; PC/MS/DR.

However it was always located in the PATH (%PATH%).

I normally kept mine in the C:\DOS directory, and made sure both it and
C:\$PROGDIR for all the programs were in the path. As long as all the
program locations were in the path, it didn't really matter where they were.

On a Toshiba laptop I had with DOS 3.3 in ROM when first booted from
new, it showed all the DOS commands in C:\, with everything else on D:\,
which was the Hard Drive, and the path was set to include D:\ by
default. This worked fine until you found a program which was hard coded
only to run from the C: drive, then I had to copy the contents of the
ROM onto the HD, and disable the ROM in the BIOS, losing about half a
megabyte of the 10 megabyte HD. I've still got the Toshiba DOS 6.xx
extensions on floppy somewhere, along with install floppies for all
MS-DOS versions except DOS 4.

 

[glee]

I've been trying to remember this, and I honestly can't remember it
anymore. In MS-DOS, where were the standard external commands located?
The only thing I remember about MS-DOS was that the command.com was
located in the root directory (along with autoexec.bat, config.sys,
and the hidden files msdos.sys & io.sys). Slightly different names for
the PC-DOS version, such as pcdos.sys & ibmio.sys, but otherwise
identical. The standard external commands were those like chkdsk or
xcopy, which weren't built into the command.com. Was there an MSDOS
folder or something which contained these commands?

Yousuf Khan

As I recall, the default location for MS-DOS (at least v. 5 and 6.x) was
at C:\DOS

 

[Ken Blake]

As I recall, the default location for MS-DOS (at least v. 5 and 6.x) was
at C:\DOS

That's what I remember too, but at my age, I don't trust my memory <g>

 

[glee]

That's what I remember too, but at my age, I don't trust my memory <g>

yes, well with MS-DOS, you need less memory anyway... lol

 

[Ken Blake]

yes, well with MS-DOS, you need less memory anyway... lol

LOL from me too. I'm in the minority, but I love puns.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

It depended upon the DOS falvour; PC/MS/DR.

However it was always located in the PATH (%PATH%).

Yeah, I know it was always available in the path, but was there a
default directory created to hold these commands? For some reason I'm
thinking that there may have been a C:\SYS or SYSTEM folder or
something? Or were they all placed into C:\ the root directory?

Yousuf Khan

 

[VanguardLH]

I've been trying to remember this, and I honestly can't remember it
anymore. In MS-DOS, where were the standard external commands located?
The only thing I remember about MS-DOS was that the command.com was
located in the root directory (along with autoexec.bat, config.sys, and
the hidden files msdos.sys & io.sys). Slightly different names for the
PC-DOS version, such as pcdos.sys & ibmio.sys, but otherwise identical.
The standard external commands were those like chkdsk or xcopy, which
weren't built into the command.com. Was there an MSDOS folder or
something which contained these commands?

Yousuf Khan

See replies to the disconnected MULTI-posted copy of your same message
over in the alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt newsgroup.

What does hardware, especially chips, have to do with your question?
Don't shotgun to unrelated newsgroups which results in posting off-topic
within them. With all those cross-posted newsgroups, you didn't even
bother to include the *.msdos newsgroups in your query.

 

[VanguardLH]

See replies to the disconnected MULTI-posted copy of your same message
over in the alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt newsgroup.

What does hardware, especially chips, have to do with your question?
Don't shotgun to unrelated newsgroups which results in posting off-topic
within them. With all those cross-posted newsgroups, you didn't even
bother to include the *.msdos newsgroups in your query.

Oops, I see the problem. You did cross-post to the
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt newsgroup. However, my reply there only
went to that newsgroup. Why? Because TomT changed the Newsgroups list
without issuing notice about his change. I didn't notice he changed the
Newsgroups list. So never mind about the comment about multi-posting
(except regarding the unrelated newsgroups and lack of including the
msdos newsgroups).

See my reply to TomT but only in the alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
newsgroup since that is the only newsgroup that TomT retained in his
Newsgroups list in his reply.

To TomT:
Whenever you change the Newsgroups list, add a comment about making that
change. It's considered netiquette to inform of changing this header.
Lack of notification is typical of troll-like behavior or could be a
mistake in use of your newsreader. If you change the Newsgroups list,
add a note saying which newsgroups you chose to omit in your reply at
the top of your reply post.

 

[GreyCloud]

I've been trying to remember this, and I honestly can't remember it
anymore. In MS-DOS, where were the standard external commands located?
The only thing I remember about MS-DOS was that the command.com was
located in the root directory (along with autoexec.bat, config.sys, and
the hidden files msdos.sys & io.sys). Slightly different names for the
PC-DOS version, such as pcdos.sys & ibmio.sys, but otherwise identical.
The standard external commands were those like chkdsk or xcopy, which
weren't built into the command.com. Was there an MSDOS folder or
something which contained these commands?

Yousuf Khan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO.SYS

 

[John Williamson]

Yeah, I know it was always available in the path, but was there a
default directory created to hold these commands? For some reason I'm
thinking that there may have been a C:\SYS or SYSTEM folder or
something? Or were they all placed into C:\ the root directory?

IME, the closest to a default was C:\DOS. Hold on a second, I'll check.

<Sounds of distant rummaging.> <Sounds of cursing as many crates are
lifted and moved.> <Finds and starts DOS 5 based Toshiba T3200mains
powered "portable".> <Lights throughout the area go dim as the EGA
orange plasma screen lights up.>

Blimey, it still works. Now *there's* a blast from the past. Tasword...

Yup. C:\DOS on the default DOS 5.0 installation, with Windows 3.0 in
C:\WINDOWS, and the extra Toshiba goodies in C:\TOSHIBA.

 

[philo]

LOL from me too. I'm in the minority, but I love puns.

I have a few vintage machines here but they are up in the attic.
I thought the default directory for MSDOS was simply C:\msdos

 

[DevilsPGD]

In the last episode of <[email protected]>,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO.SYS

What does that have to do with the question being asked?

 

[David H. Lipman]

Yeah, I know it was always available in the path, but was there a default directory
created to hold these commands? For some reason I'm thinking that there may have been a
C:\SYS or SYSTEM folder or something? Or were they all placed into C:\ the root
directory?

Yousuf Khan

They couldn't all be in the root as there was a limit of 64 files in the root.

 

[Stewart]

yes, well with MS-DOS, you need less memory anyway... lol

Why would anyone ever need more thn 640k?

 

[glee]

Yeah, I know it was always available in the path, but was there a
default directory created to hold these commands? For some reason I'm
thinking that there may have been a C:\SYS or SYSTEM folder or
something? Or were they all placed into C:\ the root directory?

Yousuf Khan

As I already posted in my reply about 14 hours ago, it was C:\DOS for
the Microsoft versions of DOS.

 

[Ant]

yes, well with MS-DOS, you need less memory anyway... lol

But is that free conventional memory? I guess it was too big to fit to
run it. [grin] I am pretty sure C:\DOS was it. I hated v4! Stupid
conventional memory!
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Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

As I already posted in my reply about 14 hours ago, it was C:\DOS for
the Microsoft versions of DOS.

Yeah, I know you posted that, but I didn't get a chance to respond to it
since it was getting late for me. However, I also wanted some additional
verification about it. Funny, the C:\DOS directory seems so logically
simple, but I can't remember that at all. Then I would assume, the IBM
version had a C:\PCDOS directory?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

See replies to the disconnected MULTI-posted copy of your same message
over in the alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt newsgroup.

What does hardware, especially chips, have to do with your question?

That group used to be quite generalized at one time.

Don't shotgun to unrelated newsgroups which results in posting off-topic
within them. With all those cross-posted newsgroups, you didn't even
bother to include the *.msdos newsgroups in your query.

Well, that's simple, I didn't even know that there were still msdos
newsgroups existed.

Yousuf Khan