Bit of a historical question: MS-DOS

V

VanguardLH

David said:
Nah, we haven't touched QEMM, Extended vs. Expanded RAM ;-)
Yeah, I remember QEMM. I remember back then of paying something like
$2500 for a full-sized memory board fully populated with all of 4 MB of
RAM. All the chips were socketed so you bought tubes of memory chips
and had to insert them yourself. Cost was more than my entire computer.

And to think that edlin.com is still with us from all the way back then.
 
V

VanguardLH

GreyCloud said:
In my experiences with MS-DOS, I've never seen 4dos.exe. The only thing
that I saw was command.com... msdos.sys & io.sys.
The bios usually has to do with low-level system calls. I used to have
the IBM reference books on those system calls, but never saw things like
CD, COPY, REN, etc. in their book.
I suppose I could fire up the old IBM I do have and try this myself.
4DOS
Caldera OpenDOS
aka Novell DOS (after Novell acquired Digital Research)
aka DR-DOS (DR = Digital Research)
FreeDOS
aka PD-DOS

Those are the ones that I remember. There were a slew of "hobbyist" DOS
shell alternatives but those projects were too tiny to have any impact
regarding usage of alternative or replacement command interpreters.
Whether or not you even know the DOS shell can be replaced really
depends on how long you have been using PCs. Many were introduced as
enhanced alternatives to MS/PC-DOS (i.e., richer and more powerful
commands and features) or as a consequence of Microsoft's announcement
that it would no longer sell MS-DOS (c.1994?).

Anyone that bothered to learn MS-DOS would find out how to edit the
config.sys file and what all of its settings meant. That meant you
would have learned about the 'shell' and what it was for. However, the
vast majority of users never bothered to crack open the config files or
even look at the options in their apps. They weren't interested in
knowing the OS and often understood or used just a fraction of the apps
they installed. Using computers wasn't fun for them. It was a chore.
It's similar to the difference in users of cars: some like to work on
their own cars to fix or enhance them while others just want to use them
and pay someone else to repair them.
 
W

Wolf K

Wish I'd found that site when I was doing my Google search before asking
here. It's hard to get the exact right search terms.

Yousuf Khan

I've found if you use a longer search phrase, usually it's more likely
you'll find what you want. Eg, DOS Commands location vs DOS Commands.
Rearranging the word order is always worth a try, too.

HTH,
Wolf K.
 
A

Ant

Remember DOS Shell? ;)
--
"What is that?" "Some kind of insect?" "It's an ant." "Girl, you needed
an exterminator. She had ants on her face." "Well, these aren't your
garden-variety dumpster ants." "And they aren't ... to decomp." "Why are
they in her stomach?" "La hormiga culona--leaf cutter ants. It's a
Colombian dish." "Are you saying that people eat them?" "Fried." "Okay,
so we are looking for a club that serves fried ants." --CSI: Miami
(Wannabe episode; #218)
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.
 
D

DK

Almost as fondly as I remember Norton Commander.

Which reminds me...

Midnight Commander (The first Linux program I install once the system's
running)
I am with you, brother.
has been ported to Windows and works on Windows Vista business
edition and Windows 7 Home Premium.

http://adeefreeware.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/midnight-commander-for-windows.html
Too little too late. After pathetic Symantec couldn't port NC to
Windows properly, I've switched to Windows/Total Commander
and have been a very happy camper ever since. Stopped upgrading
at v.6 though. TC has no real competition at this point.

DK
 
A

Ant

Almost as fondly as I remember Norton Commander.
Which reminds me...

Midnight Commander (The first Linux program I install once the system's
running) has been ported to Windows and works on Windows Vista business
edition and Windows 7 Home Premium.

http://adeefreeware.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/midnight-commander-for-windows.html
I still use "mc" in Linux. :)
--
"When you turn on a light in a room, what happens?" Shaw said. "The
roaches scatter, but the ants keep marching. You can step on them, throw
water on them, but they keep on marching. I want ants for my defense."
--Willy Shaw
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

I've found if you use a longer search phrase, usually it's more likely
you'll find what you want. Eg, DOS Commands location vs DOS Commands.
Rearranging the word order is always worth a try, too.
I think I actually used that search term, "dos commands location" or
maybe even "external dos commands location".

Yousuf Khan
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Remember DOS Shell? ;)
Yes, but I never used it, by that point I was already using DOS for
several years and I was already familiar with the command-line.

Yousuf Khan
 
G

Gene E. Bloch

It was a *wonderful* product (although I can hardly remember the
details of it, I remember liking it very much). But I do remember once
writing a batch file of about 4000 lines!
That is a big batch of code :)

I never used 4DOS, so I don't know nothin'.
 
A

Ant

Yes, but I never used it, by that point I was already using DOS for
several years and I was already familiar with the command-line.
Ah.
--
"We're all ants. I'm a glittery little ant." --Alanis Morissette
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.
 
A

Ant

Which is the name of the executable in Windows as well. ;-)
Did it work well. I rarely use the text file explorers these days.
--
"Yo mama is so poor, I saw her fighting an ant for food." --unknown
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.
 
S

Steve Hayes

J

John Williamson

Did it work well. I rarely use the text file explorers these days.
It's done everything it does under Linux so far for me. It's only a tiny
free download from the site I linked to, so not hard to find out for
yourself.
 
J

J. P. Gilliver (John)

In message <[email protected]>, David H. Lipman
They couldn't all be in the root as there was a limit of 64 files in the root.
(Yes, but were there 64 of them?)ISTR being told that the limit was 100, and am now wondering whether
your 64 was in hex. (which comes out as 100); however, others have
posted more comprehensive lists of limits for various media, and I
couldn't see 100 (or 64) in them.[/QUOTE]
 
J

J. P. Gilliver (John)

Yousuf Khan said:
But DoubleSpace was horrible. I lost a lot of data due to that one.

Yousuf Khan
Basically, it put all your files into one file, didn't it? So you could
lose it/them all at once if that file got corrupted. And yet, people
continue to use email (and possibly news) software that does that (for
emails), ...

Actually, is there _any_ email software (XP, 7, or even '9x) that stores
each email as a separate real file? (In real folders/directories?)[/QUOTE]
 
J

J. P. Gilliver (John)

Ken Blake said:
That's what I remember too, but at my age, I don't trust my memory <g>
Perhaps it needs replacing ... mine certainly does (-:[/QUOTE]
 
J

J. P. Gilliver (John)

John Williamson said:
Yousuf said:
From: "Yousuf Khan"<[email protected]>

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 []
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?
IME, the closest to a default was C:\DOS. Hold on a second, I'll check.
I'll second that.
<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.>
Loved the description!
Blimey, it still works. Now *there's* a blast from the past. Tasword...
Indeed - though I don't remember what it was: a word processor?
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.
[/QUOTE]
 

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