Keeping DOS alive and kicking with open source

[geronl]

I recall using Dosshell with a mouse pointer at one point, but I don't remember the circumstances

[roamer_1]

I recall using Dosshell with a mouse pointer at one point, but I don't remember the circumstances

Back in the day I used a little File Manager/ Editor called Pathminder... Greatest thing I've ever had for DOS, to include the Navigator clones... A bit later, maybe around 2000, someone rewrote Pathminder to handle long file names... But shortly thereafter, probably with XP SP-2, it quit working in NT altogether. Bummed me out.

That was fired with p.bat - I still have a p.cmd in my toybox due to that tool... I will no doubt always associate 'p' with file manager/editor... Though now it fires Bradley Miller's A43...

[Ghost Bear]

MS-DOS 5.0... still, I think, the best OS on first release that Microsoft ever put out.  So many cool new features, and they all worked. 

The command line (whether DOS or Linux) is still the best way to diagnose what the heck is wrong when your network isn't working, IMHO.

[Ghost Bear]

Boy, y'all seem to be youngsters!  The first DOS I used was IBM-DOS 2.0; the first Windows I saw (no one sane actually tried to use it) was Windows 286.  As for Linux, the GUI isn't so much an afterthought as an option.  We routinely didn't bother installing it on networking equipment or servers, as all it did was suck up CPU cycles that could be better-used for the devices' primary purposes.  GUIs are fine for end-user-facing systems, as they tend to be easier to use for common-place uses.  But as was said previously, you don't get the complete power of the system unless you have the ability to drop into a terminal session and run the commands from the command line with all their options.  Even if a GUI frontend to the commands gives you access to all the flags, it will almost never give the the scripting ability the CLI will, to send the output of one command directly to the input of another among other things.

I think they had PC-DOS 1.x on the PCs in the University computer lab, but I didn't use them much... just as terminals to get to the mainframe, or to compile Pascal programs for one CS class. On my first job out of college, my employer had a few PCs running MS-DOS 2.x (I forget the minor version number, 2.2 or 2.3...) and one AT&T PC running AT&T's version of MS-DOS (2.1 I think). Shortly after I started there they handed me some 5 1/4" floppy disks that had Windows 1.01 on them. They wanted me to install it on a system, so that they could try out Aldus PageMaker 1.0 to see if they could do the layout for their mail-order catalog that way.

Good times, good times.

[r9etb]

MS-DOS 5.0... still, I think, the best OS on first release that Microsoft ever put out.  So many cool new features, and they all worked. 

The command line (whether DOS or Linux) is still the best way to diagnose what the heck is wrong when your network isn't working, IMHO.

And scripting via the venerable batch file still can't be beat for repetitive tasks.  (Yeah, unix shells are more powerful, but we're talking PCs here...)

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

And scripting via the venerable batch file still can't be beat for repetitive tasks.  (Yeah, unix shells are more powerful, but we're talking PCs here...)

Haha batch files. Yer about 15 years out of date for PC's. Plenty of ways to avoid batch files using different methods in scripting.

[r9etb]

Haha batch files. Yer about 15 years out of date for PC's. Plenty of ways to avoid batch files using different methods in scripting.

Yeah -- but batch files work like a charm, and I can use other DOS commands to help build 'em -- for free.